U.S. President #9: William Henry Harrison (Part I)

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States in 1841. He died of typhoid, pneumonia or paratyphoid fever 31 days into his term (the shortest tenure), becoming the first president to die in office.  His death sparked a brief constitutional crisis regarding succession to the presidency, because the Constitution was unclear as to whether Vice President John Tyler should assume the office of president or merely execute the duties of the vacant office. Tyler claimed a constitutional mandate to become the new president and took the presidential oath of office, setting an important precedent for an orderly transfer of the presidency and its full powers when the previous president fails to complete the elected term.

Harrison was born in Charles City County, Virginia, the son of Founding Father Benjamin Harrison V and the paternal grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States. He was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies before the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775. During his early military career, he participated in the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers, an American military victory that effectively ended the Northwest Indian War. Later, he led a military force against Tecumseh's Confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where he earned the nickname "Old Tippecanoe". He was promoted to major general in the Army in the War of 1812, and in 1813 led American infantry and cavalry at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada.
Harrison began his political career in 1798, when he was appointed Secretary of the Northwest Territory, and in 1799 he was elected as the territory's delegate in the House of Representatives. Two years later, President John Adams named him governor of the newly established Indiana Territory, a post he held until 1812. After the War of 1812, he moved to Ohio where he was elected to represent the state's 1st district in the House in 1816. In 1824, the Ohio state legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate; his term was truncated by his appointment as Minister Plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia in May 1828. Afterward, he returned to private life in North Bend, Ohio until he was nominated as the Whig Party candidate for president in the 1836 election; he was defeated by Democratic vice president Martin Van Buren. Four years later, the party nominated him again with John Tyler as his running mate, and the Whig campaign slogan was "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too". They defeated Van Buren in the 1840 United States presidential election, making Harrison the first Whig to win the presidency.
At 68 years, 23 days of age at the time of his inauguration, Harrison was the oldest person to assume the U.S. presidency, a distinction he held until 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated at age 69 years, 349 days. Due to his brief tenure, scholars and historians often forgo listing him in historical presidential rankings. However, historian William W. Freehling calls him "the most dominant figure in the evolution of the Northwest territories into the Upper Midwest today".
Early life and education
Harrison was the seventh and youngest child of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth (Bassett) Harrison, born on February 9, 1773 at Berkeley Plantation, the Harrison family home along the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. He was a member of a prominent political family of English descent whose ancestors had been in Virginia since the 1630s and the last American president born as a British subject. His father was a Virginia planter who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–1777) and who signed the Declaration of Independence. His father also served in the Virginia legislature and as the fifth governor of Virginia (1781–1784) in the years during and after the American Revolutionary War.  Harrison's older brother Carter Bassett Harrison represented Virginia in the House of Representatives (1793–1799).
Harrison was tutored at home until age 14 when he entered Hampden–Sydney College, a Presbyterian college in Virginia.  He studied there for three years, receiving a classical education which included Latin, Greek, French, logic, and debate.  His Episcopalian father removed him from the college, possibly for religious reasons, and he briefly attended a boys' academy in Southampton County, Virginia before being transferred to Philadelphia in 1790.
He boarded with Robert Morris and entered the University of Pennsylvania in April 1791, where he studied medicine under Doctor Benjamin Rush and William Shippen Sr.  His father died in the spring of 1791, shortly after he began his medical studies. He was only 18 and Morris became his guardian; he also discovered that his family's financial situation left him without funds for further schooling, so he abandoned medical school in favor of a military career after being persuaded by Governor Henry Lee III, a friend of Harrison's father.
Early military career
On August 16, 1791, Harrison was commissioned as an ensign in the Army in the 1st Infantry Regiment within 24 hours of meeting Lee. He was 18 years old at the time. He was initially assigned to Fort Washington, Cincinnati in the Northwest Territory where the army was engaged in the ongoing Northwest Indian War.
Harrison was promoted to lieutenant after Major General "Mad Anthony" Wayne took command of the western army in 1792 following a disastrous defeat under Arthur St. Clair. In 1793, he became Wayne's aide-de-camp and learned how to command an army on the American frontier; he participated in Wayne's decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794, which ended the Northwest Indian War.  Harrison was a signatory of the Treaty of Greenville (1795) as witness to Wayne, the principal negotiator for the U.S. Under the terms of the treaty, a coalition of Indians ceded a portion of their lands to the federal government, opening two-thirds of Ohio to settlement.
