James Knox Polk, the eleventh U.S. President, and one of the most highly acclaimed U.S. Presidents, was born in Mecklenburg, North Carolina to a family of ten. Samuel, his father, was a farmer and slaveholder. His mother, Jane, descended from a brother of religious reformer, John Knox. James was named after his grandfather and like most of the early settlers who are of Scots-Irish descent in North Carolina, the Knoxes and Polks were Presbyterian.

His mother was a devotee of the Presbyterian b