Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800, in a log cabin, on a farm in what is now Moravia, in the Finger Lakes region of New York. His parents were Phoebe Millard and Nathaniel Fillmore; he was the second of eight children and the oldest son. The Fillmores were of English descent; John Fillmore arrived in Ipswich, Massachusetts, during the colonial era.

Nathaniel Fillmore was the son of Nathaniel Fillmore Sr., a native of Franklin, Connecticut, who became one of the earliest settlers of Bennington, Vermont. Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard moved from Vermont in 1799 and sought better opportunities than were available on Nathaniel's stony farm, but the title to their Cayuga County land proved defective, and the Fillmore family moved to nearby Sempronius, where they leased land as tenant farmers, and Nathaniel occasionally taught school. The historian Tyler Anbinder described Fillmore's childhood as "one of hard work, frequent privation, and virtually no formal schooling."

Over time Nathaniel became more successful in Sempronius, but during Millard's formative years, the family endured severe poverty. Nathaniel became sufficiently regarded that he was chosen to serve in local offices, including justice of the peace. Hoping that his oldest son would learn a trade, he convinced Millard, who was 14, not to enlist for the War of 1812 and apprenticed him to clothmaker Benjamin Hungerford in Sparta. Fillmore was relegated to menial labor, and unhappy at not learning any skills, he left Hungerford's employ.

His father placed him in the same trade at a mill in New Hope. Seeking to better himself, Millard bought a share in a circulating library and read all the books that he could. In 1819 he took advantage of idle time at the mill to enroll at a new academy in the town, where he met and fell in love with a classmate, Abigail Powers.

Later in 1819 Nathaniel moved the family to Montville, a hamlet of Moravia. Appreciating his son's talents, Nathaniel followed his wife's advice and persuaded Judge Walter Wood, the Fillmores' landlord and the wealthiest person in the area, to allow Millard to be his law clerk for a trial period. Wood agreed to employ young Fillmore and to supervise him as he read law. Fillmore earned money teaching school for three months and bought out his mill apprenticeship. He left Wood after eighteen months; the judge had paid him almost nothing, and they quarreled after Fillmore had, unaided, earned a small sum by advising a farmer in a minor lawsuit. Refusing to pledge not to do so again, Fillmore gave up his clerkship. Nathaniel again moved the family, and Millard accompanied it west to East Aurora, near Buffalo, where Nathaniel purchased a farm that became prosperous.

On January 7, 1821, Fillmore turned 21, reaching adulthood. He taught school in East Aurora, New York, and accepted a few cases in justice of the peace courts, which did not require the practitioner to be a licensed attorney. He moved to Buffalo the following year and continued his study of law, first while he taught school and then in the law office of Asa Rice and Joseph Clary. Meanwhile, he became engaged to Abigail Powers. In 1823 he was admitted to the bar, declined offers from Buffalo law firms, and returned to East Aurora to establish a practice as the town's only resident lawyer. Later in life, Fillmore said he had initially lacked the self-confidence to practice in the larger city of Buffalo. His biographer, Paul Finkelman, suggested that after being under others' thumbs all his life, Fillmore enjoyed the independence of his East Aurora practice. Millard and Abigail wed on February 5, 1826. He was 26 years old, and she was 27. They had two children, Millard Powers Fillmore and Mary Abigail Fillmore.

Remarriage, later life, and death

Fillmore considered his political career to have ended with his defeat in 1856. He again felt inhibited from returning to the practice of law. His financial worries ended, though, on February 10, 1858, when he married Caroline McIntosh, a well-to-do widow. Their combined wealth allowed them to purchase a large house on Niagara Square in Buffalo, where they lived for the remainder of his life. There, the Fillmores devoted themselves to entertaining and philanthropy. According to the historian Smith, "They generously supported almost every conceivable cause." Among these were the Buffalo General Hospital, which he helped found.

