Millard Powers Fillmore


Millard Powers Fillmore was a lawyer and one of two children, and only son, of US President Millard Fillmore and his first wife, Abigail Powers.

Early life

Millard Powers Fillmore, known familiarly as "Powers", was born on April 25, 1828 in Aurora, New York to Millard Fillmore and his first wife, Abigail Powers. In 1828, the year he was born, his father was elected to the New York State Assembly as a member of the Anti-Masonic Party. His maternal grandparents were Reverend Lemuel Powers, a Baptist minister, and Abigail Newland-Powers. His paternal grandparents were Phoebe and Nathaniel Fillmore, a farmer.

Career

He studied law in his father's office and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1849. He served as his father's private secretary during the latter's presidency. After practicing law in Buffalo, New York as the partner of E. Carleton Sprague, he was appointed a federal court clerk.

Personal life

After the death of his mother, in 1853, his father married Caroline Carmichael McIntosh; a union which Millard Powers Fillmore reportedly never accepted. Following his father's death, he engaged in a bitter battle with his stepmother over the terms of his father's will, which young Millard won.
Fillmore never married and had no children, so he was his father's last surviving descendant. He died of apoplexy in Buffalo on November 15, 1889. Fillmore was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. His will directed that all his family correspondence be burned, the motive for which was the subject of much speculation.