Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/193

 MILLARD FILLMORE 149 gladdened by the frequent visits of her son, who was then in public life, with every prospect of a successful professional and political career. From a brief manuscript autobiography pre pared by &quot;worthy Mr. Fillmore,&quot; as Washington Irving described him, we learn that, owing to a defective title, his father lost his property on what was called the &quot;military tract,&quot; and removed to another part of the same county, now known as Niles, where he took a perpetual lease of 130 acres, wholly unimproved and covered with heavy timber. 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 year, he had an opportunity of for getting during the summer what he acquired in the winter, for in those days there were no newspapers and magazines to be found in pioneers cabins, and his father s library consisted of but two books the Bible and a collection of hymns. He never saw a copy of &quot;Shakespeare&quot; or &quot;Robinson Crusoe,&quot; a history of the United States, or even a map of his own country, till he was nineteen years of age! Nathaniel Fillmore s misfortunes in losing his land through a defective title, and again in taking an other tract of exceedingly poor soil, gave him a dis taste for farming, and made him desirous that his sons should follow other occupations. As his means