William Henry Harrison | Biography, Presidency, & Facts He and Clay had disagreed over the necessity of such a session, and Harrison's cabinet proved evenly divided, so the president initially vetoed the idea. [2][6] He studied there for three years, receiving a classical education that included Latin, Greek, French, logic, and debate. [5], When Harrison was reappointed as the Indiana territorial governor on February 8, 1803, he was given expanded authority to negotiate and conclude treaties with the Indians. William Henry Harrison [84], Local supporters had come to Harrison's relief, by appointing him Clerk of Courts for Hamilton County, where he worked from 1836 until 1840. Instead, in May 1800, Adams appointed Harrison governor of the newly created Indiana Territory, which comprised, until 1809, a much larger area than the present state of Indiana. [113], Harrison took seriously his pledge to reform executive appointments, visiting each of the six cabinet departments to observe its operations and issuing through Webster an order that electioneering by employees would be considered grounds for dismissal. Although the Whig Party was in the minority in Illinios, Lincoln agreed with its policies and supported the party's Most of Harrison's business during his month-long presidency involved extensive social obligations and receiving visitors at the White House. [35][138], Harrison's long-term impact on American politics includes his campaigning methods, which laid the foundation for modern presidential campaign tactics. William Henry Harrison [59] Tecumseh then began shouting at Harrison and called him a liar. Tyler arrived in Washington on the morning of April 6. After Clay failed to win the nomination on the first two votes, the delegates nominated Harrison, who one Whig strategist called the most unobjectionable candidate. As a soldier, farmer, and outdoorsman, Harrison had spent much of his life in bad weather. [70] He received orders to retake Detroit and boost morale, but he initially held back, unwilling to press the war northward. Four years later, the party nominated him again, with John Tyler as his running mate, under the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too". [12] He was initially assigned to Fort Washington, Cincinnati in the Northwest Territory where the army was engaged in the ongoing Northwest Indian War. Harrison was promoted to captain in 1797 and, for a brief period, served as commander of Fort Washington, resigning from the army in June 1798. It was considered to be one of the great American victories in the war, second only to the Battle of New Orleans, and secured a national reputation for Harrison. [17] Harrison was promoted to captain in May 1797 and resigned from the Army on June 1, 1798. [124] Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiak did an analysis in Clinical Infectious Diseases (2014), examining Miller's notes and records showing that the White House water supply was downstream of public sewage, and they concluded that he likely died of septic shock due to "enteric fever" (typhoid or paratyphoid fever).[125][126]. Harrison grew up among the elite of Virginia. William Henry Harrison was inaugurated as the ninth president of the United States on March 4, 1841, but died thirty-one days later, making him the shortest-serving U.S. president. [5] A Shawnee friendly to Harrison cocked his pistol from the sidelines to alert Harrison that Tecumseh's speech was leading to trouble, and some witnesses reported that Tecumseh was encouraging the warriors to kill Harrison. William Henry Harrison Clay pressed him on the special session on March 13, but Harrison rebuffed him and told him not to visit the White House again, to address him only in writing. [5], In addition to resulting tensions with the Indians, Harrison's pro-slavery position made him unpopular with the Indiana Territory's abolitionists, as he tried in vain to encourage slavery in the territory. He won the Electoral College by a landslide: 234 electoral votes to 60 for Van Buren. We speak particularly on this point, because we were eyewitnesses of all that passed. William Henry Harrison gives the longest inauguration speech in history, one hour and 45 minutes. The following year Harrison was sent to Congress as a territorial delegate. The official cause of death was pneumonia. He was a son of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father of the United States. After his father dies, William Henry Harrison leaves medical school at what is now the University of Pennsylvania and joins the army. WebWilliam Henry Harrison's inaugural address lasted nearly two hours, but in the days before electronic media, oratory of such duration was common. "[114] His own cabinet attempted to countermand his appointment of John Chambers as Governor of the Iowa Territory in favor of Webster's friend James Wilson. [5] He therefore withdrew from medical school, though school archives record him as a "non-graduate alumnus of Penn's medical school class of 1793". Corrections? He asked Harrison to nullify it and warned that Americans should not attempt to settle the lands sold in the treaty. On January 26, 1841, Harrison left Cincinnati for the March 4 inauguration in Washington, D.C. [34][35] He had no authority to vote on legislative bills, but he was permitted to serve on a committee, to submit legislation, and to engage in debate. They were bearing the dead body of Harrison to the grave. The speech is well over 8,000 words double that of any other. (White House Historical Association) It is unlikely, however, that the long-winded speech caused the presidents [32] Freeholders were permitted to buy smaller lots with a down payment of only five percent, and this became an important factor in the Territory's rapid population growth. [5] He led an army north with 950 men to intimidate