Eliza Ballou Monument

This monument marks the birthplace of Eliza Ballou, born here in Richmond, New Hampshire, in September of eighteen oh one. Her name may not be familiar, but her son's is. She was the mother of James Abram Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States.

Eliza married Abram Garfield and moved west to the Ohio frontier, where she was widowed young and raised her children in poverty. Her boy James rose from a log cabin to the White House.

When Garfield took the oath of office in eighteen eighty-one, Eliza became the first mother in American history to see her son sworn in as president. She watched him inaugurated and outlived him after he was shot and killed later that same year. This quiet New Hampshire stone honors where that remarkable life began.