Born in a log cabin on the New York frontier in 1800, President Fillmore is the second of eight children and is named for his mother, Phoebe Millard. His father, Nathaniel, leases land as a tenant farmer. Young Millard’s childhood is demanding and poor; he works on the small family farm, occasionally attends one-room schools, and endures extreme poverty. At fourteen, Nathaniel Fillmore apprentices his son to a local cloth maker, but Millard chafes at the menial labor and quits.
