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James Abram Garfield ( November 19, 1831 - September 19, 1881) was the 20th ( 1881) President of the United States, the first left-handed President, and the second U.S. President to be assassinated.
His term was the second shortest in US history, just above William Henry Harrison's. Holding office from March to September of 1881, he was in power for a total of six months and 15 days.
1 Early life
He was born in Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, southeast of Cleveland to Abram Garfield and Eliza Ballou. He was named for his older brother James Ballou Garfield, who died in infancy, and his father who died died in 1833, when James Abram was 18 months old. He grew up cared for by his mother and an uncle.
From 1851- 1854 he attended the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later named Hiram College) in Hiram, Ohio. He then transferred to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1856, as an outstanding student who enjoyed all subjects except chemistry. He then taught at the Eclectic Institute. He was an instructor in classical languages for the 1856- 1857 year, and was made president of the Institute from 1857 to 1860. (The ambidextrous Garfield could simultaneously write in Greek with one hand and in Latin with the other).
On November 11, 1858, he married Lucretia Randolph. They had five children. A son, James Rudolph Garfield , followed him into politics and became Secretary of the Interior under Theodore Roosevelt.
Garfield decided that being an academician was not his desire, and studied law privately, becoming admitted to the bar in Ohio in 1860. Even before admission to the bar, he entered politics, becoming an Ohio state senator in 1859, serving until 1861. He was an enthusiastic Republican all his political life.
He notably found a proof for the Pythagorean Theorem in 1876.
