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William Henry Harrison: Virginia House
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William Henry Harrison was born into an influential political family on February 9, 1773 in Charles City County, Virginia. Harrison's father was a wealthy Virginia planter who signed the Declaration of Independence and later became governor of Virginia.
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Although William Henry Harrison is considered one of the early western presidents, he was born on his grandfather's plantation in Virginia. Later as a young man, Harrison joined the Army where he became an officer on the western frontier.
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William H. Harrison was born on his family’s plantation, Berkeley, in Charles City County, Virginia. He attended Hampden Sydney College in Hanover County, Virginia. Because Harrison’s father wanted him son to be a doctor, he was sent to the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to study under the great physician Benjamin Rush.
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In 1793 Harrison sold his Virginia property to a brother for some land in Kentucky and some cash, casting his lot with the West. He married Anna Tuthill Symmes of Cincinnati in 1795, eloping when her father, Judge Symmes, would not agree to his proposal of marriage. Judge Symmes was ... a land speculator, owner of a large land purchase, and Harrison had helped some of his customers in a dispute with the judge. He was soon reconciled with the judge, however, and was later the executor of his estate. He acquired extensive land, and built a large log house, at North Bend, west of Cincinnati, which he promoted, unsuccessfully, as a town site. Cincinnati became the local metropolis, while North Bend remained rural.
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For the next four years Harrison waged "a campaign by continuation," cultivating the support of war veterans and of Whig and Anti-Masonic party leaders. At the national Whig convention in Harrisburg in December 1839, his delegates rejected their acknowledged leaders, Webster and Henry Clay, and nominated Harrison. The only "ability" they sought, said Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, was "availability." No platform was adopted, and advisers told Old Tip to keep his lips "hermetically sealed" on the issues of slavery, the tariff, and the U. S. Bank. To gain support in the South, the Whigs nominated John Tyler, a former senator from Virginia, for the vice presidency. Northern and Southern Whigs were urged to rally behind "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too."
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Harrison only had time for one official act: calling Congress into a special session, which he set to begin on May 31, 1841. He and Whig leader Henry Clay had disagreed over the necessity of the special session (which Harrison opposed, but Clay desired in order to immediately get his economic agenda underway), but Clay's powerful position in both the legislature and the Whig Party quickly forced Harrison to give in. He ... proclaimed the special session in the interests of "the condition of the revenue and finance of the country."[3] Most of his business during his month-long presidency, however, involved receiving office seekers. Harrison and Clay had also disagreed about government patronage, which was entirely given at the discretion of the President. Harrison had tried to end the dispute by promising in his inaugural address not to use the power to enhance his own standing in the government; however, the very fact of his appointment power sent scores of people to line up at the doors of the White House. The stress and volume of these interviews and petitions is often thought to have further weakened the already-ill Harrison.[4]
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