the Shawnee into making peace, but the tribes launched a surprise attack early on November 7 in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Harrison was born on February 9, 1773, in Charles City County, the youngest of seven children of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth Bassett Harrison. A group arrived in his office on March 16 to demand the removal of all Democrats from any appointed office, and Harrison proclaimed, "So help me God, I will resign my office before I can be guilty of such an iniquity! William Henry Harrison Harrison saw a window of opportunity in Tecumseh's absence, and advised Secretary of War William Eustis to present a show of force to the Indian confederation. Many of them began to pull their weapons, representing a substantial threat to Harrison and the town, which held a population of only 1,000. Harrison defeated Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election. In 1799, he was elected as the territory's non-voting delegate in the United States House of Representatives. President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia several weeks after taking office. [7][8] His Episcopalian father removed him from the college, possibly for religious reasons, and after brief stays at an academy in Southampton County, Virginia, and with his elder brother Benjamin in Richmond, he went to Philadelphia in 1790. He was also eager to expand the territory for personal reasons, as his political fortunes were tied to Indiana's eventual statehood. Harrison resigned from the army in 1798 and was appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory by President John Adams. [99][102], When Harrison came to Washington, he wanted to show that he was still the steadfast hero of Tippecanoe and that he was a better educated and more thoughtful man than the backwoods caricature portrayed in the campaign. [128], That June, Harrison's body was transported by train and river barge to North Bend, Ohio, and he was buried on July 7 at the summit of Mt. William Henry Harrison resigns from the army and is appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory by President John Adams. Harrison was born on February 9, 1773, at Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County to Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the fifth governor of Virginia (17811784), and Elizabeth Bassett Harrison. Returning to military service, Harrison commanded a force of seasoned regulars and militia that defeated the Indians led by the Prophet at the Battle of Tippecanoe (November 7, 1811), near present-day Lafayette, Indiana, a victory that largely established his military reputation in the public mind. [136] The precedent that Congress set in 1841 was followed on seven occasions when an incumbent president died, and it was written into the Constitution in 1967 through Section One of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. [103] He resisted pressure from other Whigs over partisan patronage. [20] They honeymooned at Fort Washington, since Harrison was still on military duty. [46] The territorial capital was eventually moved to Corydon in 1813, and Harrison built a second home at nearby Harrison Valley. Tyler was resolute in his claim to the title of President and in his determination to exercise the full powers of the presidency. President John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary that Harrison, who he said had a lively and active but shallow mind, had become the greatest beggar and the most troublesome of all office-seekers. Nevertheless, on May 24, 1828, Adams named Harrison minister to Gran Colombia (which included present-day Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, and parts of Peru and Brazil). On April 9, Tyler gave a brief inaugural address. A rush was made to unharness the animals when the General spoke to several of them and endeavored to prevent it; but the team was soon unmanageable, and it became necessary to take them off. His son died seven years later; eight of the ten Harrison children would die by 1846, a high toll even by nineteenth-century standards. 9th Long the defender of my country's [12] Congress had legislated a territorial policy that led to high land costs, a primary concern for settlers in the Territory; Harrison became their champion to lower those prices. This act was the spontaneous burst of ten thousand grateful hearts. William Henry Harrison was buried near his home in North Bend, Ohio. All this only weakened Harrison further, and three weeks after taking office, he was clearly dying. This letter is addressed to general Harrison; he demands that the Indian lands be returned. [95], The Whigs blamed Van Buren for the economic problems and nicknamed him "Van Ruin". [119] According to papers in Washington on Friday, Harrison had rallied, despite a Baltimore Sun report that his condition was of a "more dangerous character". WebAn illustrated chronology of key events in the life of William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), ninth president of the United States. [119] A team of doctors was called in Monday, March 29, and they confirmed right lower lobe pneumonia. However, he is remembered for his Indian entreaties, and also his inventive election campaign tactics. [32] He campaigned to encourage further migration to the territory, which eventually led to statehood. An opposition newspaper writer portrayed him as a feeble, elderly man: Give him a barrel of hard cider, and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him, and take my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin. The Whigs made this image of Harrison as a cabin-dwelling, cider-drinking common man the centerpiece of his campaigneven though he descended from the Virginia elite, lived in a mansion, and didnt drink hard cideras a contrast to the cosmopolitan