James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the twentieth President of the United States. His assassination, four months after his inauguration, followed by his death two months later, makes his tenure the second shortest (after William Henry Harrison) in United States history.
Prior to his election as president, Garfield served as a major general in the United States Army and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a member of the Electoral Commission of 1876. Garfield was the second U.S. President to be assassinated; Abraham Lincoln was the first. President Garfield, a Republican, had been in office a scant four months when he was shot and fatally wounded on July 2, 1881. He lived until September 19, having served for six months and fifteen days. To date, Garfield is the only sitting member of the House of Representatives to have been elected President.
Garfield was born of Welsh ancestry on November 19, 1831 in a log cabin in Orange Township, now Moreland Hills, Ohio. His father, Abram Garfield, died in 1833, when James Abram was 17 months old.[1] He was brought up and cared for by his mother, Eliza Ballou, a brother, and an uncle.[2]
In Orange Township, Garfield attended school, a predecessor of the Orange City Schools. From 1851 to 1854, he attended the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later named Hiram College) in Hiram, Ohio. He then transferred to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a brother of Delta Upsilon fraternity.[3] He graduated in 1856 as an outstanding student who enjoyed all subjects except chemistry.
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