HARRISON

"Windows Into Our Past A Genealogy of Lewis Green & Associated Families, Volume 6", compiled by Judy Parsons Smith © 2005

Benjamin Harrison

Elizabeth Burwell , daughter of Lewis  & Abagail (Smith) Burwell , b. 1677; d. 1734; m. Benjamin Harrison , b. 1673; d. 1710.

Benjamin  & Elizabeth (Burwell) Harrison  had a son[i]: 

1. Benjamin Harrison  of Berkely, d. 1744; m 1722 to Anna Carter , daughter of King Carter  of Corotoman, Lancaster Co., VA.

Benjamin Harrison of Berkely

Benjamin Harrison  of Berkely, son of Benjamin & Elizabeth (Burwell) Harrison,  d. 1744; m 1722 to Anna Carter , daughter of King Carter  of Corotoman, Lancaster Co., VA

Benjamin  & Anna (Carter) Harrison had a son:

1.1. Benjamin Harrison , b. 1726; d. 1791; m. Elizabeth Bassett , b. 1730. 

Benjamin Harrison

1.1.  Benjamin Harrison , son of Benjamin & Anna ( Carter ) Harrison , b. 1726; d. 1791; m. Elizabeth Bassett , b. 1730.  Resided at Berkley .  Signer of Declaration of Independence, Burgess , member of the Continental Congress and Governor of VA. 

Benjamin  & Elizabeth (Bassett) Harrison  had a son:

1.1.1.        William Henry  Harrison, b. 1773, Berkley , VA ; d. 1841; m. 1795 to Anna Symmes .  President of US; Defeated the Indians at Tippecanoe . 

William Henry Harrison (President)

1.1.1.  William Henry Harrison , son of Benjamin  & Elizabeth (Bassett) Harrison,  b. 1773, Berkley, VA; d. 4 Apr 1841, Washington, DC; m. 1795 to Anna Symmes . 

White House Biography of William Henry Harrison  

"Give him a barrel of hard cider and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him, and my word for it," a Democratic newspaper foolishly gibed, "he will sit ... by the side of a 'sea coal' fire, and study moral philosophy. " The Whigs, seizing on this political misstep, in 1840 presented their candidate William Henry Harrison  as a simple frontier Indian fighter, living in a log cabin and drinking cider, in sharp contrast to an aristocratic champagne-sipping Van Buren .

Harrison was in fact a scion of the Virginia planter aristocracy. He was born at Berkeley in 1773. He studied classics and history at Hampden-Sydney College , then began the study of medicine in Richmond .

Suddenly, that same year, 1791, Harrison switched interests. He obtained a commission as ensign in the First Infantry of the Regular Army, and headed to the Northwest, where he spent much of his life.

In the campaign against the Indians, Harrison served as aide-de-camp to General "Mad Anthony" Wayne  at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, which opened most of the Ohio area to settlement. After resigning from the Army in 1798, he became Secretary of the Northwest Territory, was its first delegate to Congress, and helped obtain legislation dividing the Territory into the Northwest and Indiana Territories . In 1801 he became Governor of the Indiana Territory , serving 12 years.

His prime task as governor was to obtain title to Indian lands so settlers could press forward into the wilderness. When the Indians retaliated, Harrison was responsible for defending the settlements.

The threat against settlers became serious in 1809. An eloquent and energetic chieftain, Tecumseh , with his religious brother, the Prophet , began to strengthen an Indian confederation to prevent further encroachment. In 1811 Harrison received permission to attack the confederacy.  

While Tecumseh was away seeking more allies, Harrison led about a thousand men toward the Prophet's town. Suddenly, before dawn on November 7, the Indians attacked his camp on Tippecanoe River . After heavy fighting, Harrison repulsed them, but suffered 190 dead and wounded.

The Battle of Tippecanoe, upon which Harrison 's fame was to rest, disrupted Tecumseh's confederacy but failed to diminish Indian raids. By the spring of 1812, they were again terrorizing the frontier.

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. He 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[ii].

