Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/481

Rh woman ; with a sunny nature that enabled her to endure uncomplainingly the many hardships of a frontier life, and that her closing days were glad- dened by the frequent visits of her second son, who was then in public life, with every prospect of a successful professional and political career.

Prom a brief manuscript autobiography pre- pared by " worthy Mr. Fillmore," as Washington Irving described him, we learn that, owing to a de- fective title, his father lost his pi'operty on what was called the " military tract," and removed to another part of the same county, now known as Niles, where he took a perpetual lease of 180 acres, wholly unimproved and covered with heavy tim- ber. It was here that the future president first knew anything of life. Working for nine months on the farm, and attending such primitive schools as then existed in that neighborhood for the other three months of the yeai', he had an opportunity of forgetting during the summer what he ac- quired in the winter, for in those days there were no newspapers and magazines to be found in pioneers' cabins, and his father's libraiy consist- ed of but two books — the Bible and a collec- tion of hymns. He never saw a copy of " Shake- speare " or " Robinson Crusoe," a history of the United States, or even a map of his own country, till he was nineteen years of age ! Nathaniel Fill- more's misfortunes in losing his land through a defective title, and again in taking another tract of exceedingly poor soil, gave him a distaste for farming, and made him desirous that his sons sliould follow other occupations. As his means did not justify him or them in aspiring to any profession, he wished them to learn trades, and accordingly Millard, then a sturdy youth of four- teen, was apprenticed for a few months on trial to the business of carding wool and dressing cloth. During his apprenticeship he was, as the youngest, treated with great injustice, and on one occasion his employer, for some expression of righteous re- sentment, threatened to chastise him. when the young woodsman, burning with indignation, raised the axe with which he was at work and told him the attempt would cost him his life. Most fortu- nately for both, the attempt was not made, and at the close of his term he shouldered his knapsack, containing a few clothes and a supply of bread and dried venison, and set out on foot and alone for his father's house, a distance of something more than a hundred miles through the primeval forests. Mr. Fillmore in his autobiography remarks : " I think that this injustice — which was no more than other apprentices have suffered and will suffer — had a marked effect on my character. It made me feel for the weak and unprotected, and to hate the in- solent tyrant in every station of life."

In 1815 the youth again began the business of carding and cloth-dressing, which was carried on from June to December of each year. The first book that he purchased or owned was a small Eng- lish dictionary, which he diligently studied while attending the carding machine. In 1819 he con- ceived the design of becoming a lawyer. Fillmore, who had yet two years of his apprenticeship to serve, agreed with his employer to relinquish his wages for the last year's services, and promised to pay thirty dollars for his time. Making an arrange- ment with a retired country lawyer, by which he was to receive his board in payment for his services in the office, he began the study of the law, a part of the time teaching school, and so struggling on, overcoming almost insurmountable difficulties, till at length, in the spring of 1823, he was, at the intercession of several leading members of the Buffalo bar, whose confidence he had won, admitted as an attorney by the court of common pleas of Erie county, although he had not completed the course of study usually required. The writer has recently seen the dilapidated one-story building in Buffalo where Mr. Fillmore closed his career as a school-master, and has also conversed with one of his pupils of sixty-five years ago. The wisdom of his youth and early manhood gave presage of all that was witnessed and admired in the maturity of his character. Nature laid on him, in the kindly phrase of Wordsworth, " the strong hand of her purity," and even then he was remarked for that sweet coxu'tesy of manner which accompanied him through life. Millard Fillmore began practice at Auroi'a, where his father then resided, and fortu- nately won his first case and a fee of four dol- lars. In 1827 he was admitted as an attorney, and two years later as counsellor of the supreme court of the state. In 1830 he removed to Buflialo, and after a brief period formed a partnership with Nathan K. Hall, to which Solomon G. Haven was soon afterward admitted.

By hard study and the closest application, com- bined with honesty and fidelity, Mr. Fillmore soon became a sound and successful lawyer, at- taining a highly honorable position in the pro- fession. The law-firm of Fillmore, Hall & Ha- ven, which continued till 1847, was perhaps the most prominent in western New York, and was usually engaged in every important suit occurring in that portion of the state. In 1853, while still in Washington, Mr. Fillmore made an arrangement with Henry E. Davies to renew, on retiring from the presidency, the practice of his profession in New York in partnership with that gentleman, who, after occupying a judge's seat in the court of appeals, returned to the bar. Family afflictions, however, combined with other causes, induced the ex-president to abandon his purpose. There were doubtless at that time men of more genius and greater eloquence at the bar of the great city ; but we can not doubt that Mr. Fillmore's solid legal learning, and the weight of his personal character, would have won for him the highest professional honors in the new field of action.

Mr. Fillmore's political career began and ended with the birth and extinction of the great Whig party. In 1828 he was elected by Erie county to the state legislature of New York, serving for three terms, and retiring with a reputation for ability, integrity, and a conscientious performance of his public duties. He distinguished himself by his advocacy of the act to abolish imprisonment for debt, which was passed in 1831. The bill was drafted by Fillmore, excepting the portions rela- tive to proceedings in courts of record, which were drawn by John C. Spenser. In 1832 he was elected to congress, and. after serving for one term, re- tired till 1836, when he was re-elected, and again returned in 1838 and 1840, declining a renoinina- tion in 1842. In the 27th congress Mr. Fillmore, as chairman of the committee on ways and means — a committee performing at that period not only the duties now devolving upon it, but those also which belong to the committee on appropriations — had herculean labors to perform. Day after day, for weeks and months, Fillmore had to encounter many of the ablest debaters of the house, but on all occasions he proved himself equal to the emergency. It should not be forgotten that, in the opinion of John Quincy Adams, there were more men of talent and a larger aggregate of ability in that congress than he had ever known. Although Mr. Fillmore did not claim to have discovered any