William Henry Harrison

This article is about the General and President. For his great-great-grandson, see William H. Harrison (Wyoming Congressman).

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841) was an American military leader, politician, and the ninth President of the United States. He served as the first Governor of the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. Representative and Senator from Ohio. Harrison first gained national fame as a war hero, defeating American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 and earning the nickname "Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tippecanoe"). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable contribution was a victory at the Battle of the Thames, which brought the war in his region to a successful conclusion.

When Harrison took office in 1841 at the age of 68, he was the oldest man to become President; a record that stood for 140 years, until Ronald Reagan became President in 1981 at the age of 69. Harrison died thirty days into his term — the briefest presidency in the history of the office. He was also the first U.S. president to die while in office. His death threw the country into a constitutional crisis.^[1]

Early years and military career

Harrison was born into a prominent political family at the Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County Virginia, the youngest of the seven children of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth Basset. His father was a Virginia planter who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–1777), signed the Declaration of Independence (1776), and was Governor of Virginia (1781-1784). William Henry Harrison's brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, later became a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Virginia. Harrison's father-in-law was Congressman John Cleves Symmes. His stepmother-in-law was the daughter of New Jersey Governor William Livingston. He was the first cousin of Burwell Bassett on his mother's side. Harrison was the last president to be born a British subject.

Before attending the University of Pennsylvania, Harrison attended Hampden-Sydney College. He entered school at the age of 14.[1] Harrison attended the University of Pennsylvania with the intention of becoming a physician, but did not receive a degree. His father's death, in 1791, left Harrison without money for further schooling and so, at the age of 18, he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Army. He was sent to the Northwest Territory, where he spent much of his life. Harrison served as aide-de-camp to General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, from whom he learned how to successfully command an army on the American frontier. Harrison participated in Wayne's decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, which brought the Northwest Indian War to a close. Lieutenant Harrison was one of the signers of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which opened much of present-day Ohio to settlement by white Americans.

Harrison resigned from the Army in 1798 to become Secretary of the Northwest Territory, and acted as governor when Governor Arthur St. Clair was absent. In 1799, Harrison was elected as the first delegate representing the Northwest Territory in the Sixth United States Congress, serving from March 4, 1799, to May 14, 1800. As delegate, he successfully promoted the passage of the Harrison Land Act, which made it easier for people to purchase land for settlement in the Northwest Territory. Harrison resigned from Congress to become governor of the newly formed Indiana Territory at Vincennes. The Indiana Territory consisted of the future states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and the eastern portion of Minnesota. While in Vincennes, Harrison built a home Grouseland, which was the first brick structure in the territory. The home served as the center of social and political life in the territory. The home has been restored and is a popular tourist attraction.

A primary responsibility as territorial governor was to obtain title to Native American lands so that white settlement could expand in the area and the region could attain statehood. Harrison oversaw numerous treaties, purchasing much of present-day Indiana from Native American leaders. The Treaty of Grouseland in 1805 was thought by Harrison to have appeased Native Americans however, tensions, always high on the frontier, became much greater after the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, in which Harrison secured the purchase of more than 2,500,000 acres (10,000 km²) of American Indian land. An Indian resistance movement against U.S. expansion had been growing around the Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa ("The Prophet"). Tecumseh called upon Harrison to nullify the Treaty of Fort Wayne, warned against any whites moving onto the land, and continued to widen his Indian confederation (see "Tecumseh's War"). In 1811, Harrison was authorized to march against the confederacy, winning his famous victory at Prophetstown next to the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers. During the War of 1812, Harrison took command of the Army of the Northwest. He won victories in Indiana and Ohio before invading Canada and crushing the British at the Battle of the Thames, in which Tecumseh was killed. Harrison subsequently resigned from the army because of ongoing disagreements with Secretary of War John Armstrong.

According to a legend which has no historical basis, Tecumseh had placed a curse on Harrison, claiming that every President to be elected in a year ending with the number zero (which happens every 20 years) would die in office. Harrison, Lincoln (elected 1860), Garfield (elected 1880), McKinley (elected 1900), Harding (elected 1920), Roosevelt (elected 1940), and Kennedy (elected 1960) all died in office, falling prey to the Curse of Tecumseh, sometimes called the "zero-year curse". Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, broke the curse, though there was an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981. The next president in the line was George W. Bush, elected in 2000.

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, their interactions with William Henry Harrison and the Prophetstown battle at Tippecanoe are partly fictionalized in the Alvin Maker series of books by Orson Scott Card.

Post-war political career

After the war, Harrison was elected to various political offices, including the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio, serving from October 8, 1816, to March 4, 1819. He was defeated as a candidate for governor of Ohio in 1820 but served in the Ohio State Senate from 1819 to 1821. In 1824, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until May 20, 1828, when he resigned to become Minister to Colombia from 1828 to 1829. Harrison was a tall man, and in Congress he was referred to by fellow westerners as a Buckeye, as were other tall pioneers on the Ohio frontier, as a term of endearment in respect of the Buckeye chestnut tree.

Harrison was the Northern Whig candidate for President in 1836, but lost the election to Martin Van Buren. He was the candidate again in the 1840 election, winning a landslide victory largely because of his heroic military record and a weak U.S. economy.

