January 7 is Millard Fillmore‘s birthday.
Statue of President Millard Fillmore, a Buffalo native, on southeast corner of the administration building of the University of Buffalo. Photo credit: Wikipedia
Why isn’t it a national holiday?
UB celebrates Fillmore’s birthday
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) [Monday, January 7, 2013] – The University at Buffalo is celebrating one of its Founding Fathers. Monday would be Millard Fillmore’s 213th birthday, and to mark the occasion, UB helped host a ceremony at the former president’s grave site.
A wreath from the White House was placed at the grave sit, to honor the former leader for his services to the nation and western New York.
After his presidency, Fillmore returned to Buffalo, New York, and a life of good citizenship. He founded the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, for example. And though he himself was about a third-grade dropout, and though he refused an honorary degree from Oxford because he said no man should get a degree he can’t read (it was in Latin), he founded what is now the University at Buffalo.
There’s a moral there, somewhere.
More:
- Polish up your bathtub, oil the wheels: Millard Fillmore’s birthday next Monday, January 7 (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- “UB to Commemorate 213th Anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s Birth,” University at Buffalo press release
- The Aurora, New York, historical society holds an annual fundraising bash to celebrate Fillmore’s birthday, this year on January 10 (you can probably still get tickets!)
- 8 tips for the Millard Fillmore Birthday Bash You’re Planning (Mental Floss)
- Millard Fillmore: Victim of yet another hoax (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- The Presidential Trail… in Buffalo NY (buffalorising.com)
- A neglected 95th anniversary of Mencken and Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub – National Bathtub and Presidential Obscurity Day (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- liberty & law (quotiddly.wordpress.com)
- An Age of Progress (quotiddly.wordpress.com)
- An Interview with Professor Donald Elder: The Presidents of the United States of America (educationviews.org)
- Presidents Who Tweet
- Summerhill, New York — Fillmore’s birthplace — celebrated this year with a community gathering and cake, on Sunday (see photo below); this is the only story I’ve seen that mentions Fillmore’s critical role in opening up trade to Japan
Birthday celebration for President Millard Fillmore in Summerhill, New York; caption from the Auburn, New York, Citizen: Sue Stoyell, treasurer of the Cayuga-Owasco Lakes Historical Society, serves a slice of Millard Filmore’s birthday cake to Roger Stoyell during a celebration of Fillmore’s 213th birthday Sunday at the town hall in Summerhill.
There was music:
Fillmore’s 213th birthday bash in Summerhill, New York; photo by Michelle Bixby, Auburn Citizen: From left, John Davis, Ron Van Nostrand and Don Watkins, three of the seven members of the band “Flock of Free Range Children,” entertain attendees of Millard Filmore’s 213th birthday celebration Sunday at the town hall in Summerhill.
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 