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. He was advised to have an administration in place before the inauguration but declined, wanting to focus on the festivities. His farm stretched over 2,800 acres and the original log cabin had been expanded to a twenty-two-room home to house his growing familythe Harrisons had ten children, and Anna Harrison was often in poor health because of frequent pregnancies. [1] This was a prominent political family of English descent whose ancestors had been in Virginia since the 1630s;[2] he became the last American president not born as an American citizen. This was 3,000 words more than Taft 's which [109], Clay was a leader of the Whigs and a powerful legislator, as well as a frustrated presidential candidate in his own right, and he expected to have substantial influence in the Harrison administration. View this answer. [95] The Democrats, in turn, ridiculed the elder Harrison by calling him "Granny Harrison, the petticoat general", because he resigned from the army before the War of 1812 ended. He won recognition for his bravery during the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794). Although the Whig Party was in the minority in Illinios, Lincoln agreed with its policies and supported the party's 2020 Virginia Humanities, All Rights Reserved , Native Lands Appropriated for White Settlement in the Northwest Territory. [64][65], When reporting to Secretary Eustis, Harrison had informed him of the battle near the Tippecanoe River and that he had anticipated an attack. This letter is addressed to general Harrison; he demands that the Indian lands be returned. He declared he would only serve for one term in office and not abuse his veto power. [50] Harrison was also able to conduct matters unquestioned by the government, as the administration changed hands from Jefferson to Madison. He disputed that the Indian leaders who signed the Treaty of Greenville had the authority to sell lands he believed were held in common by all tribes. [5] Judge Symmes' doubts about him persisted, as he wrote to a friend, "He can neither bleed, plead, nor preach, and if he could plow I should be satisfied. Inaugural Speeches Ranked By Word Count - WFYI Four years later, the party nominated him again, with John Tyler as his running mate, under the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too". After funding for his education was discontinued in 1791, he joined the United States Army as a low-ranking officer. Emeritus Professor of Humanities On March 4, 1841, Harrison led the grandest inaugural parade to date, featuring floats, citizen marchers, and military bands, up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol on his horse Whitey. Daniel Webster ran in Massachusetts, and Mangum in South Carolina. [119] A reporter for the New York Commercial indicated that "the country's people were deeply distressed and many of them in tears. 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] He was elected in 1816 to complete John McLean's term in the House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 1st congressional district until 1819. In Seneca Falls, New York, soon-to-be woman suffrage activist Amelia Bloomer helped her husband edit his Whig newspaper. Jefferson directed Harrison to buy land for white settlement from the Native Americans, instructing him in a February 1803 letterto provide the tribes with effectual protection against wrongs from our own people, but to use trade to run up debt with the Indians so they would lop off some of their lands and sell them. Congress awarded Harrison a gold medal for his services during the war. 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. In summary, President Harrisons speech mainly discussed how the William Henry Harrison Inaugural Speech Analysis | ipl.org Anna never moved into the White House. 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. [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. We speak particularly on this point, because we were eyewitnesses of all that passed. [70] He received orders to retake Detroit and boost morale, but he initially held back, unwilling to press the war northward. 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. Harrison defeated Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election. They were bearing the dead body of Harrison to the grave. [119] A Washington paper reported on Thursday, April 1, that Harrison's health was decidedly better. He did give the longest inaugural speech ever one hour and 45 minutes. 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 following year Harrison was sent to Congress as a territorial delegate. William Henry Harrison received a classical education at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where he was a student from 1787 to 1790. [42] Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were members of the Democratic-Republican Party, and they reappointed him as governor in 1803, 1806, and 1809. [10] He briefly studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania with Doctor Benjamin Rush and William Shippen Sr.[10] His older brother inherited their father's money, so he lacked the funds for his further medical schooling, which he had also discovered he didn't prefer. [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. 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. The Village of North Bend, Ohio, honors Harrison every year with a parade to celebrate his birthday. . William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), Americas ninth president, served just one month in office before dying of pneumonia. 