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Notable people · President · Military · Educator

James A. Garfield

Twentieth president, born in a Cuyahoga County log cabin, who ran the first successful front-porch campaign from his Mentor farm and was assassinated in 1881.

Born November 19, 1831, Orange Township (now Moreland Hills)
Died September 19, 1881, Elberon, NJ

James A. Garfield
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
November 19, 1831, Orange Township (now Moreland Hills) (Cuyahoga County) source
Died
September 19, 1881, Elberon, NJ source
Buried
James A. Garfield Memorial, Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) source
Also known as
James A. Garfield
Education
Geauga Seminary, Chester, OH, 1848-1850
Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, Hiram, OH, 1851-1854
Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 1854-1856, BA
Known as
President, Military, Educator
Organizations
Hiram College, Eclectic Institute

Life story

James Abram Garfield was born in 1831 in a log cabin in what is now Moreland Hills, Ohio. His father died in 1833 and his mother Eliza raised the family in poverty.

He studied at Geauga Seminary and the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in Hiram, then graduated from Williams College in 1856. He returned to Hiram to teach and became head of the Institute in 1857, and married Lucretia Rudolph in 1858.

He served in the Ohio Senate, led troops at Middle Creek and Chickamauga, rose to major general, and entered Congress in 1863. He stayed there until he was elected president in 1880.

He was shot by Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881, and died on September 19. He is buried in the Garfield Memorial at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, and his Mentor home is a National Historic Site.

Ohio ties

  • Orange Township (Moreland Hills) (1831-1848)
    birthplace and childhood farm Cuyahoga County · source
  • Chester Township (Geauga Seminary) (1848-1850)
    student Geauga County · source
  • Hiram (Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College) (1851-1861)
    student 1851-1854, teacher, principal from 1857; married Lucretia and began his political career here Portage County · source
  • Columbus (1860-1861)
    Ohio state senator Franklin County · source
  • Mentor (Lawnfield) (1876-1881)
    family farm and home; 1880 front-porch campaign Lake County · source
  • Cleveland (Lake View Cemetery) (1881-present)
    funeral and burial Cuyahoga County · source

Timeline

  1. 1831 Born November 19 in a log cabin in Orange Township, Cuyahoga County. source
  2. 1833 His father, Abram Garfield, died after fighting a fire on the family property. source
  3. 1847 Turned down for ship work in Cleveland, he worked six weeks on a canal boat tending its mules until illness sent him home. source
  4. 1851 Entered the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram (attended to 1854). source
  5. 1856 Graduated from Williams College as salutatorian. source
  6. 1857 Became principal of the Eclectic Institute at Hiram. source
  7. 1858 Married Lucretia Rudolph, a classmate from Geauga and Hiram. source
  8. 1859 Elected to the Ohio Senate as a Republican (served 1860-1861). source
  9. 1861 Commissioned colonel of the 42nd Ohio Infantry in August. source
  10. 1863 Entered the U.S. House for Ohio's 19th district, where he served until November 1880. source
  11. 1876 Bought the Mentor farm that reporters later called Lawnfield. source
  12. 1880 Nominated for president on the 36th ballot and ran a front-porch campaign from Mentor; added 11 rooms to the house. source
  13. 1881 Shot July 2 by Charles J. Guiteau; died September 19; his casket was paraded down Euclid Avenue to Public Square in Cleveland on September 25. source
  14. 1890 Permanently interred in the Garfield Memorial at Lake View Cemetery, dedicated May 30. source

What James is known for

  • 20th US president
  • President of the Eclectic Institute (Hiram) 1857-61
  • Ohio congressman 1863-80

Stories

Six weeks on the canal

At 16, in 1847, Garfield went to Cleveland looking for work on a ship and was turned away. Instead he took a job on a canal boat, managing the mules that towed it. The work lasted only about six weeks before illness forced him home to the family farm in Orange Township. After recovering he enrolled at Geauga Seminary in Chester Township in 1848, where he met Lucretia Rudolph. That schooling led him on to the Eclectic Institute at Hiram and to Williams College.

Source

Lawnfield and Lucretia's library

Garfield bought the Mentor farm in 1876 for his large family and enlarged the house by 11 rooms in 1880. That year he ran the first successful front-porch campaign from it, and the reporters who came to cover him named the place Lawnfield. Four years after his assassination, Lucretia Garfield and her family added a Memorial Library wing to hold his papers and books, a precedent for later presidential libraries. The Western Reserve Historical Society ran the site with the National Park Service until 2008, when the NPS took it over.

Source

A tomb built with children's pennies

Construction of the Garfield Memorial on a hill in Lake View Cemetery began on October 6, 1885. George Keller designed it, Caspar Buberl made the exterior reliefs and Alexander Doyle carved the marble statue of Garfield inside. It cost $135,000, paid for entirely by private donations, including pennies sent by children around the country. It was dedicated on May 30, 1890. Lucretia was placed in the crypt beside him in 1918, along with the ashes of their daughter Mollie and her husband.

Source

Honors and things named for them

  • James A. Garfield National Historic Site (Lawnfield), Mentor, OH
  • James A. Garfield Memorial, Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland

Family

  • wife: Lucretia Rudolph Garfield
  • mother: Eliza Ballou Garfield
  • son: Harry (Hal) Garfield
  • son: James R. Garfield
  • son: Abram Garfield

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

12

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where James A. Garfield was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

In their words

I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

  • Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan H. Dougla
    Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan...
    No known restrictions
  • Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan H. Dougla
    Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan...
    No known restrictions
  • Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan H. Dougla
    Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan...
    No known restrictions
  • Photograph of the black board in the New York Gold Room, September 24, 1869, showing the collapse of the price of gold.
    Photograph of the black board in the New York Gold Room, September 24, 1869, showing the collapse of the price...
    Public domain
  • James A. Garfield
    No known restrictions
  • James A. Garfield
    No known restrictions
  • Diagram for Garfield's proof of Pythagoras's theorem
    Diagram for Garfield's proof of Pythagoras's theorem
    Public domain
  • Portrait photograph of president of the United States James A. Garfield facing forward and looking to his right
    Portrait photograph of president of the United States James A. Garfield facing forward and looking to his righ...
    Public domain
  • James A. Garfield
    No known restrictions
  • James A. Garfield
    No known restrictions
  • Log cabin birthplace of James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States
    Log cabin birthplace of James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States
    Public domain
  • Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan H. Dougla
    Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library Repository: Susan...
    No known restrictions

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-14.

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