James Polk was born on November 2, 1795 the first of ten children, was born in a farmhouse (possibly a "log" cabin)in what is now Pineville, North Carolina in Mecklenburg County just outside of Charlotte. His father, Samuel Polk, was a slaveholder, successful farmer and surveyor of Scots-Irish descent. His mother, Jane Polk (née Knox), was a descendant of a brother of the Scottish religious reformer John Knox and named her firstborn after her father James Knox. Like most early settlers in the North Carolina mountains, the Knox and Polk families were traditionally Presbyterian.
Democratic