Millard fillmore president facts

1. Fillmore rose up out of extreme poverty.

Born in a log cabin, Millard Fillmore spent much of his youth clearing land and raising crops on the 130-acre farm that his father leased in New York’s Finger Lakes region.

At age 14, his father, hoping to steer him away from farm life, apprenticed him to a cloth dresser.

Millard fillmore president facts

But he soon returned home after allegedly suffering severe mistreatment. Fillmore next apprenticed with the owners of a textile mill. Despite receiving only minimal formal schooling, he worked hard to educate himself and eventually became a schoolteacher.

He also took an interest in the law, spurred on by his father’s landlord, a local judge. Following a couple of clerkships, Fillmore was admitted to the bar at age 23 and opened a practice near Buffalo, New York, where he made a good living and began to meet the area’s political leaders.

2.

He got his political start as an Anti-Mason.

Fillmore was elected to the New York state legislature in 1828 on the Anti-Masoni