BUFFALO, N.Y. – The New York Air Guard’s 107th Attack Wing honored Millard Fillmore, the nation’s 13th president, when the wing’s Mission Support Group deputy commander laid a wreath at his gravesite Jan. 7 in Buffalo.
Lt. Col. Andrew Rodgers of Buffalo placed a wreath on behalf of President Donald J. Trump at Fillmore’s grave in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Since 1967, under the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, military officers have upheld the tradition of placing wreaths on behalf of the sitting president at the graves of former presidents on their birthdays.
“It makes me feel incredibly proud,” Rodgers said. “It’s not every day you get to represent the men and women of the 107th for something like this.”
The 107th Attack Wing is based at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.
“Being here, you feel a real connection between the history of Western New York and Fillmore’s legacy,” Rodgers added. “It’s an honor to pay respect to a former president on behalf of the current one.”
Members of the American Legion Francis J. Donovan Post, The Buffalo Club, Forest Lawn Cemetery staff and the local community attended the ceremony.
Fillmore had a lasting impact on the Buffalo community, and Forest Lawn Cemetery continues to help commemorate his legacy, according to Julie Snyder, chief executive officer of Forest Lawn Cemetery.
“As a historic cemetery with national landmark status, having a past president within our gates is an honor,” Snyder said during her opening remarks. “We are proud to be one of only 40 cemeteries across the country that serves as the final resting place for a former president.”
New York National Guard officers also present wreaths at the gravesites of Presidents Martin Van Buren, buried in Kinderhook in the Hudson Valley, and Chester A. Arthur, buried in Menands, a suburb of Albany.
Forest Lawn Cemetery, established in 1849, was one of the first professionally landscaped rural cemeteries in the United States and is the final resting place for more than 170,000 individuals, according to cemetery officials.
Fillmore was born in Summerhill, New York, in 1800 and died in 1874 after having a stroke. The ceremony marked the 226th anniversary of his birth.
He became a lawyer in 1823 and later served as a member of Congress and comptroller of New York State. He was elected vice president in 1848 on a ticket with President Zachary Taylor.
Fillmore was also a founding member of the University of Buffalo and served as a trustee of the university until his death.
Following Taylor’s death in 1850, Fillmore assumed the presidency. He was the last member of the Whig Party to serve as president. While many Whigs later joined the emerging Republican Party, Fillmore declined and ran unsuccessfully for president in 1856 as the candidate of the Know Nothing Party.
As president, Fillmore supported the Compromise of 1850, a series of laws that admitted California to the Union as a free state and banned the sale of enslaved people in the District of Columbia, while also requiring federal officials to assist in the capture of individuals who had escaped slavery.
The Fugitive Slave Act, a component of the compromise, proved deeply unpopular in the North and damaged Fillmore’s political standing in his home state.