Two Buffalonians in the White House

Millard Fillmore

&

Grover Cleveland

Millard Fillmore & Grover Cleveland

Fillmore Cleveland

Millard Fillmore, 1800-187413th president

Millard Fillmore BirthplaceLocke, New York

Fillmore Home - East Aurora NY

Home in Buffalo NY

Buffalo, NY Home of Fillmore

Earlier Post Card View of the Statler Hotel

Millard Fillmore site today107 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo NY

Introduction

• Second President to finish term of deceased president (Zachary Taylor)

• Signed Compromise of 1850• Support of the above resulted in the Whig Party

not nominating him for President 1852• Ran unsuccessfully for President on American

(Know-Nothing) Party and Whig Party ticket in 1856

Fillmore Facts

• Born: January 7, 1800 in Locke Township NY• Died: March 8, 1874• Burial Site: Forest Lawn Cemetery Buffalo New

York• Political Party: Whig & American (Know –

Nothing Party)• First Lady: Abigail Powers• Education: No Formal Education• Previous Occupation: Lawyer

Early Life

• Second child and eldest son in a family of nine• Parents were Nathaniel and Phoebe Millard Fillmore –

moved from Vermont• Worked on fathers farm and attended school irregularly

until he was 17 with help of his teacher Abigail Powers• At 19 studied law with Judge Walter Wood of Cayuga

County• Family moved to East Aurora – where he opened a law

office in 1823• 1826 Married Abigail Powers and had two children Mary

Abigail and Millard Powers

Abigail Powers Fillmore

Early Political Career

• 1828 Fillmore elected to New York state Legislature on the Anti-Masonic Party Ticket

• 1832 Elected to U.S. House of Representatives

• Supported both times by Thurlow Weed, and newspaper publisher and politician

Thurlow Weed1797-1882

Fillmore as Congressman

• Anti-Masonic Party merged with the Whig party mid-1830’s, Fillmore became a Whig

• Strong supporter of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky the leader of the Whigs

• Both agreed that a compromise on the slavery issue was needed to preserve peace between North & South

• 1844 he failed to get nomination for vice-president on Henry Clay’s Whig party

• Fillmore ran for Governor of NY instead – was defeated

Campaign of 1848

President Zachary Taylor

Vice - President

• Early 1850 – while presiding over the Senate he failed to resolve conflict between NY Senator Seward (former governor of NY) an antislavery advocate and Senators James M. Mason of VA, Senator John C. Calhoun (former VP) of South Carolina and Senator Jefferson Davis of MISS (future president of CSA)

Compromise of 1850 & Slavery

Senator Henry Clay - debating the compromise of 1850

Fillmore as President

• President Zachary Taylor died suddenly on July 9, 1850 leaving Fillmore as President

• Henry Clay’s omnibus bill “Compromise of 1850” signed into law by Fillmore and more importantly enforced by him

• Radical anti-slavery Whigs opposed him• January 1852 he sent Commodore Matthew C.

Perry to open trade with Japan• Whig party breaks up after election of 1852

Fillmore as President

• “God Knows that I detest slavery…but it is an existing evil, and we must endure it, and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution”

Fillmore’s Later Life

• March 1853 – wife dies• 1856 – accepted presidential nomination of the American

Party• 1858 – remarried – Caroline Carmichael Macintosh of

Albany NY• Fillmore opposed secession by the southern states and

also opposed some of Lincoln’s measures• 1864 Fillmore supported General George B. McClellan

the Democrat for president • First Chancellor of the University of Buffalo (SUNY

BUFFALO)• Founding member of the Buffalo Historical Society

(BECHS) and the Buffalo General Hospital

Millard Fillmore Burial SiteForest Lawn Cemetery – Buffalo NY

Burial Site

Fillmore Tombstone

Side by Side even in death!

Grover Cleveland (1837 – 1908) 22nd & 24th President

Grover Cleveland Birthplace

Cleveland Facts

• Born – March 18, 1837

• Died – June 24, 1908

• Burial Site – Princeton New Jersey

• Political Party - Democrat

• Wife – Francis Folsom

• Education – No formal education

• Previous Occupation - Lawyer

Early Life

• Stephen Grover Cleveland – 5th child of Richard Cleveland – Presbyterian Minister and Ann Neal Cleveland

• 1841 Family moved to Fayetteville near Syracuse NY

• 1853 – Father died and Cleveland went to NY City to work as a teacher at the State Institution for the Blind

• 1855 – Intended to go to Cleveland OH. – Buffalo instead working with Uncle Lewis F. Allen

Moses Cleveland

Lewis F. Allen – Cleveland’s Uncle

Early Political Career

• Cleveland became a Democrat in 1856– Democrats represented solid, conservative thought– Republican Presidential hopeful John Charles Fremont struck

him as flamboyant & theatrical

• During the Civil War he hired a substitute to serve in his place (legal at that time)

• 1863 – appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County – crusader against crime & corruption in government

• 1871 – became county sheriff• Most successful attorney in Buffalo due to hard work

rather than brilliant legal talent

Mayor of Buffalo

• 1881 – 44 year old and moderately wealthy – a bachelor – becomes Buffalo’s Mayor

• Borrowed the phrase “Public officials are the trustees of the people” = “Public office is a public trust”

• Fought corruption and graft in City Hall – earns the title of “veto mayor”

Governor of New York

Election of 1884

Cleveland’s Gravesite