First off, a dollar coin? Again? Second, anything that memorializes President Fillmore is going to be ridiculed, that’s just human nature
Buffalo and Moravia, N.Y., are vying for a piece of the Millard Fillmore action.
The two communities both claim this mostly forgotten president, whose very name is associated with mediocrity, and whose oft-cited greatest achievement—installing a bathtub in the White House—was a hoax perpetrated by the writer H.L. Mencken .
Many in New York City have their theories about the man… and their guesses. But the 13th president of the United States is a hero in his hometown of Moravia, New York. WSJ’s Anna Prior reports.
The U.S. Mint this week is releasing the Millard Fillmore presidential dollar coin, with an official launch ceremony on Thursday in Moravia (pop. 4,000), near his birthplace. Some people in Buffalo are miffed.
Fillmore, you see, is buried in Buffalo, where he made his mark as the first chancellor of the University at Buffalo, founding member and first president of the Buffalo Club, and founder of the Buffalo Historical society.
“His legacy is here in Buffalo, not in—what is it?—Moravia,” says William Regan, special-events director for the University at Buffalo. He heads up the annual birthday tribute at Fillmore’s grave. “Why [the coin ceremony] isn’t in Buffalo, I couldn’t tell you. It is kind of strange.”
Buffalo has decided to have its own coin ceremony at City Hall, complete with the representative from the Mint who has promised to swing by. Not even George Washington got a coin launch complete with a Mint rep in two cities.
[Click to continue reading The U.S. Mint is rolling out President Millard Fillmore again, this time on a dollar coin – WSJ.com]
Wikpedia entry begins:
Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th President of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853 and the last member of the Whig Party to hold that office. He was the second Vice President to assume the presidency upon the death of a sitting president, succeeding Zachary Taylor, who died of what is thought to be acute gastroenteritis. Fillmore was never elected president; after serving out Taylor’s term, he failed to gain the nomination of the Whigs for president in the 1852 presidential election, and, four years later, in the 1856 presidential election, he again failed to win election as the Know Nothing Party and Whig candidate.
[Click to continue reading Millard Fillmore – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
couldn’t even get re-nominated by his own party. Yikes.