James A. Garfield

I

Introduction

James A. Garfield (1831-1881), 20th president of the United States (1881). He held the office of president only four months before he was fatally shot by an assassin. He had served in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States for 17 years and had established a distinguished record there. He was only lightly touched by the corruption in government that marked the period after the Civil War ended in 1865. Garfield's assassination by a disappointed office seeker gave new impetus to demands for reform of the federal employment system, called the civil service.

II

Early Life

James Abram Garfield was born on November 19, 1831. He was the son of Abram Garfield and Eliza Ballou Garfield, New Englanders who had settled in the Western Reserve region of northern Ohio. Abram Garfield, a farmer and canal construction worker, died when James was two years old, leaving his widow and four children to face the rigors of frontier life. James's childhood was one of hardship and work. The last president to be born in a log cabin, Garfield had little leisure time in his youth. He did farm work until he was 16 years old, then found employment on a canal boat.

III

Education

In 1849 Garfield's mother persuaded him to enter Geauga Academy in Chester, Ohio. “No greener boy ever started out to school,” he recorded. Also about this time he was baptized into the Disciples of Christ, the church of his parents. Garfield's early journals are filled with allusions to his religious faith.

In 1851 he entered Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College), a Disciples of Christ school at Hiram, Ohio. There he began teaching and lay preaching. He was a persuasive speaker and debater but had no patience with politics. “I am exceedingly disgusted with the wire-pulling of politicians and the total disregard of truth in all their operations,” Garfield wrote.

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By 1854, through the strictest economy, Garfield had saved enough money to enroll at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. After two years at Williams, he graduated with honors and returned to teach ancient languages and literature at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. However, his religious beliefs had changed. In September 1856 he wrote a friend, “My stay here will certainly be very short. ... Had I known all I know now I would not have come here at all.” Nevertheless, Garfield became the principal of the institute and continued to preach in the Disciples of Christ Church.

IV

Marriage

On November 11, 1858, Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph, a childhood friend and fellow student at Geauga Academy. The couple had five sons and two daughters. One of the sons, James Rudolph Garfield, later served as secretary of the interior under President Theodore Roosevelt. Another son, Harry Augustus Garfield, became president of Williams College.

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