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Zachary Taylor (1784–1850), Twelfth President of the United States, 1849–1850
Born in Orange County, Virginia, Taylor was the son of a Revolutionary War officer who was granted land in present-day Kentucky, where the family moved. "Old Rough and Ready's" forty-year military career propelled him both to high command in the Mexican War, where he was praised as the American "David" sent against the Mexican "Goliath," and to the presidency. Taylor was a southerner and slaveholder who opposed the expansion of slavery. He died only sixteen months into his presidency, possibly from gastroenteritis (stomach virus [viral infection]).
Onetime fur trader and Crow Indian chief James Beckwourth was born in Fredericskburg. The son of a Revolutionary War veteran and his slave, he discovered the best pass through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to California. |