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William Henry Harrison

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: USA Presidents

   William Henry Harrison
   William Henry Harrison
     __________________________________________________________________

   9th President of the United States
   In office
   March 4, 1841 –  April 4, 1841
   Vice President(s)   John Tyler
   Preceded by Martin Van Buren
   Succeeded by John Tyler
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born February 9, 1773
   Charles City County, Virginia
   Died April 4, 1841
   Washington D.C.
   Political party Whig
   Spouse Anna Symmes Harrison
   Religion Episcopal
   Signature

   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 be elected President; a record that stood for 140 years, until
   Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 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 potential constituional
   crisis.

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.
   Statue of Harrison on horseback in Cincinnati, Ohio.
   Enlarge
   Statue of Harrison on horseback in Cincinnati, Ohio.

   Before attending the University of Pennsylvania, Harrison attended
   Hampden-Sydney College. He entered school at the age of 14. 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.
   This portrait of Harrison originally showed him in civilian clothes as
   the Congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory in 1800, but
   the uniform was added after he became famous in the War of 1812.
   This portrait of Harrison originally showed him in civilian clothes as
   the Congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory in 1800, but
   the uniform was added after he became famous in the War of 1812.

   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, a post he held for twelve
   years, until 1813.

   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. 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.

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

   Harrison's tomb and memorial in North Bend, Ohio.
   Enlarge
   Harrison's tomb and memorial in North Bend, Ohio.

Short presidency

   When Harrison arrived in Washington, he focused on showing that he was
   still the stalwart 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 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.) He sought to rest in the White House, but
   could not find a quiet room, as he was deluged with people seeking his
   favour in the hope that he would appoint them to the numerous offices
   the president then had at his disposal.

   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.

   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 delivered the longest inaugural
   address since his grandfather's.

Administration and Cabinet

   OFFICE                    NAME                TERM
   President                 William H. Harrison 1841
   Vice President            John Tyler          1841
   Secretary of State        Daniel Webster      1841
   Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing        1841
   Secretary of War          John Bell           1841
   Attorney General          John J. Crittenden  1841
   Postmaster General        Francis Granger     1841
   Secretary of the Navy     George E. Badger    1841

States admitted to the Union

   none

Trivia

     * According to legend, 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.

     * 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.

     * An episode of The Simpsons includes a song entitled "Presidents'
       Song", 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!'"

     * 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.

     * Harrison is the first, but not only, US president to have no
       military vessel named after him.

     * Harrison was a founding member of Christ Church, Cincinnati.

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