Chester Alan Arthur was a widower when he became president in September of 1881. His wife Ellen (known as "Nell") had died in January of 1880. Arthur was elected Vice-President in November of that year, and became president upon the death of James Garfield.


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On November 19, 1831 (193 years ago today) James Abram Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, was born in Moreland Hills, Ohio. He was the youngest of five children born to Abram and Eliza Garfield. His father, who was known locally as a wrestler, died when Garfield was 18 months old. The future president was raised by his mother, who ( Read more... )

On November 18, 1886 (138 years ago today) Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st President of the United States, died at his home in New York City. He was probably 57 years of age. (There is some confusion about Arthur's age.) Arthur succeeded James Garfield as President on September 19, 1881, following Garfield's death. Garfield had been shot on July 2, ( Read more... )

Chester Alan Arthur became President in September of 1881, following the death of President James Garfield. He had never run for political office before being elected Vice-President, and while many expected his presidency to be a disappointment, he proved to be a pleasant surprise. Instead of doing the bidding of his former political bosses, the ( Read more... )

No doubt you all remember the 1880 election. It came four years after the closest election in presidential history when Rutherford Hayes was elected president after he was awarded the disputed electoral votes of three states just days before he was inaugurated. Many believe that a deal was made in which Hayes was declared president in return for a ( Read more... )

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite obscure Presidents, Chester Alan Arthur. He was born on October 5th, probably 1829. (Arthur's tombstone says that he was born in 1830, but his leading biographer Thomas C. Reeves makes a much stronger case for Arthur being born in 1829, which would mean that he was born 195 years ago today).

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On September 19, 1881 (142 years ago today) James Abram Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, died as the result of gunshot wounds he sustained earlier that year, when he was shot by assassin Charles Guiteau at a Washington DC train station. Garfield was 49 years old when he died.


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When James Garfield died three months after being shot by crazed office seeker Charles Guiteau, many cringed at the thought that Chester Alan Arthur would now become President. A former bagman, who used his lucrative position as Collector of the Port of New York to fill Republican Party coffers, Arthur had never held elected office before being ( Read more... )

Before Ulysses Grant became President, some made comparisons to George Washington, and how one great general became a great president, though this wasn't always the case. The esteem that many held Grant in lessened when it became known that many of Grant's friends, who had been appointed to positions of responsibility in his administration, were ( Read more... )

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution requires that, in order to be eligible to hold the office, a president must "be a natural-born citizen of the United States". Long before President Barack Obama was accused by a group of conspiracy theorists, dubbed as "birthers" by the media, of not being born in the United States, a similar ( Read more... )