In the 1860 presidential election Fillmore voted for Senator Douglas, one of the Democratic nominees. After the vote, in which the Republican nominee, former Illinois Representative Abraham Lincoln, was elected, many sought out Fillmore's views, but he refused to take part in the secession crisis that followed, feeling that he lacked influence. He decried Buchanan's inaction as states left the Union and wrote that although the federal government could not coerce a state, those advocating secession should be regarded as traitors. When Lincoln came to Buffalo en route to his inauguration, Fillmore led the committee selected to receive him, hosted him at his mansion, and took him to church. Once the Civil War began, Fillmore supported Lincoln's efforts to preserve the Union. He commanded the Union Continentals, a corps of home guards of men over 45 from upstate New York. The Continentals trained to defend the Buffalo area in the event of a Confederate attack from Canada. They performed military drills and ceremonial functions at parades, funerals, and other events. The Union Continentals guarded Lincoln's funeral train in Buffalo. They continued operations after the war, and Fillmore remained active with them almost until his death.

Despite Fillmore's zeal in the war effort, he gave a speech in early 1864 calling for magnanimity toward the South after the war and counted its heavy cost in finances and in blood. The Lincoln administration saw the speech as an attack on it that could not be tolerated in an election year. Fillmore was criticized in many newspapers and called a Copperhead and even a traitor. That led to lasting ill-feeling against Fillmore in many circles.

In the 1864 presidential election, Fillmore supported the Democratic nominee, George B. McClellan, since he believed that the Democratic Party's plan for immediate cessation of fighting and allowing the seceded states to return with slavery intact was the best chance to restore the Union. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, black ink was thrown on Fillmore's house because it was not draped in mourning like others. Fillmore was apparently out of town at the time and put black drapes in the windows once he returned. He retained his position as Buffalo's leading citizen and was among those selected to escort the body when Lincoln's funeral train passed through Buffalo, but many remained angry at him for his wartime positions. Fillmore supported President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies since he felt that the nation needed to be reconciled as quickly as possible. He devoted most of his time to civic activities. He aided Buffalo in becoming the third American city to have a permanent art gallery, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.

Fillmore stayed in good health almost to the end of his life. He had a stroke in February 1874, and died on March 8, at age 74, after a second stroke. Two days later, he was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo after a funeral procession including hundreds.

Other members of the Fillmore family were active in politics and government in addition to Nathaniel's service as a justice of the peace. Millard became interested in politics, and the rise of the Anti-Masonic Party in the late 1820s provided his entry.

Many Anti-Masons were opposed to the presidential candidacy of General Andrew Jackson, who was a Mason. Fillmore was a delegate to the New York convention that endorsed President John Quincy Adams for reelection and also served at two Anti-Masonic conventions in the summer of 1828. At the conventions, Fillmore first met political boss and future rival Thurlow Weed, then a newspaper editor, where they reportedly impressed one another. Fillmore was the leading citizen in East Aurora, having successfully sought election to the New York State Assembly, and served in Albany for three one-year terms (1829 to 1831). Fillmore's 1828 election contrasted with the general victory of the Jacksonian Democrats (soon the Democratic Party), who elected Jackson President and won a majority in Albany. Thus Fillmore was in the minority in the Assembly. He proved effective anyway by promoting legislation to provide court witnesses the option of taking a non-religious oath, and in 1830, abolishing imprisonment for debt. By then much of Fillmore's legal practice was in Buffalo, and later that year he moved there with his family. He did not seek reelection in 1831.

Fillmore was successful as a lawyer. Buffalo was rapidly expanding, recovering from being burnt by British forces during the War of 1812, and becoming the western terminus of the Erie Canal. Court cases from outside Erie County began falling to Fillmore's lot, and he reached prominence as a lawyer in Buffalo before he moved there. He took his lifelong friend Nathan K. Hall as a law clerk in East Aurora. Hall later became Fillmore's partner in Buffalo. Buffalo was legally a village when Fillmore arrived; although the bill to incorporate it as a city passed the legislature after he had left the Assembly, Fillmore helped draft the city charter.

Fillmore helped found the Buffalo High School Association, joined the lyceum, attended the local Unitarian church, and became a leading citizen of Buffalo. He was also active in the New York Militia and attained the rank of major as inspector of the 47th Brigade.