Abigail Powers
Fillmore (March 13,
1798 – March 30, 1853), wife of Millard Fillmore, was First Lady of the United
States from 1850 to 1853.
Abigail was
born in Stillwater, New York, 1798, in Saratoga County, New York. She was the
daughter of the Reverend Lemuel Powers, a Baptist minister, and Abigail
Newland-Powers, Abigail grew up in Moravia, New York, not far from the Fillmore
farm. Her father died shortly after her birth. Her mother moved the family
westward, thinking her scanty funds would go further in a less settled region,
and ably educated her small son and daughter beyond the usual frontier level
with the help of her husband's library.
In 1819, she
took a teaching post at the new academy in New Hope, where her oldest pupil was
19-year-old Millard Fillmore. The world of knowledge and Fillmore's steady progress
in it drew them together, and gradually the relationship of teacher and student
evolved into romantic attachment.
After a long
courtship, Millard, aged 26, and Abigail, aged 27, were married on February 5,
1826, by the Reverend Orasius H. Smith at the home of the bride's brother Judge
Powers in Moravia, New York. Without a honeymoon, they settled at East Aurora,
New York. Mrs. Fillmore continued to teach school until the birth of her first
son and maintained a lifelong interest in education. She shared her husband's
love of books and helped build their personal library.
The Fillmores
had a son and a daughter:
- Millard
Powers Fillmore (1828–1889)
- Mary
Abigail Fillmore (1832–1854)
Attaining
prosperity at last, Fillmore bought his family a six-room house in Buffalo, New
York. Enjoying comparative luxury, Abigail learned the ways of society as the
wife of a Congressman. She cultivated a noted flower garden; but much of her
time, as always, she spent reading. In 1847 when Fillmore was elected New York
State Comptroller the family temporarily moved to Albany, New York; their
children were away in boarding school and college.
In 1849,
Abigail Fillmore came to Washington, D.C. as wife of the Vice President; 16
months later, after Zachary Taylor's death at a height of sectional crisis, the
Fillmores moved into the White House.
Even after the
period of official mourning, the social life of the Fillmore administration
remained subdued. Pleading her delicate health, she entrusted many routine
social duties to her daughter, "Abby." With a special appropriation
from Congress, she spent contented hours selecting books for a White House
library and arranging them in the oval room upstairs, where Abby had her piano,
harp, and guitar.
At the outdoor
inaugural ceremonies for Franklin Pierce in 1853, she caught a cold and the
next day came down with a fever. She developed pneumonia and died just 26 days
after leaving the White House, on March 30, 1853, at the Willard Hotel in Washington,
D.C., the shortest post-Presidential life of any former first lady. She was
buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. The memorial stone was
placed by the Abigail Fillmore Chapter, National Society Daughters of the
American Revolution, of Buffalo.
On February 10,
1858, five years after her death, her husband married Mrs. Caroline Carmichael
McIntosh, a wealthy Buffalo widow. They remained married until Millard's death
on March 8, 1874.
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