Millard Fillmore

NAME Millard Fillmore. He was named after his mother, Phoebe Millard Fillmore.

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Millard Fillmore is known as the 13th President of the United States (1850-1853).  Fillmore is particularly remembered for signing the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the Compromise of 1850, a decision that contributed to increased sectional tensions and ultimately helped lead to the destruction of the Whig Party.

BIRTH Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800, in a log cabin in what is now Moravia (then Locke Township), Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. His birth came just one week into the nineteenth century, marking him as a true child of America's formative years.

FAMILY BACKGROUND Millard was born to Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard Fillmore. He was the second of eight children and the oldest son in this large family. The Fillmores were of English descent, with John Fillmore having arrived in Ipswich, Massachusetts during the colonial era. His father's ancestors were Scottish Presbyterians while his mother's were English dissenters. Nathaniel was the son of Nathaniel Fillmore Sr., a native of Franklin, Connecticut, who became an early settler of Bennington, Vermont.

CHILDHOOD Young Millard grew up in severe poverty. His parents had moved from Vermont to New York in 1799 seeking better opportunities, but found only hardship. The family often went hungry while farming the lean, rocky soil of Cayuga County. Despite his father occasionally teaching school and eventually becoming sufficiently regarded to serve in local offices including justice of the peace, the Fillmore family endured desperate poverty during Millard's formative years.

EDUCATION Fillmore had very little formal schooling as a young child due to the demands of farm work. At age 14, his father apprenticed him to a cloth maker named Benjamin Hungerford in Sparta. Desperately seeking to better himself, Millard used his meager funds to buy a dictionary, which he studied secretly during his apprenticeship. After leaving this arrangement, he was placed in the same trade at a mill in New Hope. In 1819, he enrolled at New Hope Academy for six months, where he met his future wife, Abigail Powers. Later that year, he began to clerk for Judge Walter Wood, studying law under his supervision. He was admitted to the bar in 1823.

CAREER RECORD

1823 Fillmore's career began when he established a law practice in East Aurora, New York in 1823. 

1828: Elected to his first term in the New York State Assembly

1832: Elected to his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives

1843: Resigned from the House in order to run for governor of New York

1847: Elected as state comptroller

1848: Elected as Vice President alongside Zachary Taylor (W)

July 9, 1850: Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States following the death of President Zachary Taylor.

March 4, 1853: Millard Fillmore’s presidency officially ends as Franklin Pierce is inaugurated as the 14th President of the United States.

1856: Ran unsuccessfully for president on the Know-Nothing ticket (1)

APPEARANCE As a young man, Fillmore was strikingly handsome, standing 6 feet tall and well-built, with wavy, somewhat unruly hair, light complexion, a high forehead, and blue eyes that conveyed a determined expression. With age, however, he became heavier, and his hair had turned white by the time he became president. He was notably taller and more elegant in appearance than his predecessor, Zachary Taylor. (2)

Fillmore c. 1843, artist unknown

FASHION Fillmore dressed meticulously and was known for his elegant appearance. This attention to style earned him the nickname "the American Louis Philippe," referring to the elegant clothes worn by Louis Philippe, King of France (1830-1848). This formal, refined approach to dress reflected his overall character and presentation.

CHARACTER Fillmore was generally described as likable and sociable, easily mixing with others. He was a practical, unemotional man who relied on logic and common sense in making arguments, appealing more to the mind than to the heart. His personality has been speculated to align with the Myers-Briggs personality type ISFP (Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, Perception). He was characterized as quiet and easygoing with a "live and let live" approach to life.  (3)

A perfectionist loyal to his values and beliefs, Fillmore was practical, action-oriented, and considerate. He was also known to be fastidious about cleanliness, keeping the White House as clean as possible.

SPEAKING VOICE Fillmore spoke slowly and deliberately, typically using simple expressions and short sentences. His speeches lacked the flourish typical of the great orators of his day. He was more persuasive in small groups than before large audiences, as his stolid style did not play well to crowds. His approach to communication emphasized logic and clarity over emotional appeal. (2)

SENSE OF HUMOUR Although not renowned for his wit, Fillmore did have a sense of humor, which he revealed in naming his ponies Mason and Dixon (after the surveyors for whom the border between Northern and Southern states was named). In a humorous modern ranking of presidential humor, he fared poorly, coming in at #42 and described as having "the joke stylings of an especially pedantic Vulcan". (4)

RELATIONSHIPS Fillmore married Abigail Powers on February 5, 1826 at the home of the bride's brother, Judge Powers, in Moravia, New York, after meeting her at New Hope Academy where she was a teacher. The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend Orasius H. Smith

They had two children: Millard Powers Fillmore (son) and Mary Abigail Fillmore (daughter).

