04/30/2026
From Congressman James A. Garfield's diary, April 30, 1873:
"Took the morning train to Solon and walk[ed] along and upon the worst Solon roads I have seen for many years. Found Hitty there and had a good family visit. How true and sweet and anxiously regardful for me, these dear sisters are. Each blow that falls upon me they feel, as though it fell upon them.”
Mehetable "Hitty" Garfield was born January 28, 1821, in Newburgh (now Independence), Ohio, She was the oldest of the Garfield children. Not much is known about her early life, but she married Stephen Trowbridge on June 30, 1837 in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, at the age of 16. They lived in Solon where Stephen’s father, Eli, was a prosperous farmer. The couple eventually had one son and three daughters.
Stephen was “attractive and bright - ready of speech but had a transparent honesty - a shiftless dreamer.” There is mention of Stephen having taught at the school that James attended in 1848. However, for the most part he showed very little interest in supporting his family. Hitty lived most of her hard life in Ohio, with her brother James helping her financially whenever he could. Stephen and Hitty separated in later years.
Lucretia Garfield once wrote of Hitty: "In all her struggles with an unnecessary poverty, and sometimes with cruel fate, she has borne herself with an unflinching courage, and a cheerfulness which seemed almost superhuman.”
Mehetable died of chronic nephritis on June 6, 1911.
Photograph: Garfield siblings with their mother, Eliza Ballou Garfield. From left to right: Thomas; Mehetable; Eliza (their mother); James; and Mary. They were a close-knit family, and the four siblings all worked hard to help their widowed mother. (Credit: Western Reserve Historical Society).
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