Van Buren. The Constitution clearly provided for the vice president to take over the "Powers and Duties of the said Office" in the event of a president's removal, death, resignation, or inability, but it was unclear whether the vice president formally became president of the United States, or simply temporarily assumed the powers and duties of that office, in a case of succession. [47], Harrison's primary responsibility was to obtain title to Indian lands that would allow future settlement and increase the territory's population, a requirement for statehood. His vice president, John Tyler, assumes the office of president. Democrats mocked him as General Mum and said the Whigs were keeping their aged candidate locked in an Iron Cage. Then Harrison accepted an invitation to speak at a celebration of the siege at Fort Meigs. [70] Harrison was succeeded by John Gibson as acting governor of the territory. Harrison was a general at the time and became president in 1841. His funeral on April 7 was the first for a sitting president. The popular vote margin was much closer, at fewer than 150,000 votes, though he carried nineteen of the twenty-six states. [59] Chief Winamac was friendly to Harrison, and he countered Tecumseh's arguments, telling the warriors that they should return home in peace since they had come in peace. [70], The outbreak of war with the British in 1812 led to continued conflict with Indians in the Northwest. [50] Harrison was also able to conduct matters unquestioned by the government, as the administration changed hands from Jefferson to Madison. Many of the Sauk resented the loss of lands, especially their leader Black Hawk. It is the only known speech that Lincoln gave in Kentucky. John Adams named Harrison to succeed Winthrop Sargent as secretary of the Northwest Territory, a vast tract of land encompassing most of the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The Northwest Territory's population reached a sufficient number to have a congressional delegate in October 1799, and Harrison ran for election. Troops led by William Henry Harrison defeat Native Americans led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe near the Tippecanoe River in Indiana. Harrison told friends that he was so busy that he hardly had time to perform the necessary functions of nature., Harrison took daily walks around Washington, sometimes in the rain and cold. Nothing worked. Some of Harrisons grown children lived in his house; one grandson born there was Benjamin Harrison, who in 1889 became the twenty-third president of the United States. "[87] DeBaptiste became his valet, and later White House steward. 01/17/2012 Book Details The president who served the shortest termjust a single monthbut whose victorious election campaign rewrote the rules for candidates seeking America's highest office William Henry Harrison died just thirty-one days after taking the oath of office in 1841. [52] Though Harrison asserted that the suspension was necessary to promote settlement and make the territory economically viable and ready for statehood, the proposal failed. [5] Biographer James Hall claims that Harrison found in Columbia a military despotism and that "his liberal opinions, his stern republican integrity, and the plain simplicity of his dress and manners, contrasted too strongly with the arbitrary opinions and ostentatious behaviour of the public officers, to allow him to be long a favourite with those who had usurped the power of that government. A rope was brought, and attached to the carriage, by which the people drew it to the Marshall House. In November 1791, at age 18, he enlisted in the army as an ensign in the 10th Regiment at Fort Washington near Cincinnati (in what is now Ohio). Gen. James Winchester, whom Harrison had ordered to prepare to cross Lake Erie on the ice and surprise Fort Maiden, turned back to rescue the threatened American settlement at Frenchtown (now Monroe, Michigan), on the River Raisin, and there on January 22, 1813, was forced to surrender to Col. Henry A. Procter. He died one month later of pneumonia, believed to have been brought on by prolonged exposure to the elements on his Inauguration Day. In May 1834, Harrison was appointed clerk of courts of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati, a lowly position for a man of his political ambitions. ", "William Harrison: The American Franchise", "American TreasuresHarrison's Inauguration", "William Henry Harrison Inaugural Address", "William Harrison: March 4, 1841 Inaugural Address", "Letter from Harrison to R. Buchanan, Esq., March 10, 1841", "American History Series: The Brief Presidency of William Henry Harrison", "Pres. In one sentence, this described the new American political process. All in all, Harrison committed to a weak presidency, deferring to "the First Branch", the Congress, in keeping with Whig principles.[105][104]. Hordes of office applicants came to the White House, which was then open to any who wanted a meeting with the president. As the day advanced, the procession made its appearance, coming slowly through the Avenue, carriage after carriage, in long succession, while thousands upon thousands followed on footall moving to the sound of melancholy music. Daniel Webster ran in Massachusetts, and Mangum in South Carolina. William Henry Harrisons funeral is held in Washington, D.C. William Henry Harrisons casket is entombed at North Bend, Ohio. In subsequent years Harrison held several government positions. On April 4, 1841, having only served 31 days in office, President William Henry Harrison died. [96] A memorable example was the Gold Spoon Oration that Pennsylvania's Whig representative Charles Ogle delivered in the House, ridiculing Van Buren's elegant White House lifestyle and lavish spending. After taking the presidential oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City, he