Garfield, James Abram ( 1831-1881), the twentieth president of the United States. He was born near Cleveland, Ohio, November, 1831. His parents were New England people, originally of English, German, French Huguenot, and Welsh ancestry. They settled on a claim in the Western Reserve. The father died from the effects of fighting a forest fire. The mother was left a widow with a family of young children and no means of support beyond a log cabin, a small clearing, and eighty acres of debt-encumbered land. Though advised to bind her children out, Mrs. Garfield was determined to keep them together. She built fences, she plowed, she set out fruit trees, she spun, she wove, she mended, she read, she governed her boys, she paid off the mortgage, and brought her family up in intelligence and respectability. The heroic work of this mother, rewarded in the end by seeing her son president, is in itself a chapter of American history. She was the first mother of a president to have her home in the White House.
James worked with his mother, attended district school, drove mules and worked on a canal boat, worked his way through an academy, taught school, saved money, and completed a course at Williams College. Though for a short time president of Hiram College, Garfield took an early interest in the formation, 1856, of the Republican party. He resigned his college presidency for a seat in the legislature of Ohio. Garfield served with credit in the Civil War. He began as a lieutenant colonel, rose rapidly, and was made a major general for bravery in the battle of Chickamauga. In 1863 he took a seat in Congress, representing the famous Western Reserve, Cleveland, district of Ohio. His course in Congress was independent, sensible, and popular, covering the important period during which the seceded states were readmitted.
In 1880 James G. Blaine was a candidate for nomination to the presidency. His nomination and election would have meant the transfer of patronage to new party leaders. A strong movement was organized by Senators Conkling, Cameron, and Logan, to head off Blaine's nomination by bringing Ex-President Grant forward for a third term. Garfield was an anti-Grant leader in the Chicago convention, but was not himself a candidate. On the thirtysixth ballot Blaine's supporters combined with the field against the Grant forces, and nominated Garfield. He was elected by a safe majority. In forming his cabinet he included James G. Blaine as secretary of state, and men representative of the various Republican factions. He tried to harmonize his party, but fell into a bitter fight with Senator Conkling over the appointment of a collector of customs for the port of New York. Garfield's nomination was finally confirmed by the Senate, but not before Senator Conkling and his colleague had resigned. July 2, 1881, President Garfield was about to take a train to join his family for a short vacation, when he was shot in the Baltimore and Potomac station at Washington by a disappointed office seeker, of whom it is hard to say whether he was a fool or fanatic. Garfield lingered some weeks in agony. He died near Long Branch September 19, 1881. He was laid at rest in a cemetery of Cleveland. His tomb commands a magnificent view of Lake Erie.