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James A. Garfield: Northeast Ohio
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James Abram Garfield was born in Orange Township, Ohio on November 19, 1831, in a small log cabin. He was the youngest of five children. His mother was Eliza Garfield, and his father was Abram Garfield. Abram Garfield had died when James was only two years old, in 1833, at 32 years old. Before that he had been ill so James was born poor. His mother could not be employed.
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James Garfield was born on November 19, 1831 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio; a few miles south of Cleveland. Before James turned two, his father died. His mother was left with four children to raise and barely had any money. Three of the four children were able to help the Widow Garfield farm her land in Orange Township, Ohio, but James was too young to work.
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James Abram Garfield was born in a log cabin near Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 19, 1831, the youngest of five children of Abram and Eliza Ballou Garfield. Raised by his mother, who was widowed in 1833, James grew up in poverty. Though bright and anxious to learn, he turned 17 with but little schooling. In 1848 he struck out on his own and worked on a canal boat, but about six weeks later he returned home seriously ill. While convalescing he decided to get an education.
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With the start of the Civil War, Garfield enlisted in the Union Army, and was assigned to command the 42nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. General Don Carlos Buell assigned Colonel Garfield the task of driving Confederate forces out of eastern Kentucky in November 1861, giving him the 18th Brigade for the campaign. In December, he departed Catlettsburg, Kentucky, with the 40th and 42nd Ohio and the 14th and 22nd Kentucky infantry regiments, as well as the 2nd (West) Virginia Cavalry and McLoughlin's Squadron of Cavalry. The march was uneventful until Union forces reached Paintsville, Kentucky, where Garfield's cavalry engaged the Confederate cavalry at Jenny's Creek on January 6, 1862. The Confederates, under Brig. Gen. Humphrey Marshall, withdrew to the forks of Middle Creek, two miles (3 km) from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, on the road to Virginia. Garfield attacked on January 9.
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James Garfield's father was a farmer in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He died before James was two, and the child was raised by his mother and older brother. They were very poor, and James had little chance to go to school, but he went to school wherever and whenever he could. He worked at any kind of job that would leave time for his books. He learned rapidly. He could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time.
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Garfield was born in Orange Township, now Moreland Hills, Ohio of Welsh ancestry. His father, Abram Garfield, died in 1833, when James Abram was 17 months old; he was brought up and cared for by his mother, Eliza Ballou, a brother, and an uncle.[1] In Orange Township, Garfield attended school, a predecessor of the Orange City Schools. From 1851 to 1854, he attended the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later named Hiram College) in Hiram, Ohio. He then transferred to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a brother of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He graduated in 1856 as an outstanding student who enjoyed all subjects except chemistry. Garfield ruled out becoming a preacher and considered a job as principal of a high school in Poestenkill, New York.[2] After losing that job to another applicant, he taught at the Eclectic Institute.
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Northeast Ohio