James A. Garfield- Our 20th President

The latest release in the Presidential $1 Coin series honors our 20th President. Elected in 1880, James Garfield was the last elected President to be born in a log cabin.

Garfield was born in Ohio, worked hard to educate himself and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts. He returned to Ohio to teach at Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (Hiram College) and became its president.

Elected to the state Senate in 1859 from the Republican Party, he also served in the Union Army rising to the rank of Major General. He was first elected to the U.S. Congress in 1863 and served there after President Lincoln asked him to resign his position on the battlefield. Garfield served nine consecutive terms in the House of Representatives.

In 1880 Garfield won the presidential election against his Democratic rival, Gen. Winfield Scott, by only 10,000 popular votes. In his inaugural address he called for rights for African-Americans, universal education and civil reforms. Garfield’s short presidency was also noted for attacking political corruption. He also brought back honor to the office lost during Reconstruction. His only executive order was to have a holiday on May 30 in order to decorate Civil War graves.

Garfield was an avid reader who owned a substantial library of over three thousand books. He also showed substantial math talent in developing a trapezoidal proof of Pythagoras’ Theory. That work was mentioned in the New England Journal of Education.

His tenure as president lasted only 200 days, the second shortest on record (William Harrison). James Garfield and his wife Lucretia had seven children.