The Democrats attempted to ridicule Harrison by calling him "Granny Harrison, the petticoat general," because he resigned from the army before the War of 1812 ended. When asking voters whether Harrison should be elected, they asked them what his name backwards was, which happens to be "No Sirrah." Harrison's vice presidential running-mate was John Tyler, and their campaign was marked by exaggeration of both Harrison's military exploits and of his connections to the common man. Harrison came from an aristocratic Virginia family, but his supporters promoted him as a humble frontiersman in the style of the popular Andrew Jackson. A memorable example of these efforts was the Gold Spoon Oration delivered by a Whig congressman. Harrison and Tyler's campaign slogans of "Log Cabins and Hard Cider" and "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" are among the most famous in American politics.

Presidency 1841

Short presidency

When Harrison arrived in Washington, he focused on showing that he was still the steadfast hero of Tippecanoe. He took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, an extremely cold and windy day. Nevertheless, he faced the weather without his overcoat and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history. At 8,445 words, it took nearly two hours to read (even after his friend and fellow Whig, Daniel Webster, had edited it for length). He then rode through the streets in the inaugural parade, and later caught a cold, which then developed into pneumonia and pleurisy. (According to the prevailing medical misconception of the times, it was believed that his illness was caused by the bad weather, when, in fact, he was likely a victim of the virus that causes the common cold, exacerbated by the drastic pressures of his changing circumstances.) He sought to rest in the White House, but could not find a quiet room, as he was deluged with people seeking his favor in the hope that he would appoint them to the numerous offices the president then had at his disposal. In addition, his position and new arrival in Washington obligated Harrison to keep an extremely busy social schedule, making any rest time scarce.

His doctors tried everything to cure him, applying opium, castor oil, Virginia snakeweed, and even actual snakes. But the treatments only made Harrison worse and he went into delirium. He died a month later, at 12:30 a.m., on April 4, 1841, of right lower lobe pneumonia, jaundice, and overwhelming septicemia, becoming the first American president to die in office. His last words were "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Harrison served the shortest term of any American president: only 30 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes.

Harrison only had time for one official act: calling Congress into a special session, which he set to begin on May 31, 1841. He and Whig leader Henry Clay had disagreed over the necessity of the special session (which Harrison opposed, but Clay desired in order to immediately get his economic agenda underway), but Clay's powerful position in both the legislature and the Whig Party quickly forced Harrison to give in. He thus proclaimed the special session in the interests of "the condition of the revenue and finance of the country."^[2] Most of his business during his monthlong presidency, however, involved receiving office seekers. Harrison and Clay had also disagreed about government patronage, which was entirely given at the discretion of the President. Harrison had tried to end the dispute by promising in his inaugural address not to use the power to enhance his own standing in the government; however, the very fact of his appointment power sent scores of people to line up at the doors of the White House. The stress of these interviews and petitions is often thought to have further weakened the already-ill Harrison.^[3]

Harrison's funeral took place in the Wesley Chapel in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1841. He was a founding member of Christ Church, Cincinnati.

The untimely death of Harrison was a disappointment to Whigs, who hoped to pass a revenue tariff and enact measures to support Henry Clay's American System. John Tyler, Harrison's successor and a long-time Democrat, abandoned the Whig agenda, leaving himself without a party.

Harrison's son, John Scott Harrison, was also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio from 1853 to 1857. Harrison's grandson, Benjamin Harrison of Ohio, became the 23rd president in 1889, making them the only grandparent-grandchild pair of presidents to date. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison gave his inaugural address in the rain. Understanding his grandfather's mistakes, he asked his outgoing predecessor (and later his successor), Grover Cleveland, to hold an umbrella above his head, since he also delivered a long inaugural address.

Harrison was the first sitting president to have his picture taken. The original daguerreotype has been lost, although copies of it exist.^[4]

He was the first, but not only, US president to have no military vessel named after him.

Administration and Cabinet

Supreme Court appointments

none

States admitted to the Union

none

Harrison in Pop-Culture

• An episode of the fourth season of The Simpsons, "I Love Lisa", includes a song titled "We are the Mediocre Presidents", which was a tribute to lesser-known presidents. It included the lyric: "There's Taylor, there's Tyler, there's Fillmore and there's Hayes. There's William Henry Harrison, 'I died in thirty days!'"
• The Animaniacs 'The Presidents' song mentions his short presidency: 'William Harrison, how do you praise, that guy was dead in thirty days'
• In the movie Turk 182, the slogan repeated throughout is "Zimmerman flew! Tyler knew!" a jab at the mayor by the hero referencing Harrison's campaign slogan.
• In the Feb 26, 2007 issue of US News and World Report, Harrison is listed as one of the "ten worst" US presidents, something the article itself says is unjust, because he was unable to do anything in merely a month.
• The band They Might Be Giants has covered his campaign song, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too."
• The Alvin Maker book series by Orson Scott Card involves Harrison as a villain, and he is killed by Calvin, the title character's younger brother, using his "knack" of "Making".

Notes and references

• Cleaves, Freeman. Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time. New York: Scribner's, 1939.

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