Following his mother's death in 1793, Harrison inherited a portion of his family's Virginia estate, including approximately 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land and several slaves. He was serving in the Army at the time and sold his land to his brother.
Harrison was promoted to Captain in May 1797 and resigned from the Army on 1 June 1798.
Marriage and family
Harrison met Anna Tuthill Symmes of North Bend, Ohio in 1795 when he was 22. She was a daughter of Anna Tuthill and Judge John Cleves Symmes, who served as a colonel in the Revolutionary War and a representative to the Congress of the Confederation.  Harrison asked the judge for permission to marry Anna but was refused, so the couple waited until Symmes left on business. They then eloped and were married on November 25, 1795 at the North Bend home of Dr. Stephen Wood, treasurer of the Northwest Territory. They honeymooned at Fort Washington, since Harrison was still on military duty. Judge Symmes confronted him two weeks later at a farewell dinner for General Wayne, sternly demanding to know how he intended to support a family. Harrison responded, "by my sword, and my own right arm, sir."  Harrison won over his father-in-law, who later sold the Harrisons 160 acres (65 ha) of land in North Bend, which enabled Harrison to build a home and start a farm.
The Harrisons had ten children: Elizabeth Bassett (1796–1846), John Cleves Symmes (1798–1830), Lucy Singleton (1800–1826), William Henry (1802–1838), John Scott (1804–1878) father of future U.S. president Benjamin Harrison, Benjamin (1806–1840), Mary Symmes (1809–1842), Carter Bassett (1811–1839), Anna Tuthill (1813–1865), James Findlay (1814–1817).  Anna was frequently in poor health during the marriage, primarily due to her many pregnancies, yet she outlived William by 23 years, dying on February 25, 1864 at 88.
Harrison also allegedly had an additional six children by Dilsia, an enslaved African-American woman. Among these was a grandmother of Walter Francis White.  The story is unlikely, however, given Harrison's early departure from the south.
Political career
Harrison began his political career when he resigned from the military on June 1, 1798 and campaigned among his friends and family for a post in the Northwest Territorial government. His close friend Timothy Pickering was serving as Secretary of State, and he helped him to get a recommendation to replace Winthrop Sargent, the outgoing territorial secretary. President John Adams appointed Harrison to the position in July 1798. He also frequently served as acting territorial governor during the absences of Governor Arthur St. Clair.
U.S. Congress
Harrison had many friends in the eastern aristocracy and quickly gained a reputation among them as a frontier leader. He ran a successful horse-breeding enterprise that won him acclaim throughout the Northwest Territory. Congress had legislated a territorial policy which led to high land costs, and this became a primary concern for settlers in the Territory; Harrison became their champion to lower those prices. The Northwest Territory's population reached a sufficient number to have a delegate in Congress in October 1799, and Harrison ran for election.  He campaigned to encourage further migration to the territory, which eventually led to statehood.
Engraved portrait print of Harrison at age 27 as a delegate member of the House of Representatives from the Northwest Territory, c. 1800 by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin.
Harrison defeated Arthur St. Clair Jr. by one vote to become the Northwest Territory's first congressional delegate in 1798 at age 26. He served in the Sixth United States Congress from March 4, 1799 to May 14, 1800.  He had no authority to vote on legislative bills, but he was permitted to serve on a committee, to submit legislation, and to engage in debate. He became chairman of the Committee on Public Lands and promoted the Land Act of 1800, which made it easier to buy land in the Northwest Territory in smaller tracts at a low cost. The sale price for public lands was set at $2 per acre, and this became an important contributor to rapid population growth in the Territory.
Harrison also served on the committee that decided how to divide the Territory into smaller sections, and they recommended splitting it in two. The eastern section continued to be known as the Northwest Territory and consisted of Ohio and eastern Michigan; the western section was named the Indiana Territory and consisted of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, a portion of western Michigan, and the eastern portion of Minnesota.  The two new territories were formally established in 1800 following the passage of 2 Stat. 58.