His family life was generally harmonious. The Fillmores preferred quiet evenings at home, often gathering in their private quarters where their daughter Mary would play the piano while others read or worked. When Abigail was unwell during their White House years, Mary often served as the official hostess for presidential functions.

Abigail Powers Fillmore died on March 30, 1853, in Washington, D.C., after developing pneumonia shortly after leaving the White House.

Abigail Fillmore. Reproduction of late 19th century engraving.

Five years after her death, Millard Fillmore remarried: on February 10, 1858, he wed Caroline Carmichael McIntosh, a wealthy widow from Buffalo, New York

In his professional life, Fillmore formed a close partnership with Nathan K. Hall, with whom he established a successful law firm. This relationship continued when Fillmore later appointed Hall as his Postmaster General.

MONEY AND FAME Fillmore's life embodied the American dream, as he rose from desperate poverty to substantial wealth and the highest office in the land. His journey from a log cabin to the White House exemplified the opportunities for social mobility in nineteenth-century America. Despite his achievements, however, he has become one of the least remembered presidents in American history.

FOOD AND DRINK One anecdote mentions a Thanksgiving Day dinner in 1851 at the White House, where Fillmore was concerned about keeping the dining area clean but allowed his cats freedom to roam, resulting in them enjoying the turkey luncheon before the family.

MUSIC AND ARTS The Fillmore family appreciated music, particularly through their daughter Mary, who would play the piano during family evenings in the White House. These musical interludes provided a respite from the pressures of presidency and helped create a sense of normalcy for the family during their time in Washington.

LITERATURE The Fillmores had a lifelong appreciation for literature. Millard's wife Abigail is most noted for establishing the first White House Library, as she refused to live in a home without books. This library became a popular reception room in the White House and functioned as the home of a literary salon during their time there. Fillmore himself showed an early interest in reading, purchasing a share in a circulating library as a young man to improve himself through education.

NATURE Having grown up on a farm, Fillmore maintained a connection to the natural world. His most significant expression of this connection came later in life through his advocacy for animal welfare. He helped found the Buffalo chapter of the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in 1867 and supported the first animal protection bill in New York State history, enacted in 1870.

PETS Fillmore kept cats in the White House, which he apparently had a soft spot for, once allowing them to roam freely despite his concerns about cleanliness. 

Image by ChatGBT

He also owned ponies named Mason and Dixon, showing his humor in naming them after the famous surveyors.

His compassion for animals stemmed partly from a childhood experience when he killed a mother bird and was severely reprimanded by his father, who made him understand the consequences of his actions for the bird's offspring. This lesson stayed with him throughout his life, and he later wrote that he found it "inconceivable" that anyone could stand by "idly and see the cruelty and torture that is daily inflicted upon the brute creature". (5) 

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Fillmore was an avid map collector, amassing a personal collection of over 200 maps covering the United States and various parts of the world. He annotated and signed many of these maps, reflecting his deep interest in geography, exploration, and the development of the American West. 

He was deeply involved in advancing education and civic institutions. Fillmore helped found the University of Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo) and served as its first chancellor until his death. He also supported the establishment of Buffalo General Hospital and the Buffalo Historical Society, and aided in founding the Fine Arts Academy and the Society of Natural Sciences in Buffalo.

SCIENCE AND MATHS Fillmore aided in establishing the Society of Natural Sciences and was involved with the University of Buffalo’s medical school, demonstrating a commitment to the advancement of science and education in his community.

As president, Fillmore advocated for the importation of guano (bird droppings used as fertilizer), recognizing its agricultural importance. His administration’s push for guano led to the Guano Islands Act, which had significant scientific and environmental implications for agriculture and ocean conservation. 

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Millard Fillmore had no formal religious ties in his early life and showed relatively little interest in religion until about 1831, when he and his wife Abigail joined the First Unitarian Society in Buffalo, New York. As a committed Unitarian, Fillmore embraced a faith tradition known for its emphasis on reason, tolerance, and religious pluralism rather than dogma or strict theological doctrine.

Fillmore was a strong advocate for the separation of church and state. He believed that religion and politics should remain distinct, famously stating during his 1856 presidential campaign:

"In my opinion, Church and State should be separate, not only in form, but fact -- religion and politics should not be mingled."

