This is the second in a nine-part series looking at Ohio’s history of presidents. Some of the information was gleaned from a kit provided by the Ohio Historical Society released in 1967 titled “Portraits of Ohio Presidents.” Ashland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites. Part I, an introduction, was published on Feb. 9.
Ohio’s first president led a colorful life, reared in aristocracy, he worked intermittently on an Ohio farm near his wife’s childhood home. William Henry Harrison was born in Berkeley, Virginia on Feb. 9, 1773, he also became a distinguished military leader and a deft politician.
A life punctuated by vigor, his death was shockingly sudden, and ended the shortest administration in the history of the presidency.
William was the youngest child of Benjamin Harrison V, who is considered a Founding Father of the U.S. He was also the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States.
William briefly studied medicine, but did not graduate. Instead, his career turned toward the military. Serving as an ensign in the army in 1791, he eventually was aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne in 1793-94, and Secretary of the Northwest Territory in 1798-99.
Later, Harrison was selected as a delegate to Congress 1799-1800, beginning a sporadic political career that bounced between farming, politics and the military.
Harrison met Anna Tuthill Symmes of North Bend, Ohio in 1795 when he was 22. Despite the objections of her father, they eloped. Eventually the in-laws became cordial with Harrison, selling him land in Ohio to begin a farm. The couple eventually had 10 children.
Harrison became governor of the Indiana Territory from 1801 to 1813 and had a memorable verbal confrontation with Tecumseh that nearly led to violence.
Eventually, hostilities with the Native American Indians did lead to warfare, and his victory as a military leader at Tippecanoe in 1811 earned him the nickname “Tippecanoe.” As a major general in chief of the Army in the Northwest in 1813-14, Harrison’s troops won the battle of the Thames in 1813. This was yet another military victory that bolstered his reputation.
That background certainly helped him politically.
Tippecanoe was a congressman from 1816 to 1819, an Ohio senator representing the 1st congressional district and his home in North Bend from 1819-1821. In the interim, he lost an 1820 bid to be Ohio’s governor, but rebounded and won a seat as a U.S. Senator from 1825 to 1828. Later, he became minister to Columbia in 1828-1829.
In 1836, Harrison was a candidate for president representing the Whig party. In that election he lost to Democratic vice president Martin Van Buren.
Four years later, the Whigs again nominated Harrison, with John Tyler as his running mate. The campaign slogan was “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” This time he defeated Van Buren in the 1840 election, making Harrison the first of only two Whigs (Zachary Taylor was the second) to win the presidency.
Unfortunately, the ninth president became the first to die in office and served the shortest term, from March 4 to April 4, 1841.
At his inauguration, Harrison braved frigid weather while not wearing an overcoat or a hat, rode on horseback to the grand ceremony, and then delivered 8,445-word address. It took him nearly two hours to read it and is the longest inauguration speech on record.
Harrison suffered cold-like symptoms on March 26. At the time it was attributed to his inauguration activities — three weeks earlier. He deteriorated rapidly and died little more than a week later, the first president to die in office.
Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiak did an analysis in Clinical Infectious Diseases (2014), examining Dr. Thomas Miller’s notes and records showing that the White House water supply was downstream of public sewage, and they concluded Harrison likely died of septic shock due to “enteric fever” (typhoid or paratyphoid fever).
Harrison was the first of Ohio’s eight presidents, and the first of four who died in office.
