#13 Millard Fillmore

1850--1853

--Millard Fillmore was born three weeks after the death of George Washington, and was thus the first U.S. president to be born after the death of a former president.

--Fillmore became the second vice president to assume the presidency after the death of a sitting president when he succeeded Zachary Taylor, who died of 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. In the 1856 presidential election, he again failed to win election as the candidate of the American party, part of the Know Nothing movement (which was partially formed around anti-immigrant/anti-Catholic sentiment in the country at the time).

--Fillmore died on March 8, 1874, of the aftereffects of a stroke. His last words were alleged to be, upon being fed some soup, "the nourishment is palatable."

--The ultimate case of a practical joke taken to the extreme, the character of "Millard Fillmore" was actually an invention. First appearing as a prank in the masthead of the Buffalo Picayune in 1822, Fillmore's name later found itself in use at a law practice in East Aurora, NY, and was eventually elected to the New York State Assembly on the Anti-Masonic ticket in 1828. By the time Millard Fillmore won a seat in the 23rd Congress, it was decided that an actual person was needed to represent the name, so an actor was chosen to play the part full-time.

The actor who came to be known as President Millard Fillmore was one Edward Modulok, a marginally gifted thespian who, nevertheless, came to embody his "role" to such a degree that after a while he came to believe he truly was Millard Fillmore.