This brief biography is intended to sketch a personal portrait of Calvin Coolidge. Those interested in a detailed review of the Coolidge presidency are directed to the fine sources of information researched by professional historians and to The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation. .
THE EARLY YEARS.
John Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4,1872 in Plymouth Notch, Vermont in a room behind the general store his father operated. He was the only president born on the Fourth of July. (Two of our presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on the Fourth of July in 1826, exactly fifty years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. President Monroe died on the same date in 1831.) .
Coolidge was named after his father, but the name John was dropped in his boyhood and he was called Calvin, "Cal" or "Red" because of his red hair. His sister Abbie was born in A PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY 1875. The family moved to a home across the street from the store a short time later. An excellent starting point to learn more about President Coolidge is "The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge" available through the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 97, Plymouth Notch,VT 05056.(802-672-3389.) Some of the quotations appearing in this life summary are taken from the President's autobiography. .
Coolidge described his boyhood by saying he was always encouraged to work and save, but that he did his share of playing too. "My playing sometimes got in the way of my filling the wood box. I was sometimes taken out of bed to do penance for such derelictions." His life on the farm was a busy one and required a great deal of work: "I used to help plant potatoes, drive the horse drawn mowing machine, drive the oxen and plow, milk cows and move them to pasture, and help with the harvesting and sugaring.Before Thanksgiving, poultry had to be dressed for market, and a little later the fattened hogs were butchered and the meat salted down.
