William Henry Harrison

This article is about the general and president. For the congressman, see William H. Harrison (1896–1990).

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, earning him 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 in which Tecumseh was killed.

When Harrison took office as president in 1841 at the age 67, he was the oldest man to be elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980. Harrison died exactly one month into his term—the shortest presidency before or since.

Birth and military career

Harrison was born into a prominent political family at the Berkeley Plantation in Virginia, the third son 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 House of Representatives, representing Virginia.

In 1791, at the age of 18, Harrison was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Army and 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, which brought the Northwest Indian War to a close and opened much of Ohio to white settlement.

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 Sixth United States Congress, serving from March 4, 1799, to May 14, 1800, when he resigned to become governor of the newly formed Indiana Territory, a post he held for 12 years, until 1813.

A primary responsibility as territorial governor was to obtain title to American Indian lands so that white settlement could expand in the area. Harrison conducted numerous treaties, purchasing much of present-day Indiana from Native American leaders. 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 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 into the land, and continued to widen his Indian confederation (see "Tecumseh's War"). In 1811, Harrison was authorized to march against the confederacy, and won his famous victory at Prophetstown next to the Wasbash and Tippecanoe Rivers. During the War of 1812, Harrison took command of the Army of the Northwest.

Post-war political career

After the war, he was elected to various political offices, including the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio serving from October 8, 1816, to March 3, 1819. He was defeated as a candidate for governor of Ohio in 1820, but served in the Ohio State Senate, 1819–1821. In 1824, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served until May 20, 1828, when he resigned to become Minister to Colombia, 1828–1829. Harrison was a tall man, and when 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 the fact that the United States had suffered a severe economic downturn. His vice president was John Tyler, and their campaign was marked by exaggeration of both Harrison's military exploits and of his connections to the common man. Their campaign slogans of "Log Cabins and Hard Cider" and "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" are among the most famous in American politics.

Short presidency

As Harrison arrived in Washington he focused on showing that he was still the stalwart hero of Tippecanoe he had campaigned as. It was an extremely cold and windy day, March 4, 1841, when Harrison was to take the oath of office. Nevertheless he faced the weather with no coat on, and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history, at nearly two hours (his friend and fellow Whig, Daniel Webster, had edited it for length). Around the time of the address he caught a cold, which developed into pneumonia and pleurisy. He passed away a month later, becoming the first American president to die in office. Harrison served the shortest term of any American president, a total of only 31 days. John Tyler succeeded him to the Presidency shortly thereafter. According to later legends, Harrison's death was brought about by a curse placed on him by Tecumseh in his dying breath.

Harrision's son, John Scott Harrison, was also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio, 1853–1857. 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, he gave it 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 gave quite a long inaugural address, the longest since his grandfather's.

Cabinet

External links

• White House biography
• Inaugural Address
• Biography of William Henry Harrison