Soldier in the Revolutionary War from North Yarmouth.

Died young.

A signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Benjamin Harrison, (1833-1901), 23rd President of the United States. Inaugurated 100 years after George Washington, Benjamin Harrison was known as the "Centennial President." He inherited a distinguished name. His grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was the 9th president of the United States. In colonial Virginia five successive generations of Benjamin Harrisons (1632-1791) compiled almost identical records as gentlemen of education and wealth, burgesses, councillors, and militia colonels.

Fearless independence, a strong sense of justice, and high intelligence marked Harrison as a soldier, lawyer, humanitarian, and statesman-president. Ranked today as an average chief executive, in his own era he compiled a strong record of constitutional government that enabled the country to approach world power with prudence and caution. Compared with strong, appealing leaders like Jackson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, Harrison was greater as a man than as a president..

Early Life and Education

President Benjamin Harrison's father was John Scott Harrison (1809-1878), the only American to be the son of one president and the father of another. After college, John Scott Harrison managed a 2, 000-acre (800-meter) family estate at North Bend, Ohio. In 1831, his first wife having died, he married Elizabeth Irwin, from Pennsylvania. The new bride eventually reared nine children.

Their second child, christened Benjamin, was born at North Bend on Aug. 20, 1833. Ben grew into a chubby, square-shouldered boy with blond hair. He was bright but stubborn, eager to hunt, fish, and swim after school was out and the farm chores were completed. At the age of 14, Ben went to Cincinnati to attend Cary's Academy (later Farmers' College).

In the fall of 1850, Ben registered as a junior at Miami University, the "Yale of the West," at Oxford, Ohio. Here he renewed a romance, begun at Cary's Academy, with Caroline (Carrie) Scott, the charming daughter of John W. Scott, who had taught Ben the physical sciences. Harrison managed to master Latin, Greek, and the natural sciences while courting Carrie. He made friends easily, excelled in studies, and held office in the forensic society. In 1851 he joined the Presbyterian Church.

At graduation in June 1852, Miami awarded Harrison first honors. Though attracted to theministry, he finally decided to read law with Storer and Gwynne, a Cincinnati firm. The texts of Blackstone, Coke, and Littleton engaged him for 16 months. Then, on Oct. 20, 1853, Ben married Carrie at Oxford. Her father officiated. Six weeks later Ben's father, recently elected a Whig congressman from Ohio, left for Washington and turned over his North Bend home to the newlyweds.

Indianapolis: Law and Politics

Admitted to the bar in 1854, Harrison moved to Indianapolis with his bride and a total cash capital of $800. Relatives and neighbors who had known his grandfather made them feel at home. He won his first case and augmented his income by earning $2.50 a day as a court crier. The increment was especially welcome when a son, Russell Benjamin, arrived. In 1858 a daughter, Mary, was born, but the Harrisons lost a third child at birth in 1861.

A year after Harrison's arrival in Indianapolis, William Wallace, the brother of the soldier and author Lew Wallace and the son of former Indiana governor David Wallace, had invited Ben to form a law partnership. Until the Civil War the firm of Wallace and Harrison enjoyed a moderate success.

Politics ran in the family, and Benjamin could have traded politically on the Harrison name. From Congress his father warned, however, that only knaves "ever enter the political arena." He counseled his son to give the newly formed Republican Party a wide berth. Ben demurred, broke politically with his father, and campaigned for Republican presidential candidate John C. Frémont in 1856. As a Republican upstart he ran successfully for city attorney of Indianapolis in 1857, served as secretary of the party's state central committee in 1858, and was elected reporter of the state supreme court in 1860. He was twice reelected to this lucrative office.

