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William Henry Harrison: Presidents
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William Henry Harrison set many presidential records in his short time in office. After giving the longest inauguration speech (105 minutes), Harrison became the first president to die in office (of pneumonia), after serving the shortest term (one month).
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William Henry Harrison's significance is not great. His tenure as president was truncated, and his career in federal political office was a relatively undistinguished one. As for his military career, one can safely say that his record in that field was less incompetent than those of most of the major military and civilian leaders.
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After resigning from the army in 1814, Harrison had an obscure career in politics and diplomacy, ending up 20 years later as a county recorder in Ohio. Nominated for president in 1835 as a military hero whom the conservative politicians hoped to be able to control, he ran surprisingly well against Van Buren in 1836. Four years later, he defeated Van Buren but caught pneumonia and died in Washington on April 4, 1841, a month after his inauguration. Harrison was the first president to die in office.
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Harrison was not running for president; in fact he wasn't even a representative. He had just come to enjoy the proceedings. And so, when voted for, his response was, "WHAT!? ME!?" Yes, it was him. Regardless of the change in direction for the one representative, Clay and Scott's votes were still too close to call, and so the convention proceeded as it had been going for so long now.
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Between his election and inauguration, Harrison was beset by numerous party quarrels over patronage. On April 4, 1841, one month after he took office, amid signs that his party was breaking up, Harrison died of pneumonia. The nation was stunned, having witnessed the first death of a president in office.
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After three years in the Senate, Harrison turned to foreign service, accepting an appointment as minister to Colombia. Harrison's tenure in South America was brief, because of political instability within Colombia and concerns within the U.S. government that he was sympathetic to revolutionaries plotting to overthrow the Colombian president. He was recalled to Washington, D.C., in February 1830.
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