Abraham Garfield

Garfield was born in New York to Thomas Garfield (1773–1801) and Asenath Cynthia Hill (1778–1851). On February 3, 1820, when he was 20 years old, he married Eliza Ballou, a New Hampshire woman of Huguenot descent.^[1][2] The couple moved to Cuyahoga, Ohio and had five children: Mehetabel (1821–1911), Thomas (1822–1910), Mary (1824–1884), James Ballou (1826–1829),^[3] and James Abram (1831–1881).^[4] In Cuyahoga, Abraham worked on a farm belonging to "Uncle Jerdiah" Hubbell, who often made him do minor jobs such as repair a fence or build a canal (which he finished in October 1827).^[5][6] In January 1833, Abraham and Eliza Garfield joined a Stone-Campbell church, a decision that influenced their youngest son's life.^[7] On May 8, 1833, Abraham died in his wife's arms after battling with a sickness.^[8]

On March 31, 1870, Eliza wrote to her son James Garfield about his genealogy and said that Abraham was 5 ft 11 inches, "fluent in politics", a zealous Christian, "had a tolerably quick temper but he could govern it well", cheerful, kind, a writer but not good at spelling, and a "good wrestler".^[8]