President William Henry Harrison was born in Virginia in 1773. During the early years of his life, Harrison briefly studied medicine, but the death of his father forced him to drop out. He soon enlisted in the US Army and served under General Anthony Wayne during the Northwest Indian War. Following the American victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, Harrison married Anna Tuthill Symmes, the daughter of a wealthy Ohio landowner.
In 1800, Harrison was named governor of the new Indiana Territory. During his time as governor, he negotiated with many Native American tribes to transfer their lands to the US. In response to some Native American backlash, Harrison called in the US army to forcefully remove them. At the cusp of the War of 1812, Harrison defeated the Shawnee and Tecumseh in the Battle of Tippecanoe. This victory contributed to Harrison’s reputation as a well-known military leader. Later, Harrison would use the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” in his presidential campaign.
In the years following the War of 1812, Harrison served in the House of Representative and in the Senate from Ohio. He emerged as a prominent figure in the Whig party and was one of the three Whig members who ran against Martin Van Buren in the election of 1836. Despite the Whig’s strategy to support three candidates in different areas of the US, Van Buren won the election.
Four years later, Harrison ran for president against Van Buren again. Harrison’s campaign strategy was largely centered on his appearance as a common man and his military victories over the Native Americans. Fun fact, Harrison handed out bottles of whiskey that were shaped like log-cabins during his campaign. These were manufactured by the E.C. Booz distillery, which in turn contributed to the term “booze” referring to alcohol. Harrison won the election with 273 electoral votes (Van Buren had 60).
On March 4th, 1841, Harrison was sworn into office. As a result of some inspired decision-making, 68-year old William Henry Harrison did not wear gloves, a hat, or a coat to his inauguration. On top of this, in the freezing weather, he proceeded to give the longest inaugural address in history. Harrison trudged through his presidential duties with a cold for four weeks before it developed into pneumonia and he died. John Tyler, Harrison’s VP, took the presidency and was later dubbed “His Accidency.”
I really liked all the fun facts you included into your mini-biography of Harrison - especially the one about booze! There are actually some really interesting articles that make me doubt that Harrison was actually killed by pneumonia, and that his death was actually merely an accident of standing in the cold for too long. In 2014, the New York Times published an article stating that enteric fever and the actions of his doctor Thomas Miller may have been the actual causes behind his death. Miller himself wrote that, Harrison’s “disease was not viewed as a case of pure pneumonia[, and that] the term pneumonia afforded a succinct and intelligible answer to the innumerable questions as to the nature of the attack.” I also think that it is quite ironic that Harrison had studied medicine when he was young, but still did not confer with Miller when he decided not to bleed him, which was the standard practice of curing pneumonia (even though Washington had died from bleedings). Instead, some historians suspect that enteric fever killed Harrison, as the nation’s capital had no sewer system, and the sewage that flowed near the White House was the perfect breeding ground for Salmonella typhi and S. paratyphi, which were known to be causes of enteric fever. To add on to Harrison’s predicament, Miller had given him toxic medications that helped facilitate the bacteria’s invasion into Harrison’s system. Although this theory could be quite dubious, I think that it is an interesting addition to consider!
ReplyDeleteSources:
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/04/killer-in-the-white-house/
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/what-really-killed-william-henry-harrison.html
That is super informative! Thanks for clarifying because there were some conflicting sources about the exact cause of his death, but the most commonly spread one was pneumonia, so I (falsely) assumed it was correct. I agree it is definitely worth looking at different accounts especially because Harrison died so long ago so the exact cause is not totally known.
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