James Garfield
James Garfield was probably the poorest man ever to become president. He was born in a log cabin, and his father died when the future president was still a toddler. The family was plunged into poverty.
Garfield worked on canal boats and as a janitor and carpenter to pay the bills while reading and studying on his own before getting into college.
He would become a professor, a lawyer, a minister, a Civil War hero and finally POTUS. Though he achieved the highest office in the land, Garfield still had very little money to his name when his life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet in 1881.
