Harry Augustus Garfield

Harry Augustus Garfield, oldest son of James and Lucretia, was born in Hiram, Ohio, October 11, 1863. His mother gave him that name in May 1864, after two of James Garfield’s friends. His father called him “little Chickamauga,” because he had been born so soon after that pivotal battle. Mostly, he was called Hal.

Hal’s early education was a combination of public school, a private academy, and home tutoring, until he was sent to St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire in 1879. He was at the beginning of his final year at St. Paul’s when his father was elected President, so he studied under a private tutor in Washington, D.C. and experienced life in the White House in the spring of 1881.

Hal and his brother, James Rudolph, were with their father on the day President Garfield was shot. On September 5, 1881, their tutor, Dr. Hawkes, took the older boys to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to begin their freshmen year. It was there that they learned of their father’s death on September 19, 1881. Both sons returned to Williams after the funeral, and graduated with Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1885.

Harry studied law at Columbia University and at All Souls College, Oxford and the Inns of Court, London. Returning from England, he passed the bar and practiced law with his brother James in Cleveland. He married Belle Mason on June 14, 1888, in the new Memorial Library at Lawnfield, the family’s Mentor home. It was a double wedding—Hal and Belle shared the day with Hal's sister Mollie, who wed Joseph Stanley-Brown.

The Garfield and Garfield law partnership lasted a decade and a half, growing in size and influence in Cleveland. For five years, Harry was professor of contracts at Western Reserve University’s law school, and he served on its board of trustees. Princeton College president, Woodrow Wilson, enticed Hal to take a position as professor of politics there in 1903. In 1908 he left Princeton to become president of Williams College, his and his father’s alma mater. He brought new prestige and increased enrollment to the college with a curriculum based on “public service, good citizenship, and moral leadership.”
 
From 1917 to 1919 he headed the U.S. Fuel Administration for President Woodrow Wilson. He received a Distinguished Service Medal for his work in conserving and distributing fuel during the First World War.

After the war, Hal retuned to Williams College. He helped establish the Institute of Politics there and retired in 1934. Hal and Belle raised four children, James, Mason, Lucretia, and Stanton. All their sons attended Williams, and daughter Lucretia went to Bryn Mawr College.

Hal and Belle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary along with Mollie and Joseph Stanley-Brown in 1938. Harry Augustus Garfield died on December 12, 1942, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he is buried.