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William Henry Harrison (March -April 1841)

The generic appellation of "Whig" embraced all the heterogenous elements thus united, and their real single bond of union was opposition to Jackson and the Jacksonian Democracy. It was some years before the Whig Party attempted a formulation of principles and policies, for the obvious reason that in such an association there could be no agreement in any other thing than the one thing of making common cause against executive usurpation. While some members of the new national Whig Party originally favored a protective tariff, others had fiercely opposed it; some had been for a United States Bank, and others against a bank of any kind; some had favored internal improvements by the national Government, and others had opposed, on the ground of unconstitutionality; and there were also some who continued in the expectation of a future successful revival of the doctrine.

The ninth President of the United States was born at Berkeley, Charles City County, Va., Feb. 9, 1773. Son of Benjamin Harrison, he was educated at Hampden Sidney College. Aide-de-Camp to General Wayne in Ohio, he was a Delegate to Congress from the Northwest Territory 1799-1800. Governor of Indiana Territory 1801-13. Gained the victory of Tippecanoe 1811, and that of the Thames 1813. Member of Congress from Ohio 1816-19. United States Senator 1825-28. United States Minister to Columbia 1828-29.

In the election of 1836 no common presidential candidate could be agreed upon by the Whigs. In 1836 he was defeated as Whig candidate for the Presidency, but was elected 1840, with John Tyler as Vice-President.

The great Whig national convention assembled at Harrisburg, Pa., December 4, 1839, and nominated the party's first successful ticket, Harrison and Tyler, which was elected in the following year. The party made its nomination with a view to the success which it achieved, but, as is most significant, it promulgated no platform. He was President for one month only, being inaugurated March 4, 1841, his death following April 4. Buried near North Bend, Ohio.

In 1773, William Henry Harrison was born at Berkeley on the James River in Virginia. His father, planter Benjamin Harrison, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1791, he accepted a commission in the United States Army and received an assignment to the Northwest Territory. After he resigned from the army three years later, he served as secretary of the Northwest Territory and its first representative to the United States Congress. He helped obtain the legislation that established an independent Indiana Territory in 1800 and received an appointment as the first territorial governor. The new territory included all of what would become the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as the northeastern part of Minnesota. Its capital was Vincennes, and it was here that Harrison built his fine two and one-half story brick Federal house northeast of what was then a small frontier town. He named it “Grouseland” for the many game birds on his 300-acre tract of land. The house had 17 rooms, including an attached one and one-half story dependency in the rear.

As governor, Harrison saw his principal task as opening lands belonging to the local Indian tribes to white settlement. He negotiated a series of treaties that provided for the cession of millions of acres of land, but his success generated strong resistance. Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee leader, who was trying to recruit other tribes to join him in armed resistance, met with Harrison at Grouseland in 1810 and warned that his people would fight to prevent further white encroachment. Located to the left of the center hall, the “Council Chamber,” is where Harrison held many meetings with Indian leaders and conducted much of his business as governor.

In 1811, Harrison left Grouseland and marched north to attack an Indian stronghold near Tippecanoe Creek. Celebrated as a great victory, the battle was indecisive and did not end Indian resistance. During the War of 1812, he obtained a commission in the United States Army and was given command of American forces in the old Northwest. In 1813, he crossed into Canada to defeat a combined force of British and Indians at the Battle of the Thames. This battle, in which Tecumseh was killed, ended Indian resistance in the Northwest.

At the end of the war, Harrison resigned from the army and moved his family back to land they owned in North Bend, Ohio. For the next 26 years, Harrison mingled farming with political activity, holding various state and national offices. Formed in the 1830s in opposition to Jackson’s Democratic Party, the Whig Party nominated him for president in 1840. The party calculated that a popular military hero could successfully challenge Van Buren, whose popularity had been damaged by the economic depression of 1837. With the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” the Whigs promoted the aristocratic Harrison as a log-cabin-dwelling, hard-cider frontiersman. Harrison won the election by an overwhelming margin, 234 out of 294 electoral votes, but he died of pneumonia on April 4, 1841, less than a month after taking office.