Fillmore Rose Up Out Of Extreme Poverty
On January 7, 1800, in what is now Moravia, Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin on a farm. He was the second of eight children and the eldest son of Phoebe Millard and Nathaniel Fillmore.
Born in a log home, Fillmore spent a large portion of his youth working the 130-acre farm his father leased in the Finger Lakes region of New York, clearing ground and cultivating crops. One of the interesting facts about Millard Fillmore is his youth was one of hard labor, extreme poverty, and essentially little formal training.
He persuaded Millard, his oldest son, who was 14 at the time, not to enlist in the War of 1812 and apprenticed him to Sparta clothier Benjamin Hungerford in the hopes that Millard would acquire a craft. As a result of Fillmore being forced into menial work and his dissatisfaction at not developing any talents, Hungerford fired him. Then, in a mill in New Hope, his father employed him in the same line of work. Millard purchased a part in a lending library and read all the literature he could in an effort to better himself. He enrolled in a new academy in the town in 1819 while the mill was closed when he met Abigail Powers and fell in love with her.
He put a lot of effort into his education despite obtaining little formal education, and eventually became a teacher. Instigated by the local judge who was his father's landlord, he developed an interest in the law as well. At the age of 23, after completing a few clerkships, Fillmore was admitted to the bar and founded a practice close to Buffalo, New York. There, he made a decent fortune and started to network with the local political elite.