He opposed government support for religious institutions, notably arguing against public funding for sectarian (especially Catholic) schools while serving in New York politics. He also worked to overturn laws requiring witnesses in New York courts to swear an oath affirming belief in God and the hereafter, further demonstrating his commitment to religious liberty and inclusivity.

Fillmore celebrated and advocated for religious tolerance and pluralism throughout his life. Despite joining the American Party (Know-Nothings), which was known for anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments, Fillmore himself was not personally anti-Catholic. He contributed to the construction of St. Joseph Cathedral in Buffalo, and his daughter attended a Catholic school for a year. (6)

Philosophically, Fillmore was a pragmatist and moderate. He sought compromise and union during an era of intense sectional conflict, most notably supporting the Compromise of 1850 in an attempt to preserve peace between North and South. He personally opposed slavery but believed it was beyond the federal government's power to abolish it, reflecting his legalistic and constitutional approach to governance.

POLITICS Fillmore began his political career in 1828 as a member of the Anti-Masonic Movement and Anti-Masonic Party. In 1834, he followed his political mentor, Thurlow Weed, to the Whig Party, where he soon became recognized as an outstanding leader of the party's Northern wing. As a congressman, he was a devoted follower of Senator Henry Clay.

As president, Fillmore strongly supported the Compromise of 1850, a series of bills intended to defuse tension between free and slave states. His decision to sign the Fugitive Slave Act on September 18, 1850, which required federal officials to pursue runaway slaves and imposed penalties on those who helped them escape, was highly controversial. This enforcement alienated the North and contributed to the eventual destruction of the Whig Party.

After leaving the presidency, Fillmore joined the nativist Know-Nothing movement and ran as their presidential candidate in 1856, receiving 21.5 percent of the popular vote.

PRESIDENCY Millard Fillmore, who sounds like he should have been selling stove polish or running a respectable stationery shop, somehow ended up as the 13th president of the United States. He took office on July 9, 1850, following the unexpected and rather inconvenient death of President Zachary Taylor, who succumbed—depending on which theory you prefer—to either bad cherries, dodgy milk, or simply the 1850s.

Fillmore, who had never even met Taylor’s cabinet socially, now had to run the country.

Fillmore inherited a nation in the grip of what can only be described as a spectacularly bad mood. The United States was feuding with itself over what to do with all the shiny new land acquired after the Mexican–American War. Specifically, should slavery be allowed to spread into these new territories? People in Washington couldn’t agree. People in the South wanted it. People in the North were increasingly appalled by it. Senators shouted, quills were thrown (probably), and the Union looked a bit peaky.

In the middle of this drama was the Compromise of 1850, a legislative patchwork quilt devised by the ever-helpful Henry Clay and the astonishingly energetic Stephen A. Douglas. The compromise tried to give something to everyone:

Utah and New Mexico got to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, which is a bit like asking a toddler to vote on bedtime.

Texas received $10 million to stop arguing about its border.

Washington, D.C., stopped trading slaves but awkwardly kept slavery itself.

And most controversially, a souped-up Fugitive Slave Act was passed that required Northerners to help return escaped slaves. Yes, even if they really, really didn’t want to.

Fillmore signed the whole bundle into law and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act with alarming gusto, even threatening to send in the army. In the North, this made him about as popular as a cold outhouse. In the South, it bought him a little time. And in hindsight, it postponed the Civil War by about a decade—though it also managed to make everyone furious in the process.

Fillmore did his best to look presidential. He sacked Taylor’s cabinet and brought in more conciliatory Whigs, including the wheezy and wise Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. But his use of patronage to reward loyalists turned the Whig Party into a snake pit of resentment and cliques. By 1852, the party wanted nothing to do with him.

The Whigs, never a sturdy political outfit to begin with, promptly fell to pieces not long after. Fillmore didn’t help, but he didn’t singlehandedly kill the party either. It was more of a group suicide.

On the foreign front, Fillmore managed some impressive feats. He sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan, which would eventually open that famously closed country to Western trade (and lots of regrettable treaties). He also managed to keep Hawaii from being gobbled up by the French and smoothed things over with Spain after a few Americans got a bit carried away in Cuba.

In other words, he did a fairly decent job abroad—possibly because the domestic front was so deeply unpleasant.

Today, Millard Fillmore is remembered—if he’s remembered at all—as the man who tried to hold America together with polite compromise, legalistic rigor, and a very large bottle of headache medicine. His strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act made him a villain in the North and a footnote everywhere else. Historians rank him somewhere between “not awful” and “blandly complicit.”