The War Years (1861-1865)

In July 1862, at the request of Governor Oliver P. Morton, Harrison raised the 70th Indiana Regiment, drilled the recruits in tactics, and emerged as a strict disciplinarian. His men called him "Little Ben" because he was only 5 feet 6 inches tall. Under his colonelcy, the 70th achieved fame on the eve of the Atlanta campaign. At Resaca, Golgotha, and New Hope Church, Harrison served gallantly. For heroism at Peach Tree Creek, duly noted by Gen. Hooker, President Lincoln made Harrison a brigadier general. Later he fought at Nashville before rejoining his command for the march through the Carolinas and Virginia.

The Path to the Presidency

Harrison returned to Indianapolis a war hero, but his true forte was not as a soldier. He gained wide fame and some fortune at the Indiana bar. In 1876 he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of Indiana, but his campaign helped elect President Rutherford B. Hayes, who appointed him to the Mississippi River Commission (1879-1881). After the death of Sen. Oliver P. Morton in 1877, Harrison became the Republican leader in Indiana. During the national convention of 1880 he supported James Garfield, but he refused an offer to enter Garfield's cabinet because he had just been elected U. S. senator.

In the Senate (1881-1887), Harrison enhanced his national reputation as a public speaker and gained fame by his workmanship in drafting legislation. He advocated civil service reform, civil rights for blacks, federal regulation of railroads and trusts, and a high tariff to protect American industry. His stringent criticism of President Grover Cleveland's vetoes of veterans' pension bills made him the "soldiers' friend," and the Grand Army of the Republic backed him politically. But in 1887, Indiana's Democratic legislature blocked his reelection by one vote.

Election of 1888

In 1888, James G. Blaine, the Republican party's most prominent figure, declined to seek the presidential nomination. The national convention then nominated Harrison as the soldier-citizen who combined fitness with availability. The call came on the 8th Ballot. Levi P. Morton, a New York City banker, received the vice-presidential nomination. Cleveland was renominated by the Democrats.

Harrison conducted a unique and unexpected front-porch campaign, delivering more than 80 extemporaneous speeches to nearly 300,000 people who visited him at Indianapolis. He made "high tariff" the chief issue, while Cleveland called for lower tariffs and even free trade. On election day, Harrison trailed Cleveland by more than 90,000 popular votes, but he carried Indiana, New York, and several "doubtful states" and won the presidency by an electoral vote of 233 to 168.

The Presidency

Promising the country a "Legal Deal," Harrison named six lawyers and two businessmen to his cabinet. With a Republican majority in both houses of Congress until 1891, the president won enactment of most of his legislative program, including broader civil service law coverage.

The administration attempted to solve pressing economic and social problems by passing four important laws in 1890. The Sherman Antitrust Act, outlawing trusts and monopolies that hindered trade, met the demands of farmers and small businessmen who sought protection from corporations that controlled market prices and destroyed competition. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act, increasing the amount of silver that could be coined, reassured farmers who believed that the freer coinage of silver would avert bankruptcy and foreclosures, which were threatening because of failing farm prices. The McKinley Tariff Act, setting tariffs at record highs, was designed mainly to protect American manufacturers during a periodof rapid industrialization. The Dependent Pension Act, which benefited all Civil War veterans who could not perform manual labor, was passed despite the fact that the resulting cost of pensions would rise from $88 million in 1889 to $159 million in 1893.

Harrison supported construction of a two-ocean Navy and a more efficient merchant marine as ingredients of his foreign policy. The first Pan American Conference in Washington in 1889 paved the way for active cooperation between the United States and Latin America. Harrison negotiated reciprocal trade agreements as a middle road between free competitive markets and trade regulated by high tariffs.

He settled some old quarrels by arbitration. Agreement was reached with Britain over fur seals in the Bering Sea, and war with Britain and Germany over control of Samoa was avoided. Grave diplomatic crises with Italy (the lynching of three Italian nationals in New Orleans) and with Chile (the killing of two U.S. sailors in Valparaiso) were solved without resort to arms. All in all, a firm defense of American interests in foreign affairs and a general promotion of industry and governmental effectiveness characterized the administration. Only the failure to annex Hawaii annoyed Harrison.

