James Abram Garfield, twentieth President of the
United States, was born in Orange township, Cuyahoga
county, Ohio, November 19th, 1831, and died at Elberon,
New Jersey, September 19th, 1881, from the effects of a
wound by a pistol ball, fired by a worthless wretch in the
city of Washington, July 2d, 1881.
Edward Garfield, the founder of the family in America, of sturdy Saxon stock, came from Chester, England, and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts, as early as 1630. He lived to be ninety-seven years old. The men of his race seem to have taken to themselves wives of equal physical vigor. The Philadelphia Weekly Mercury, of February 3d, 1729-30, notices the death of Mrs. Garfield of Watertown, at the age of ninety years. Thus remotely may be traced that exuberant vitality which enabled the future President to smile hopefully and live for nearly three months with a shattered vertebra.
In the local affairs of the New England burghs in which they lived, and through the colonial and Revolutionary wars, the Garfields bore an active if not a prominent part.
Solomon, the great-grandfather of the President, removed to Otsego county, New York, and his grandson, Abram, obeying that fateful call, which has ever been coming from the forests and prairies of the West to young
- ↑ This memorial note, written at the request of the Council of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, was read before it at its meeting held September 26th, 1881, and was ordered to be entered upon the minutes.
