Van Buren, Martin, 1927, Biographical Sketch

VICE-PRESIDENT under the Jackson administration, and heir-apparent to that administration, Martin Van Buren was the first President-elect to ride in a train even part of the way to Washington. He was also the first of the Presidents who was born under the American flag, rather than under the British, and he and Roosevelt are the only Presidents not wholly descended from inhabitants of the United Kingdom. He was born and died in a little Rip Van Winkle village on the east bank of the Hudson, of Dutch parentage. His father was a tavern-keeper. Van Buren was the first of the machine-made politicians. He was the first also to propose the plan of an independent Treasury. It was during his term of office (1837-1841) that the commercial crisis of 1837 occurred, in which all the banks suspended specie payments.1. Brief Biographies of our Presidents and the First Ladies of the Land, 1927, American Weekly, Inc., page 9.