Millard Powers Fillmore

WIKIPEDIA: He was one of two children and the only son of President Millard Fillmore and Abigail Powers. Known familiarly as "Powers", he was born in Aurora, New York. He studied law in his father's office and attended Harvard. He served as his father's private secretary durig the latter's presidency. After practicing law in Buffalo, N.Y., he was appointed a federal court clerk.

After the death of his mother, his father married Caroline Carmichael McIntosh, a union which Millard Powers Fillmore reportedly never accepted. Following his father's death he engaged in a bitter battle with his stepmother over the terms of his father's will, which the son won.

Never married and without children, he died in Buffalo of apoplexy. His will directed that all his family correspondence (including that with his father) be burned, the motive for which the subject of much speculation.

Millard Powers Fillmore (April 25, 1828 – November 15, 1889) was one of two children and the only son of President Millard Fillmore and Abigail Powers.[2] Known familiarly as "Powers", he was born in Aurora, New York. He studied law in his father's office and attended Harvard. He served as his father's private secretary during the latter's presidency. After practicing law in Buffalo, New York, he was appointed a federal court clerk.[2]

After the death of his mother, his father married Caroline Carmichael McIntosh;[3] a union which Millard Powers Fillmore reportedly never accepted. Following his father's death he engaged in a bitter battle with his stepmother over the terms of his father's will, which the son won.[2]

Never married and without children, he died in Buffalo of apoplexy.[4] His will directed that all his family correspondence (including that with his father) be burned, the motive for which was the subject of much speculation.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Abigail Fillmore Juvenile Biography". The National First Ladies Library. Retrieved on 2008-10-20.

  2. ^ a b c d Quinn, Sandra L. (1995). America's Royalty. Greenwood Publishing Group, 81. ISBN 9780313295355. 

  3. ^ "MILLARD FILLMORE Thirteenth President • 1850-53". National Park Service. Retrieved on 2008-10-23.

  4. ^ "MILLARD POWERS FILLMORE DEAD.". The New York Times Company. Retrieved on 2008-10-20.

Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), 13th president of the United States (1850-1853) and the second vice president to finish the term of a deceased president. He succeeded Zachary Taylor at a critical moment in United States history. The Mexican War (1846-1848) had renewed the conflict between the Northern and Southern states over slavery, since it had added new territories to the United States. The debate over whether these territories should be admitted as free or slave states precipitated a crisis that threatened civil war. Much to the relief of Northern and Southern politicians, Fillmore pursued a moderate and conciliatory policy. He signed into law the Compromise of 1850, which admitted one territory as a free state and allowed slave owners to settle in the others. This compromise did not solve the basic problem of slavery but did preserve peace for nearly eleven years. During that time the North gained the industrial power that enabled it to defeat the South when civil war eventually came.

II Early Life

Fillmore was born in upstate New York on January 7, 1800. He was the second child and eldest son in a family of nine. His parents, Nathaniel and Phoebe Millard Fillmore, had moved from Vermont to New York several years before his birth. Young Fillmore did chores on his father's farm, worked as an apprentice in the clothier's trade, and attended local schools irregularly until he was 17. Although the only books in his home were the Bible, an almanac, and a hymnbook, Fillmore managed to educate himself with the help of a village schoolteacher, Abigail Powers.

When he was 19, Fillmore began to study law with Judge Walter Wood of Cayuga County. He supported himself by teaching school. When his family moved to East Aurora, near Buffalo, New York, Fillmore continued his study of law and his teaching. In 1823 he opened a law office in East Aurora. Three years later he married Abigail Powers. The couple had two children, Mary Abigail and Millard Powers. In the early years of their marriage, Mrs. Fillmore continued to teach school and to help her husband with his law studies.

III Political Career

In 1826, the year Fillmore was married, an incident in western New York set him on the road to the presidency. When William Morgan, a former member of the Masonic fraternal order who had written a book that claimed to expose the order's secrets, disappeared, the rumor spread that he had been murdered by avenging Masons. Thurlow Weed, a newspaper publisher and politician, seized on the incident to arouse public feeling against all secret organizations and helped to organize the Anti-Masonic Party.