Also Born on December 29 Who Shares Your Birthday? The Day You
Were Born The Year You Were Born 1808–1875, 17th President of
the United States Born in Raleigh, N.C., his father died when
Johnson was 3, and at 14 he was apprenticed to a tailor. In 1826
the family moved to E Tennessee, and Andrew soon had his own
tailor shop at Greeneville. A man of no formal schooling but of
great perseverance and strength of character, he was greatly
aided by his wife, Eliza McCardle, whom he married in 1827; she
taught him to write and improved his reading and spelling. He
prospered at his trade, and the tailor shop became the favored
meeting place of other craftsmen, laborers, and small farmers
interested in discussing public affairs. The best debater in the
community, Johnson became the leader of his group in opposition
to the slaveholding aristocracy. From 1830 onward Johnson was
almost continuously in public office, being alderman (1828–30)
and mayor (1830–33) of Greeneville, state representative
(1835–37, 1839–41), stat