Return to Private Life

The Republicans renominated Harrison in 1892 but chose Whitelaw Reid, American minister to France and editor of the New York Tribune, to replace Vice President Morton as his running mate. The Democrats once again nominated Cleveland.

In a dull campaign GOP bosses Matthew Quay, Thomas Platt, Thomas Reed, and others--all active in 1888--sulked in silence. As Harrison paid the price for being his own boss, he lost ground steadily. Farmers voted the Populist ticket in protest against falling prices. Workers, angered by the steel strike at Homestead (Pa.) and other labor disputes, also bolted the GOP. Discontent with the McKinley Tariff also helped to defeat Harrison, who trailed Cleveland by more than 350,000 votes, while the Populist candidate, James B. Weaver, received more than a million votes. In the electoral college Cleveland had 277, Harrison 145, and Weaver 22. Neither major candidate took to the stump, Harrison because of his wife's illness (she died two weeks before the election) and Cleveland out of respect for his rival's personal plight.

Back home in Indianapolis, Harrison became a lecturer and writer and managed a lucrative law practice that took him before the Supreme Court. In international law he brilliantly upheld Venezuela's claims against Britain in a boundary dispute with British Guiana. In 1896 he married Mary Lord Dimmick, niece of his first wife. They had one child, Elizabeth. In 1897, Harrison published This Country of Ours, a book explaining how the federal government operates. Harrison died in Indianapolis on March 13, 1901. His Views of an Ex-President, edited by his widow, appeared posthumously. His widow survived him by nearly 47 years.

William Henry Harrison, (1773-1841), 9th President of the United States. The oldest president up to that time, to be inaugurated, he was also the first to die in office, surviving only one month. Harrison's Indian fighting and treaty making had secured the Old Northwest for American settlement and established the reputation that led him to the White House. He was the first presidential candidate to campaign actively for office. The "Log Cabin Campaign" of 1840, in which Harrison, a Whig, was pitted against the Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren, was a spectacle of slogan and slander.

Early Life

Born at Berkeley plantation on the James River in Charles City county, Va., on Feb. 9, 1773, Harrison considered himself a "child of the Revolution." The youngest son of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was privately tutored and acquired sufficient knowledge of grammar and classics to meet entrance requirements at Hampden-Sydney College in the late 1780's. Although he never completed the course, he claimed proficiency "in belles lettres information & particularly in history."

Military Service

After an interval of studying medicine in Richmond and Philadelphia in 1790 and 1791, Harrison decided on a military career, and on Aug. 16, 1791, he was commissioned an ensign in the First Regiment of Infantry. Although only 18, he recruited a company of 80 men, who were persuaded to hazard their lives fighting Indians in the western wilderness for $2 a month. Leaving Philadelphia in September 1791, the young ensign marched his recruits over the Allegheny Mountains to Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), where they took boats down the Ohio River to Fort Washington (Cincinnati).

Harrison remained in the Army until May 31, 1798, rising to the rank of captain. As aide-de-camp to Gen. Anthony Wayne, he was cited for bravery at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on Aug. 20, 1794, and the following year he witnessed and signed the Treaty of Greenville. He then was ordered to Fort Washington, where he served for a time as commandant.

Marriage and Family

On Nov. 22, 1795, Harrison married Anna Symmes, daughter of Judge John Cleves Symmes, a speculator with a patent for a vast acreage of Ohio land. The judge apparently withheld his blessing, claiming later that his daughter had "made rather a run away match of it." The young captain, the judge complained, "can neither bleed, plead, nor preach, and if he could plow I should be satisfied." Over the next 19 years the couple had 10 children, one of whom, John Scott Harrison, became the father of Benjamin Harrison, the 23d president.