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). View this answer. Additionally, and FYI, Harrison's inaugural speech was the longest in history, to date. His nickname was "Old Tippecanoe" and he was a well-respected war Harrison, after leaving his post but while still in the country, wrote his roughly ten-page letter to Bolivar, which is reproduced in full in the Hall and Burr biographies. Six white horses pulled a hearse carrying Harrisons casket draped in black velvet in a long funeral procession up Pennsylvania Avenue to Congressional Cemetery, where Harrison was temporarily entombed in the Public Vault. We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia. [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". After Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perrys naval victory in the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, Harrison no longer had to remain on the defensive. But researchers in 2014 proposed a different reason. [43] The Territory's general assembly convened in 1810, and its anti-slavery faction immediately repealed the indenturing laws previously enacted. This strategy backfired when Harrison and running mate John Tyler adopted the log cabin and hard cider as campaign symbols. I remember distinctly how the window glass would break and rattle to the ground, after each report of the cannon they were firing in the burial ground. Their campaign used the symbols on banners and posters and created bottles of hard cider shaped like log cabins, all to connect the candidates to the "common man". William Henry Harrison resigns from the army and is appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory by President John Adams. Harrison found himself at odds with the legislature after the abolitionists came to power, and the eastern portion of the Indiana Territory grew to include a large anti-slavery population. Harrison was hailed as a hero in the Battle of Tippecanoe and became known as Old Tippecanoe.. Harrison built a brick governors mansion at the territorial capital of Vincennes on the Wabash River that he named Grouseland because he hunted grouse in the area. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Harrison's wife, Anna, was too ill to travel A rope was brought, and attached to the carriage, by which the people drew it to the Marshall House. Updates? But Harrison, who had mounting debts, kept seeking higher-paying federal jobs. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. It continues See full answer below. They feared that the people would perceive the difference between a real and a pretended patriot, and commenced a series of persecutions against our minister, which rendered his situation extremely irksome. A brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, served six years in the House of Representatives. Despite being caught in a sudden rainstorm, he did not change his wet clothes upon return to the White House. 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. [121], No official announcements were made concerning Harrison's illness, which fueled public speculation and concern the longer he remained out of public view. [123], The prevailing theory at the time was that his illness had been caused by the bad weather at his inauguration three weeks earlier. The following year Harrisons mother died. [56] After 1809, the Indiana legislature assumed more authority and the territory advanced toward statehood. WebWilliam Henry Harrison, an American military officer and politician, was the ninth President of the United States (1841), the oldest President to be elected at the time. Harrison, Proclamation 45BConvening an Extra Session of the Congress", "William Henry Harrison: Death of the President", "What Really Killed William Henry Harrison? [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]. The official cause of death was pneumonia. [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. He is assigned to Fort Washington in the village of Cincinnati in the future Ohio territory. Resisting the expansionism fostered by the treaties negotiated by Harrison, the Shawnee intertribal leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, who was known as the Prophet, organized an Indian uprising. Andrew Jackson took office in March 1829, and recalled Harrison in order to make his own appointment to the position. How long was William Henry Harrison [154][155], Equestrian statue of Harrison in Cincinnati, by Louis Rebisso, 1950 issue of Harrison on Indiana statehood stamp. [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. The following year, Harrison was elected the territorys delegate to Congress in Philadelphia. [59] Tecumseh then began shouting at Harrison and called him a liar. Longest Inauguration Speech: William Henry Harrison On April 24, 1791, Benjamin Harrison died at age 65 while he was Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. [120] Anna was still in Ohio packing for the trip to Washington when she learned of her loss. WebAn illustrated chronology of key events in the life of William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), ninth president of the United States. I ask nothing more.. 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. He was also the first United States president to die in office, and a brief constitutional crisis Harrison died on April 4, 1841, making him the first U.S. president to die in office, and was buried in the William Henry Harrison tomb in North Bend, Ohio. Omissions? He was a son of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father of the United States. He rejected Tecumseh's claim that all the Indians formed one nation and said that each tribe could have separate relations with the United States if they chose to do so. [12] In 1793, he became Wayne's aide-de-camp and acquired the skills to command an army on the frontier;[6] he participated in Wayne's decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794, which ended the Northwest Indian War. . Miller applied mustard plaster to his stomach and gave him a mild laxative, and he felt better that afternoon. However, the death of his father caused Harrison to discontinue his studies. https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Harrison, Ohio History Central - Biography of William H. Harrison, GlobalSecurity.org - William Henry Harrison (March -April 1841), Encyclopedia Virginia - William Henry Harrison (17731841), The White House - Biography of William Henry Harrison, William Henry Harrison - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), William Henry Harrison - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), presidency of the United States of America (1841-1841), Harrison, William Henry; Berkeley Plantation, Harrison, William Henry; Tippecanoe, Battle of. [58] The leaders of the group were escorted to Grouseland, where they met Harrison. Henry Clay was favored, but Harrison had supporters at the convention. Harrison's daughter-in-law, Jane Irwin Harrison, widow of Harrison's son, had served as hostess of the White House in Anna's place while Harrison was President. [127] Solomon Northup gave an account of the procession in Twelve Years a Slave: The next day there was a great pageant in Washington. 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. [137], Among Harrison's most enduring legacies is the series of treaties that he negotiated and signed with Indian leaders during his tenure as the Indiana territorial governor. 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.