Basic Facts:
Birth: December 5, 1782 at Kinderhook, New York
Death: July 24, 1862 at Kinderhook, New York
Married: Hannah Hoes (1783-1819) on Feb 21, 1807
Children: Five, Abraham, John, Martin, Winfield, Smith Thompson
President: One term beginning March 4, 1837
Family:
His autobiography does not mention his wife once. His wife, Hannah Hoes, died of tuberculosis in 1819. They had four children: Abraham, John, Martin, Jr., and Smith Thompson. He never remarried. Hannah was Martin’s childhood sweetheart and cousin once removed.
- Abraham (1807-1873) At age 15 attended West Point. Graduated in 1827 (37th in a class of 38). He served in the military until 1837 when he resigned his commission to act as his father’s secretary in the White House. Abraham married in 1838 to a cousin of Dolley Madison named Angelica Singleton. After their honeymoon, Angelica performed the First Lady duties for her father-in-law. They had four children. Following the election of 1840, Abraham rejoined the military. After retirement, he oversaw management of his wife’s South Carolina plantation and traveled extensively in Europe
- John (1810-1866) graduated from Yale University and became a lawyer. On June 22, 1841, he married Elizabeth Vanderpoel (b. May 22, 1810), his childhood sweetheart. They had one daughter, Anna (1842-1923). Elizabeth Vanderpoel died on November 19, 1844, and John Van Buren never remarried.
- Martin (1812-1855) Martin Jr. was 25 when his father was elected president, and he performed a number of tasks in the capitol as part of his father’s administration. He never married or had children and died of tuberculosis.
- Winfield Scott (1814)
- Smith Thompson (1817-1876) For a career, Smith followed in his father and older brother John’s footsteps and became a lawyer. On June 18, 1842, when Smith was 25 years old, he married Ellen King James. They had four children. Ellen died in 1850. Smith remarried Henrietta Eckford Irving, the niece of Washington Irving, and they moved to Beacon, NY. Together he and his second wife would have three children. Smith died in 1876 of “softening of the brain.”
Other
Van Buren was the first president born in the United States. All previous presidents were born before the United States became country, although all were born in places that would later be a part of the United States.
Van Buren was Secretary of State for Andrew Jackson in 1830, Minister to Great Britain in 1831, and Vice-President after the Election of 1832 (Andrew Jackson).
In the election of 1836, Van Buren received 58% of the electoral vote. It was the only election until 1988 (George H. W. Bush) to result in the elevation of an incumbent Vice President to the nation’s highest office.
This election is the first (and to date only) time in which a Vice Presidential election was thrown into the Senate.
Van Buren was one of the shortest presidents at 5′ 6″. He was nicknamed “Little Magician” (because of his behind-the-scenes maneuvers) and “Martin Van Ruin” and “Blue Whiskey Van”.
Van Buren took $100,000, the sum of his salary as president over four years, in a lump sum at the end of his term.
The term “O.K.” was popularized because of Van Buren. Van Buren was from Kinderhook, New York, sometimes referred to as Old Kinderhook in speeches and print. O.K. Clubs soon formed to support Van Buren’s campaign. “O.K.” later came to mean all right.
He said: “As to the Presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.”
On March 28, 1837, President Martin Van Buren proclaimed the Platte Purchase part of the state of Missouri, making what was the largest state in the union at that time even larger. It had been purchased from Native American tribes for $7500.
Ideologically, Van Buren favored states’ rights and limited federal government, low tariffs and free trade. He opposed universal suffrage and wanted to maintain property requirements for voting. He thought slavery was morally wrong but believed that Congress did not have the right to abolish it without the consent of slave states.
The earliest Democratic Party Platform included such items as a strict interpretation of the Constitution, a denial that the federal government has the authority to pay for internal improvements, that Congress has no power to charter a national bank, and that “it is the duty of every branch of the government, to enforce and practice the most rigid economy, in conducting our public affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised, than is required to defray the necessary expenses of the government.”
Van Buren made three unsuccessful bids for reelection.
Van Buren made a two-year European trip and then retired to Lindenwald, an estate he had purchased in 1839. Eventually, his four living sons, Abraham, John, Martin Jr., and Smith, had rooms in the mansion. Lindenwald is now a National Historic Site
He died there of respiratory problems (possibly asthma or sleep apnea) at age seventy-nine on July 24, 1862.
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Sources:
Internet Public Library
thoughtco.com
Quotes
Election of 1836 – Electoral College Scores
Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1837
Biography of Hannah Van Buren
Kinderhook/Martin Van Buren National Historic Site at Lindenwald
doctorzebra.com
National Park Service
Martin Van Buren Natioanl Historic Site
Greenman, Barbara. The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.