Millard Fillmore was born in 1800, son of Nathaniel Fillmore, Jr and Phoebe Millard. He was born in upstate New York in Cayuga County the second of eight children to such an impoverished family that they could not even afford to feed him. His father apprenticed (indentured servant) him to a cloth maker at age fifteen, so brutal it stopped just short of slavery. Millard Fillmore taught himself to read by stealing books. He finally managed to accumulate thirty dollars to pay the obligation to his master and was free.