James Abram Garfield
20th President of the United States
(March 4, 1881 to September 19, 1881)
Nickname: None listed.
Born: November 19, 1831, in Orange, Ohio
Died: September 19, 1881, in Elberon, New Jersey
Father: Abram Garfield
Mother: Eliza Ballou Garfield
Married: Lucretia Rudolph (1832-1918), on November 11, 1858
Children: Eliza A. Garfield (1860-63); Harry A. Garfield (1863-1942) James R. Garfield (1865-1950); Mary Garfield (1867-1947); Irvin M. Garfield (1870-1951); Abram Garfield (1872-1958); Edward Garfield (1874-76)
Religion: Disciples of Christ
Education: Attended Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College); Graduated from Williams College (1856)
Occupation: Teacher, public official
Political Party: Republican
Other Government Positions:
- Member of Ohio State Senate, 1859-61
- Member of U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-80
- Elected to United States Senate, 1880
Presidential Salary: $50,000/year
Vice President: Chester A. Arthur (1881)
Cabinet:
- Secretary of State
- James G. Blaine (1881)
- Secretary of the Treasury
- William Windom (1881)
- Secretary of War
- Robert Todd Lincoln (1881)
- Attorney General
- I. Wayne McVeagh (1881)
- Postmaster General
- Thomas L. James (1881)
- Secretary of the Navy
- William H. Hunt (1881)
- Secretary of the Interior
- Samuel J. Kirkwood (1881)
- 1881
- On July 2, shot by Charles Julius Guiteau. Garfield died of blood poisoning on September 19.
- Garfield was the first left-handed president.
- James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other.
- The last of seven presidents born in a log cabin, Garfield weighed 10 pounds at birth.
- He was the first president to campaign in two languages -- English and German.
- On election day, November 2, 1880, he was at the same time a member of the House, Senator-elect and President-elect.
- His mother was the first president's mother to attend her son's inauguration.
- At the age of twenty-six, Garfield became president of Hiram College. At the time the school only had five faculty memebers.
- After Garfield's shooting, repeated probing for the bullet with non-sterile instruments resulted in blood poisoning which eventually killed him.
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