gave a speech inside the Senate [37], Harrison was also instrumental in arranging the division of the Territory into two sections. [119] A reporter for the New York Commercial indicated that "the country's people were deeply distressed and many of them in tears. [107], Following the speech, he rode through the streets in the inaugural parade,[103] stood in a three-hour receiving line at the White House, and attended three inaugural balls that evening,[108] including one at Carusi's Saloon entitled the "Tippecanoe" ball with 1,000 guests who had paid $10 per person (equal to $312 in 2021). Although his troops had suffered 62 dead and 126 wounded during the battle and the Shawnee just 150 casualties, the Shawnee prophet's vision of spiritual protection had been shattered. [90] The Democrats charged that, by running several candidates, the Whigs sought to prevent a Van Buren victory in the electoral college, and force the election into the House. President Thomas Jefferson reappoints William Henry Harrison governor of the Indiana Territory and later adds the District of Louisiana acquired in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France. -Appeals to pathos and ethos. [66] When no second attack came, the Shawnee defeat had become more certain. His oldest son, Benjamin Harrison VI, took over Berkeley. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/william-henry-harrison-1773-1841 [127] Solomon Northup gave an account of the procession in Twelve Years a Slave: The next day there was a great pageant in Washington. [99] While Van Buren campaigned from the White House, Harrison was on the campaign trail, entertaining with his impressions of Indian war whoops, and took people's minds off the nation's economic troubles. Tyler obliged and was sworn into office on April 6, 1841. [84] Harrison went on to serve as a vestry member through 1819, and then again in 1824. President John Quincy Adams appoints William Henry Harrison ambassador to Gran Colombia. [55] He donated $100 to encourage Lemen with abolition and other good works, and later another $20 to help fund the church known as Bethel Baptist Church. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Because her father objected to the match, the couple married in secret. It was a pivotal American victory in the war, and Harrison was celebrated as the hero of the Battle of the Thames. The two new territories were formally established by law in 1800. William Henry Harrison was the 9th president of the United States, a term that lasted barely a month. [9], His father died in the spring of 1791, and he was placed in the care of Robert Morris, an intimate family friend in Philadelphia. Harrison becomes known as Old Tippecanoe.. While serving in this capacity, he devised a plan for distributing public lands to settlers and also assisted in the division of the Northwest Territory. He is the youngest man to hold the office to date and the first vice president to assume office after a president's death. [49] The Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) raised new tensions when Harrison purchased more than 2.5million acres (10,000km2) from the Potawatomi, Delaware, Miami, and Eel River tribes. William Henry Harrison | American Presidents - C [80] He wrote a letter of polite rebuke to Bolvar, stating that "the strongest of all governments is that which is most free" and calling on Bolvar to encourage the development of democracy. [129], On April 5, Fletcher Webster, the son of Secretary of State Daniel Webster, notified Tyler that Harrison had died in office. William Henry Harrison [28], Harrison began his political career when he temporarily resigned from the military on June 1, 1798, and campaigned among his friends and family for a post in the Northwest Territorial government. Authors Gugin and St. Clair claim the resignation was forced upon him. William Henry Harrison - History The roar of cannon and the tolling of bells filled the air, while many houses were shrouded with crape, and the streets were black with people. [90] He was chosen over more controversial members of the party, such as Clay and Webster; his campaign highlighted his military record and focused on the weak U.S. economy caused by the Panic of 1837. William Henry Harrison marries Anna Tuthill Symmes in North Bend, Ohio. In 1836, Vice President Martin Van Buren ran as the Democratic Party candidate to succeed Jackson. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, the shortest presidency in United States history. View this answer. He was promoted to major general in the Army during the War of 1812, and led American infantry and cavalry to victory at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada. The Village of North Bend, Ohio, honors Harrison every year with a parade to celebrate his birthday. University of Kentucky, Copyright 2023. [48] Harrison thought that the Treaty of Grouseland (1805) appeased some of the Indians, but tensions remained high along the frontier. At the same time, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh was leading an intertribal resistance to white encroachment on Native American lands. [80] He arrived in Bogot on December 22, 1828, and found the condition of Colombia saddening. Tecumseh was killed in the battle, and the British-Indian alliance was permanently destroyed. Congress awarded Harrison a gold medal for his services during the war. [10] With the influence of his father's friend, Governor Henry Lee III, he embarked upon a military career. William Henry Harrison received a classical education at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where he was a student from 1787 to 1790. The first large Whig rally took place in Columbus, Ohio, on February 22, 1840, which was George Washingtons birthday, a traditional day for public celebrations and