The nation’s eighth president was the first not born a British subject. Martin van Buren was a Democrat who served from 1837 to 1841. The seven men who held the country’s highest political office prior to him all were born before 1776, when the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Britain. Van Buren arrived in the world six years later, in 1782.
Raised in the Dutch community of Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren spoke Dutch as his first language; to date, he’s the only president to learn English as a second language. He also was the first native New Yorker elected to the White House; As of 2017, four other presidents have been born in the Empire State: Millard Fillmore, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Donald Trump. (While not born there, Chester Arthur, a Vermont native, was heavily involved in New York’s Republican Party before he won the White House, and Grover Cleveland, a native of New Jersey, was governor of New York prior to his first term as president.)
