Volume 8 — Issue 3 — July 2021

 

Monthly events

July 7 at noon: “From Wood to Steel - the Beginnings of the Steel Navy, 1861-1886.” Call [phone] to reserve a seat in the James R. Garfield Room at the Mentor Public Library.

Aug. 4: In celebration of the Great American Outdoors Act, today is a free entrance day.

Aug. 25: In celebration of the National Park Service’s 104th birthday, today is a free entrance day.

 

A brief history

James A. Garfield spent most of his 49 years of life in northeast Ohio. He was born November 19, 1831, in Orange Township (now Moreland Hills), Ohio.

His early school days were in northeast Ohio at Geauga Seminary and also the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which is now known as Hiram College.

James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, Ohio, was the summer home of Congressman Garfield from 1877-1881.

In the summer of 1880 when he was the Republican presidential candidate, this farm was the site of his front porch campaign.

On July 2, President James A. Garfield was shot at the train station in Washington, D.C. He died 80 days later.

The president was brought home to northeast Ohio and interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

 

Illustration from “David Copperfield” showing Betsey Trotwood
with her nephew.

What’s in a (nick) name?

“I am now reading Charles Dickens’ noted ‘David Copperfield.’ I am much delighted with it.” So wrote James Garfield in his diary on November 10, 1855, five years before the birth of his first child, his daughter Eliza Arabella. Her parents called her “Trot.” Garfield biographer Margaret Leech wrote that the nickname was “conferred by Garfield in some unexplained allusion to Aunt Betsey Trotwood in ‘David Copperfield.’ ”

In letters to his wife, Lucretia, Garfield regularly asked her to “kiss Trot for me.” Sometimes he referred to his daughter as “Mrs. Polk,” and “the little cogger.” In a letter dated April 14, 1861, he wrote, “I wish to write a letter to Trot, as soon as I can. The little grump – She don’t care anything about me. Kiss her, though …” In fact, father and daughter had a close bond of affection.

 

Quote of the month

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.”
-- James A. Garfield on July 12, 1880.

 

A look back

James’ and Lucretia Garfield’s first child, Eliza Arabella, was born on July 3, 1860, in Hiram, Ohio. Her nickname was “Little Trot,” a variation of the name of a character [Mrs. Trotwood] in “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. Trot died when she was 3 1/2 years old of diphtheria.