Still, he bought the country ten more years before everything exploded. In politics, sometimes just not making it worse is an achievement.

MILITARY RECORD Fillmore had no military service. His father convinced him at age 14 not to enlist for the War of 1812, instead arranging his apprenticeship to a cloth maker.

In 1850, President Millard Fillmore ordered that Alcatraz Island be set aside specifically as a United States military reservation for military purposes. This executive order recognized the island’s strategic value for the defense of San Francisco Bay following the U.S. acquisition of California after the Mexican–American War. The island was formally reserved as a military site on November 6, 1850, and construction of military fortifications began soon after, eventually leading to the establishment of Fort Alcatraz

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Fillmore's health was generally described as sound until his final illness.

HOMES Millard Fillmore built his first significant home in East Aurora, New York, in 1826, shortly after marrying Abigail Powers. This modest house, often called the "Honeymoon Cottage," was where the couple lived until 1830 and where their son, Millard Powers Fillmore, was born. The house still stands today at 24 Shearer Avenue and is preserved as a National Historic Landmark and museum, featuring original furnishings and artifacts from Fillmore’s life.

Fillmore's East Aurora home By Pubdog -

After leaving East Aurora, Fillmore moved to Buffalo, where he lived at several addresses. His first residence in Buffalo was at 180 Franklin Street, where he lived with Abigail and their two children. This house was later remodeled and eventually demolished, but it was Fillmore’s primary home before and after his presidency.

Following Abigail’s death and his remarriage to Caroline Carmichael McIntosh, Fillmore purchased a grand mansion on Niagara Square, known as the Hollister mansion or "The Castle." He lived here from 1858 until his death in 1874. This opulent home became a local landmark and was later converted into the "Hotel Fillmore" before being demolished in the early 20th century to make way for the Statler Hotel.

TRAVEL Fillmore's travels were primarily related to his political career, moving between East Aurora and Buffalo in New York, and to Albany, New York, and Washington, D.C., as his political responsibilities required. 

Millard Fillmore traveled to Europe after his presidency. In 1855, he embarked on an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East, spending over a year abroad from March 1855 to June 1856. During this trip, he met with prominent leaders, including an audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome, and was received by Queen Victoria in England. Fillmore’s travels were partly intended to keep him out of the contentious American political scene and also allowed him to observe political developments abroad.

DEATH Millard Fillmore died at his home in Buffalo, New York, on March 8, 1874, at the age of 74. His death followed a stroke he suffered in February 1874, and a second, fatal stroke on March 8. Fillmore remained conscious until the end, with his last words reportedly being a comment to his physician about his nourishment: "the nourishment is palatable." His passing was described as painless.

Fillmore’s funeral was held on Thursday, March 12, 1874. His body was placed in a rosewood coffin in the west room of his Niagara Square home before the service. The funeral procession included hundreds of mourners and was attended by prominent figures, including three U.S. Senators sent to represent the Senate, among them former Vice President Hannibal Hamlin.

National mourning was declared by President Ulysses S. Grant, who ordered the Executive Mansion and federal departments in Washington to be draped in mourning and all business to be suspended on the day of the funeral. Military and naval honors were rendered across the country, including gun salutes and flags at half-staff, and officers wore mourning badges for thirty days.

Millard Fillmore was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. His gravesite remains a notable historic location at 1411 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. 

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA  Fillmore has been described as "probably the most susceptible to satire, spoofing and lampooning" among obscure U.S. Presidents. His name continues to appear in modern culture in unexpected ways, including as the namesake for a "Millard Fillmore Herringbone Tweed Jacket" being sold by a fashion retailer.

 Late-night comedians and sitcoms occasionally use his name as shorthand for “random historical figure.”

The Simpsons has referenced Fillmore in passing as part of gags involving obscure history.

In King of the Hill, Hank once suggests that someone could have a "Millard Fillmore haircut"—a nod to how forgettable and unremarkable Fillmore's legacy is perceived to be.

ACHIEVEMENTS Presidency during a critical period in American history.

Supported the Compromise of 1850, which temporarily eased tensions over slavery.

Sent Commodore Perry to Japan, which led to the opening of that country to trade with the West.

Helped found the University of Buffalo.

Sources (1) Ballotpedia (2) The Presidential Ham (3) American Historama (4) GQ (5) Presidential Pet Museum (6) The Rev. Dr. Robert Wright Lee