On May 13, 1800, President John Adams appointed Harrison as the governor of the Indiana Territory, based on his ties to the west and seemingly neutral political stances. Harrison was caught unaware and was reluctant to accept the position until he received assurances from the Jeffersonians that he would not be removed from office after they gained power in the upcoming elections. His governorship was confirmed by the Senate and he resigned from Congress to become the first Indiana territorial governor in 1801.
Indiana territorial governor
Harrison began his duties on January 10, 1801 at Vincennes, the capital of the Indiana Territory. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were both members of the Democratic-Republican Party, and they reappointed him as governor in 1803, 1806, and 1809.  He resigned on December 28, 1812 to resume his military career during the War of 1812.
Harrison was assigned to administer the civilian government of the District of Louisiana in 1804, a part of the Louisiana Territory that included land north of the 33rd parallel. In October, a civilian government went into effect and Harrison served as the Louisiana district's executive leader. He administered the district's affairs for five weeks until the Louisiana Territory was formally established on July 4, 1805, and Brigadier General James Wilkinson assumed the duties of governor.
In 1805, Harrison built a plantation-style home near Vincennes that he named Grouseland, alluding to the birds on the property; the 13-room home was one of the first brick structures in the territory, and it served as a center of social and political life in the territory during his tenure as governor.  The territorial capital was moved to Corydon in 1813, and Harrison built a second home at nearby Harrison Valley.  He founded Jefferson University at Vincennes in 1801 which was incorporated as Vincennes University on November 29, 1806.
Harrison had wide-ranging powers in the new territory, including the authority to appoint territorial officials and to divide the territory into smaller political districts and counties. One of his primary responsibilities was to obtain title to Indian lands that would allow future settlement and increase the territory's population, which was a requirement for statehood. He was eager to expand the territory for personal reasons, as well, as his political fortunes were tied to Indiana's eventual statehood.
President Jefferson reappointed Harrison as the Indiana territorial governor on February 8, 1803, and he also granted him the authority to negotiate and conclude treaties with the Indians.  Between 1803 and 1809, he supervised 11 treaties with Indian leaders that provided the federal government with more than 60,000,000 acres (240,000 km2), including the southern third of Indiana and most of Illinois. The 1804 Treaty of St. Louis with Quashquame required the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes to cede much of western Illinois and parts of Missouri to the federal government. Many of the Sauk greatly resented this treaty and the loss of lands, especially Black Hawk, and this was a primary reason that they sided with the British during the War of 1812. Harrison thought that the Treaty of Grouseland (1805) appeased some of the Indians, but tensions remained high along the frontier. The Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) raised new tensions when Harrison purchased more than 2.5 million acres (10,000 km²) inhabited by the Shawnee, Kickapoo, Wea, and Piankeshaw tribes; he purchased the land from the Miami tribe, who claimed ownership. He rushed the treaty process by offering large subsidies to the tribes and their leaders so that it would be in force before Jefferson left office and the administration changed.
Harrison's pro-slavery position made him unpopular with the Indiana Territory's antislavery advocates, as he made several attempts to introduce slavery into the territory. He was unsuccessful due to the territory's growing anti-slavery movement. In 1803, he lobbied Congress to suspend Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance for 10 years, a move that would allow slavery in the Indiana Territory. At the end of the suspension period, citizens in the territories covered under the ordinance could decide for themselves whether to permit slavery. Harrison claimed that the suspension was necessary to encourage settlement and would make the territory economically viable, but Congress rejected the idea.  In 1803 and 1805, Harrison and the appointed territorial judges enacted laws that authorized indentured servitude and gave masters authority to determine the length of service.
The Illinois Territory held elections to the legislature's upper and lower houses for the first time in 1809. Lower house members were elected previously, but the territorial governor appointed members to the upper house. Harrison found himself at odds with the legislature after the anti-slavery faction came to power, and the eastern portion of the Indiana Territory grew to include a large anti-slavery population.  The Territory's general assembly convened in 1810, and its anti-slavery faction immediately repealed the indenturing laws enacted in 1803 and in 1805.  After 1809, Harrison's political authority declined as the Indiana territorial legislature assumed more authority and the territory advanced toward statehood. By 1812, he had moved away and resumed his military career.
