William Henry Harrison

I

Introduction

William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), ninth president of the United States (1841). He was one of the most important figures in the early westward expansion of the United States. Harrison took millions of acres of land from Native Americans by treaty or conquest. His exploits on the frontier, especially his defeat of the Shawnee at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, obscured his Virginia plantation background. It was not the wealthy planter and slave owner whom the people elected to the presidency. Instead, they elected the legendary Old Tippecanoe, pictured as a log cabin dweller and a drinker of hard cider. The popular appeal of this misleading characterization won Harrison the political eminence he had vigorously sought. Unfortunately, he did not live to enjoy it. He was the first president to die during his term of office, and his administration, which lasted exactly one month, was the shortest in U.S. history.

II

Early Life

William Henry Harrison was born on February 9, 1773, and grew up on his family's plantation, Berkeley, in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the son of Elizabeth Basset Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and governor of Virginia. The young Harrison studied under private tutors and then attended Hampden-Sydney College for three years. Because Harrison's father wanted his son to become a doctor, he was sent to the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to study under the great physician Benjamin Rush. Shortly afterward, when his father died, Harrison decided to pursue a military career. In 1791, through the influence of Senator Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, he received an ensign's commission in the First U.S. Infantry.

III

Early Career

Ensign Harrison was sent on duty to the Northwest Territory. For the next half-century no one was more intimately associated with that section. Promoted to lieutenant, Harrison served as aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne. In 1794 he fought under Wayne when he defeated a coalition of Native American peoples at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near the present city of Toledo, Ohio. Wayne cited Harrison for bravery in that battle. Harrison was promoted to captain the following year and was made commander of Fort Washington in Ohio. He soon married Anna Symmes, the daughter of Judge John Cleves Symmes, a wealthy land speculator. The marriage produced ten children, one of whom, John Scott Harrison, was the father of Benjamin Harrison, who became the 23rd president in 1889.

A

Return to Civilian Life

Harrison resigned from the army in 1798, and his father's friend, Congressman Robert Goodloe Harper of South Carolina, helped him secure the post of secretary of the Northwest Territory. As territorial secretary, Harrison had charge of the territorial records and the governor's transactions, which he presented to the Congress of the United States.

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In 1799 Harrison was elected territorial delegate to Congress. As delegate, Harrison endeared himself to the frontier voters by persuading Congress to divide the public lands of the territory into small homestead lots, to be sold to settlers under four-year credit terms. The sale of these public lands was legalized by the Land Act of 1800. When in the same year the Indiana Territory was carved out of the Northwest Territory by another piece of legislation pressed by Harrison, he was appointed governor of the Indiana Territory.