parades. Burr describes the letter as "replete with wisdom, goodness, and patriotismand the purest of principles". Harrison was born into the Harrison family of Virginia at their homestead, Berkeley Plantation. [29], Harrison had many friends in the eastern aristocracy and quickly gained a reputation among them as a frontier leader. [56] After 1809, the Indiana legislature assumed more authority and the territory advanced toward statehood. During the address, the new On March 4, 1841, without coat, hat or gloves, Virginia-born William Henry Harrison delivered the longest inauguration speech in United States history. [130][132][133] Harrison's wife Anna was still in Ohio packing to be with her husband in Washington, scheduled for May, when she was informed of Harrison's death. Harrison was assigned to Fort Washington in the small village of Cincinnati in the future Ohio Territory. [5] The British and their Indian allies greatly outnumbered Harrison's troops, so Harrison constructed a defensive position during the winter along the Maumee River in northwest Ohio. The house was his military headquarters from 1813 to 1814. [104] Freehling opines that speeches like this were actually common at the time, and that its irony was rich, as Harrison, "a lifelong office seeker, elected by deeply partisan politics, criticized both".[105]. For nearly two hours, Harrison addressed the crowd. The Whigs saw in Harrison a born southerner and war hero, who would contrast well with the aloof, uncaring, and aristocratic Van Buren. He reported to the Secretary of State that the country was on the edge of anarchy, and that Simn Bolvar was about to become a military dictator. President James Madison removed Winchester from command in September, and Harrison became commander of the fresh recruits. William Henry Harrison is elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio by the Ohio Legislature. Omissions? The physicians tried remedies ranging from laxatives and opium to a liniment made from Virginia snakeweed. Harrison was appointed governor of the new Indiana Territory in 1800, where he served until 1812. [145] Harrison's grandson Benjamin Harrison of Indiana served as the 23rd president from 1889 to 1893, making William and Benjamin Harrison the only grandparent-grandchild pair of presidents.[146]. Lucy Kenney of Fredericksburg was among the first women to be a paid political pamphleteer, writing two campaign pamphletson behalf of Harrison. Doctors were called in, but their medical practices were crude: heated suction cups to supposedly draw out the disease, and the same bleeding tactics that had killed George Washington. The campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too" became one of the most famous in American politics. [119] The next day, Saturday, the doctor was called again, and arrived to find Harrison in bed with a "severe chill", after taking another early morning walk. William Henry Harrison, (born February 9, 1773, Charles City county, Virginia [U.S.]died April 4, 1841, Washington, D.C., U.S.), ninth president of the United Updates? He encouraged resistance by telling the tribes to pay white traders only half of what they owed and to give up all the white man's ways, including their clothing, muskets, and especially whiskey. [94][91][92], Harrison faced incumbent Van Buren as the sole Whig candidate in the 1840 election. With his offensive operations having been thus checked, Harrison accomplished nothing that summer except to hold in check Procter, who besieged him at Fort Meigs (May 15), the American advance post after the disaster at the River Raisin. Before leaving, Tecumseh informed Harrison that he would seek an alliance with the British if the Fort Wayne Treaty was not nullified. Emeritus Professor of Humanities He was advised to have an administration in place before the inauguration but declined, wanting to focus on the festivities. They cast him as a provincial, out-of-touch old man who would rather "sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider" than attend to the administration of the country. Mary Steger of Richmond wrote excitedly to a friend about the events at the local Log Cabin Whig headquarters and said, I never took so much interest in politics in my life. Democrats derided these women as shameless and reminded them that their husbands represented them in politics, but Whigs argued that womens presence could purify the public sphere. With his homespun image in mind, he left his silk hat at home and wore his farmers clothes. Harrisons slogan, Tippecanoe and Tyler Too, referring to his running mate, former U.S. senator from Virginia John Tyler, became one of the most famous campaign slogans. Tecumseh and the War of [96] Freehling relates that, "One bitter pro-Van Buren paper lamented after his defeat, 'We have been sung down, lied down and drunk down.' Harrison is often omitted in historical presidential rankings due to his brief tenure, with the rankings where he is ranked placing him significantly below average. Tyler had been visiting family in Williamsburg. [19] The 26-room home was one of the first brick structures in the territory;[44] and it served as a center of social and political life in the territory during his tenure as governor. Congress convened, and on May 31, 1841, after a short period of debate in both houses, passed a joint resolution, which confirmed Tyler as president for the remainder of Harrison's term. [71][5], In 1814, Secretary of War John Armstrong divided the command of the army, assigning Harrison to an outlying post and giving control of the front to one of Harrison's subordinates. "[110] The dispute escalated when Harrison named as Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Clay's arch-rival for control of the Whig Party. William Henry Harrison

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