William Henry Harrison

president william henry harrison
ninth president of the united states 

interesting facts 
William Henry Harrison gave the longest Inaugural address in the history of the US in 1841 on a very cold day. He caught pneumonia, and died of it nearly one month after his speech. He was president for one month.

quote
"Tippecanoe and Tyler too!" - Election slogan 

biography 
William Henry Harrison was born in 1773 in Charles City County, Virginia. His father was Benjamin Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He wanted his son to become a doctor and sent young William to the University of Pennsylvania. However, soon thereafter, Benjamin Harrison died and William Harrison pursued 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. Soon, he was promoted to Lieutenant and then to Captain the year after. 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.

Harrison soon became governor of the Indiana Territory (which includes Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a great part of Michigan, and a portion of Minnesota). He held this position until 1812 when he left for the war. As governor, Harrison was also in charge of Native American affairs for the territory. In 1802 the administration of President Thomas Jefferson authorized him to make treaties, with instructions to take the lands of the Native Americans and at the same time keep their friendship. The two parts of his instructions proved incompatible. During Harrison's 12 years in office he persuaded native peoples to give up their claims in almost the whole of the territory, but no amount of friendliness on his part could make them cede their lands without resentment. The Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Prophet, formed an alliance of Native American peoples to oppose further encroachment on their lands.

A sizable group of Tecumseh's Shawnee and some of their allies established a village near the confluence of Tippecanoe Creek and the Wabash River in west central Indiana. Harrison received permission from the War Department to break up the alliance before it could act against the white settlements. About 1000 men were placed under his command. While Tecumseh was away, Harrison marched against the village. Camping a mile away, he invited the Prophet to a parley. However, the allied warriors attacked just before dawn on November 7, 1811. After hard fighting they were driven from the field, and Harrison's troops pushed on to the village and burned it. Harrison lost more than 180 killed and wounded in the battle. The Battle of Tippecanoe was no great victory, but it discredited the Prophet and led to the breakup of Tecumseh's alliance. It also made Harrison a hero to many people in the United States and earned him the nickname "Old Tippecanoe." It also gave way to the slogan "Tippecanoe (Harrison) and Tyler too." during the election of 1840.

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. To attract the votes of poor farmers and frontier dwellers, they presented Harrison as a man of the people, a Westerner, and a fighter of Native Americans. Former U.S. Senator John Tyler of Virginia was named Harrison's vice presidential running mate. No platform was adopted. The campaign was based on accusations that Van Buren had caused the financial panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression. Van Buren ran again, despite his declining popularity due to the Panic of 1837. Harrison 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.