William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841)
was an American military leader, politician, the ninth President of
the United States, and the first President to die in office. The
oldest President elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, Harrison had
served 32 days in office, still the shortest tenure in United
States presidential history, before his death in April 1841. His
death created a brief constitutional crisis, but ultimately
resolved many questions about presidential succession left
unanswered by the Constitution until passage of the 25th
Amendment.
Harrison, a scion of the Virginia planter aristocracy. He was
born at Berkeley in 1773. He studied classics and history at
Hampden-Sydney College, then began the study of medicine in
Richmond.
Suddenly, that same year, 1791, Harrison switched interests. He
obtained a commission as ensign in the First Infantry of the
Regular Army, and headed to the Northwest, where he spent much of
his life.
In the campaign against the Indians, Harrison served as
aide-de-camp to General "Mad Anthony" Wayne at the Battle of Fallen
Timbers, which opened most of the Ohio area to settlement. After
resigning from the Army in 1798, he became Secretary of the
Northwest Territory, was its first delegate to Congress, and helped
obtain legislation dividing the Territory into the Northwest and
Indiana Territories. In 1801 he became Governor of the Indiana
Territory, serving 12 years.
His prime task as governor was to obtain title to Indian lands
so settlers could press forward into the wilderness. When the
Indians retaliated, Harrison was responsible for defending the
settlements.
The threat against settlers became serious in 1809. An eloquent
and energetic chieftain, Tecumseh, with his religious brother, the
Prophet, began to strengthen an Indian confederation to prevent
further encroachment. In 1811 Harrison received permission to
attack the confederacy.
While Tecumseh was away seeking more allies, Harrison led about
a thousand men toward the Prophet's town. Suddenly, before dawn on
November 7, the Indians attacked his camp on Tippecanoe River.
After heavy fighting, Harrison repulsed them, but suffered 190 dead
and wounded.
The Battle of Tippecanoe, upon which Harrison's fame was to
rest, disrupted Tecumseh's confederacy but failed to diminish
Indian raids. By the spring of 1812, they were again terrorizing
the frontier.
In the War of 1812 Harrison won more military laurels when he
was given the command of the Army in the Northwest with the rank of
brigadier general. At the Battle of the Thames, north of Lake Erie,
on October 5, 1813, he defeated the combined British and Indian
forces, and killed Tecumseh. The Indians scattered, never again to
offer serious resistance in what was then called the Northwest.
Thereafter Harrison returned to civilian life; the Whigs, in
need of a national hero, nominated him for President in 1840. He
won by a majority of less than 150,000, but swept the Electoral
College, 234 to 60.
When he arrived in Washington in February 1841, Harrison let
Daniel Webster edit his Inaugural Address, ornate with classical
allusions. Webster obtained some deletions, boasting in a jolly
fashion that he had killed "seventeen Roman proconsuls as dead as
smelts, every one of them."
Webster had reason to be pleased, for while Harrison was
nationalistic in his outlook, he emphasized in his Inaugural that
he would be obedient to the will of the people as expressed through
Congress.
But before he had been in office a month, he caught a cold that
developed into pneumonia. On April 4, 1841, he died--the first
President to die in office--and with him died the Whig program.
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The Cache
Harrison was the first sitting president to have his picture taken
photographically. The original daguerreotype has been lost,
although copies of it exist.
This cache is placed near a camera store.
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