William Henry  & Anna (Symmes) Harrison  had a son:

1.1.1.1.  John Scott Harrison , b. 1804; d. 1878; m. 1831 to Elizabeth Irwin. 

John Scott Harrison

1.1.1.1.  John Scott Harrison , son of William Henry  & Anna (Symmes) Harrison ,  b. 1804; d. 1878; m. 1831 to Elizabeth Irwin .  He was twice elected to Congress

John Scott & Elizabeth (Irwin) Harrison had:

1.1.1.1.1.   Benjamin Harrison , b. 1833; m. Caroline L. Scott , d. 1892, in the White House, Washington, DC. 

Benjamin Harrison (President)

1.1.1.1.1.  Benjamin Harrison , son of John Scott & Elizabeth (Irwin) Harrison, b. 1833, near Cincinnati, OH; d. 1901; m 1^st 1853[iii] to Caroline Lavinia Scott [iv], d. 1892, in the White House, Washington, DC.; m 2^nd 1896, Indianapolis, IN to Mary (Unknown) Dimmick, widow. 

He was the 23^rd President of the United States .

White House Biography of Benjamin Harrison

“Nominated for President on the eighth ballot at the 1888 Republican Convention, Benjamin Harrison  conducted one of the first "front-porch" campaigns, delivering short speeches to delegations that visited him in Indianapolis . As he was only 5 feet, 6 inches tall, Democrats called him "Little Ben"; Republicans replied that he was big enough to wear the hat of his grandfather, "Old Tippecanoe ."

Born in 1833 on a farm by the Ohio River below Cincinnati , Harrison attended Miami University in Ohio and read law in Cincinnati . He moved to Indianapolis , where he practiced law and campaigned for the Republican Party. He married Caroline Lavinia Scott  in 1853. After the Civil War--he was Colonel of the 70th Volunteer Infantry--Harrison became a pillar of Indianapolis , enhancing his reputation as a brilliant lawyer.

The Democrats defeated him for Governor of Indiana in 1876 by unfairly stigmatizing him as "Kid Gloves" Harrison . In the 1880's he served in the United States Senate, where he championed Indians. homesteaders, and Civil War veterans.

In the Presidential election, Harrison received 100,000 fewer popular votes than Cleveland , but carried the Electoral College 233 to 168. Although Harrison had made no political bargains, his supporters had given innumerable pledges upon his behalf.

When Boss Matt Quay  of Pennsylvania heard that Harrison ascribed his narrow victory to Providence , Quay exclaimed that Harrison would never know "how close a number of men were compelled to approach... the penitentiary to make him President."

Harrison was proud of the vigorous foreign policy which he helped shape. The first Pan American Congress met in Washington in 1889, establishing an information center which later became the Pan American Union. At the end of his administration Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to annex Hawaii ; to his disappointment, President Cleveland  later withdrew it.

Substantial appropriation bills were signed by Harrison for internal improvements, naval expansion, and subsidies for steamship lines. For the first time except in war, Congress appropriated a billion dollars. When critics attacked "the billion-dollar Congress," Speaker Thomas B. Reed  replied, "This is a billion-dollar country." President Harriso n also signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act "to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies," the first Federal act attempting to regulate trusts.

The most perplexing domestic problem Harrison faced was the tariff issue. The high tariff rates in effect had created a surplus of money in the Treasury. Low-tariff advocates argued that the surplus was hurting business. Republican leaders in Congress successfully met the challenge. Representative William McKinley  and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich  framed a still higher tariff bill; some rates were intentionally prohibitive.

Harrison tried to make the tariff more acceptable by writing in reciprocity provisions. To cope with the Treasury surplus, the tariff was removed from imported raw sugar; sugar growers within the United States were given two cents a pound bounty on their production.

Long before the end of the Harrison Administration, the Treasury surplus had evaporated, and prosperity seemed about to disappear as well. Congressional elections in 1890 went stingingly against the Republicans, and party leaders decided to abandon President Harrison although he had cooperated with Congress on party legislation. Nevertheless, his party renominated him in 1892, but he was defeated by Cleveland .

After he left office, Harrison returned to Indianapolis , and married the widowed Mrs. Mary Dimmick  in 1896. A dignified elder statesman, he died in 1901.[v]“

Benjamin  & Caroline Lavinia (Scott) Harrison  had two (2) children:

1.1.1.1.1.1.   Russell Benjamin Harrison , m. 1884 to Mary Angeline Sanders
1.1.1.1.1.2.   Mary Scott Harrison , m. James Robert McKee