Jefferson was the primary author of the Northwest Ordinance, and he had made a secret compact with James Lemen to defeat the pro-slavery movement led by Harrison, even though he was a slaveholder himself. Jefferson did not want slavery to expand into the Northwest Territory, as he believed that the institution should end. He donated money to Lemen to found churches in Illinois and Indiana to stop the pro-slavery movement. In Indiana, the founding of an anti-slavery church led to citizens signing a petition and organizing politically to defeat Harrison's efforts to legalize slavery in the territory. Jefferson and Lemen were instrumental in defeating Harrison's attempts in 1805 and 1807 to expand slavery in the territory.
Army general
Tecumseh and Tippecanoe
An Indian resistance movement had been growing against American expansion through the leadership of Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (The Prophet) in a conflict that became known as Tecumseh's War. Tenskwatawa convinced the tribes that they would be protected by the Great Spirit and no harm could befall them if they would rise up against the settlers. He encouraged resistance by telling the tribes to pay white traders only half of what they owed and to give up all the white man's ways, including their clothing, muskets, and especially whiskey.
In August 1810, Tecumseh led 400 warriors down the Wabash River to meet with Harrison in Vincennes. They were dressed in war paint, and their sudden appearance at first frightened the soldiers at Vincennes. The leaders of the group were escorted to Grouseland, where they met Harrison. Tecumseh insisted that the Fort Wayne Treaty was illegitimate, arguing that one tribe could not sell land without the approval of the other tribes; he asked Harrison to nullify it and warned that Americans should not attempt to settle the lands sold in the treaty. Tecumseh informed Harrison that he had threatened to kill the chiefs who signed the treaty if they carried out its terms and that his confederation of tribes was growing rapidly.  Harrison said that the Miamis were the owners of the land and could sell it if they so chose. He rejected Tecumseh's claim that all the Indians formed one nation. He said that each tribe could have separate relations with the United States if they chose to. Harrison argued that the Great Spirit would have made all the tribes speak one language if they were to be one nation.
Tecumseh launched an "impassioned rebuttal", in the words of one historian, but Harrison was unable to understand his language.  A Shawnee friendly to Harrison cocked his pistol from the sidelines to alert Harrison that Tecumseh's speech was leading to trouble, and some witnesses reported that Tecumseh was encouraging the warriors to kill Harrison. Many of them began to pull their weapons, representing a substantial threat to Harrison and the town, which held a population of only 1,000. Harrison drew his sword, and Tecumseh's warriors backed down when the officers presented their firearms in his defense.  Chief Winamac was friendly to Harrison, and he countered Tecumseh's arguments and told the warriors that they should return home in peace since they had come in peace. Before leaving, Tecumseh informed Harrison that he would seek an alliance with the British if the treaty was not nullified.  After the meeting, Tecumseh journeyed to meet with many of the tribes in the region, hoping to create a confederation to battle the United States.
Tecumseh was traveling in 1811 when Harrison was authorized by Secretary of War William Eustis to march against the confederation as a show of force. He led an army north with more than 1,000 men to intimidate the Shawnee into making peace, but the tribes launched a surprise attack early on November 7 in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Harrison defeated the tribal forces at Prophetstown next to the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers, and he was hailed as a national hero and the battle became famous. However, his troops had greatly outnumbered the attackers, and suffered many more casualties during the battle.
When reporting to Secretary Eustis, Harrison informed him that the battle occurred near the Tippecanoe River and that he feared an imminent reprisal attack. The first dispatch did not make clear which side had won the conflict, and the secretary at first interpreted it as a defeat; the follow-up dispatch clarified the situation. When no second attack came, the Shawnee defeat was more certain. Eustis demanded to know why Harrison had not taken adequate precautions in fortifying his camp against attacks, and Harrison said that he had considered the position strong enough. The dispute was the catalyst of a disagreement between Harrison and the Department of War which continued into the War of 1812.
The press did not cover the battle at first, and one Ohio paper misinterpreted Harrison's first dispatch to mean that he was defeated.  By December, however, most major American papers carried stories on the battle, and public outrage grew over the Shawnee. Americans blamed the British for inciting the tribes to violence and supplying them with firearms, and Congress passed resolutions condemning the British for interfering in American domestic affairs. Congress declared war on June 18, 1812, and Harrison left Vincennes to seek a military appointment.