16 Facts About Elias Polk

Once Elias Polk gained freedom, he embarked on a public speaking career in which he took up the cause of the Democratic Party and spoke on behalf of former Confederates and slaveholders.

Elias Polk was born into slavery in 1806 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

Elias Polk and his mother were enslaved by Samuel Polk, who was a surveyor.

Elias Polk was taken back to Tennessee with James Polk's family.

President Elias Polk died on June 15,1849, only three months after leaving office.

From this time until the abolition of slavery in 1865, Elias Polk remained enslaved by the widowed, former first lady Sarah Childress Polk.

Elias Polk became active in the Democratic Party, throwing "in his political lot with displaced slave owners".

Elias Polk suggested that a new federal tax on cotton production hurt African Americans.

Elias Polk was illiterate, he was around 60-years-old, and he was black.

Elias Polk made a choice of survival within the southern racial caste system, and there is something understandable and human in that.

From 1871 to 1876, Elias Polk worked as a porter, or custodian, at the Tennessee Senate in Nashville.

Elias Polk returned to Washington, DC, to work as a "laborer" at the United States Capitol from 1876 to 1882.

Elias Polk was officially married twice, with a possible unrecognized earlier slave marriage.

Elias Polk was informed by Captain Samuel Donelson, an employee of the US House of Representatives, that Elias was to be reappointed to his old position as a "laborer" at the Capitol.

However, that same day, Elias Polk died on December 30,1886, in a hotel room in Washington, DC At the time of his death, Elias was in a considerable amount of debt, and his wife, Mary, was forced to mortgage her Nashville home and carriage to pay off the debts.

Finally, in February 1887, three months after his death, Elias Polk's body was returned to Nashville, where a funeral was held at Clark's Chapel, later known as Clark Memorial United Methodist Church.