In the Northwest Territory

After resigning from the Army, Harrison moved his family from Fort Washington 14 miles (22.5 km) down the Ohio River to North Bend, where he bought 160 acres (65 hectares) for $450. On June 28, 1798, President John Adams appointed him secretary of the Northwest Territory, and the following year the territorial legislature elected him its delegate to Congress by a vote of 11 to 10. Harrison vigorously supported Western interests in the House. His Land Act of 1800 provided for the purchase of small tracts with liberal credit, thus freeing settlers from dependence on land speculators.

Governor of Indiana Territory

When the Northwest Territory was divided in 1800, President Adams appointed Harrison governor of the Indiana Territory. He moved his family to Vincennes, the territorial capital, and built Grouseland, a mansion similar to his birthplace. Here on the Wabash River he spent the most satisfying years of his life, serving as governor from January 1801 until December 1812.

Political dexterity enabled him to manage appointments from both the Federalist John Adams and the Republican Thomas Jefferson. His supporters, called "Virginia aristocrats" by their enemies, hoped to build a plantation society, a course that would have required repeal of the antislavery provisions of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The register of the land office, John Badollet, one of Harrison's principal opponents, denounced him as a "proconsul" and "unrelenting tyrant," who attempted to introduce "his darling and never abandoned plan of slavery."

In a series of Indian treaties Harrison opened a huge new area for settlement. By the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) the Delaware, Miami, Potawatomi, and Eel Indians ceded approximately 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) in return for annuities ranging from $200 to $500 to each tribe.

Tippecanoe

Continued settlement, however, invited Indian hostility. Encouraged by the British, the northwestern tribes rallied behind the Shawnee warriors Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, to halt the invasion of their hunting grounds. A dramatic confrontation between Harrison and the brothers at Grouseland in August 1810 failed to reconcile conflicting

Indian and American interests.

At dawn on Nov. 7, 1811, at Tippecanoe Creek, Harrison's army of 800 men was surprised by Indians under the command of the Prophet. The Americans suffered casualties of 61 dead and 127 wounded, but they managed to drive off the Indians and then went on to destroy the deserted Prophet's Town nearby. Later, the Indian confederation regrouped under Tecumseh and fought on the side of the British during the War of 1812. Harrison was both praised and condemned for his performance at Tippecanoe, but the battle was to be used to political advantage by "Old Tip."

The Thames

In August 1812, following the declaration of war against Britain and William Hull's surrender of Detroit, Harrison was appointed brigadier general in charge of the Northwestern Army, and the following spring he was promoted to major general. Demonstrating a concern for logistics acquired during his apprenticeship under Wayne, Harrison fortified Fort Meigs at the Maumee Rapids southwest of Detroit and staunchly withstood two sieges by the British and Indians. After Lake Erie was cleared of the British by Capt. Oliver Hazard Perry, Harrison recaptured Detroit and pursued the enemy into Canada. On Oct. 5, 1813, his forces decisively defeated the British and Indians at Moravian Town on the Thames River. Tecumseh was killed, and the British commander, Gen. Henry Proctor, fled. Harrison's campaign ended the hostile Indian confederation and secured the northwestern border.

Entry into Politics

Resigning his commission on May 31, 1814, Harrison returned to North Bend to oversee his farm and settle the tangled financial estate of his father-in-law. He became a vestryman of Christ Episcopal Church in Cincinnati and a trustee of Cincinnati College. From 1816 to 1819 he represented his district in Congress. Failing to be appointed minister to Russia in 1819, he ran for the Ohio state Senate and served one term (1819-1821). After a series of unsuccessful attempts to obtain the Ohio governorship and seats in both houses of Congress, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1825. He served three years and was chairman of the committee on military affairs and the militia.According to John Quincy Adams, he displayed "a lively and active, but shallow mind."

Colombian Interlude

In 1828, as a supporter of the Adams administration, Harrison was rewarded with an
appointment as minister to Colombia. Reaching Bogotá in February 1829, he was recalled a month later by Adams' successor, Andrew Jackson, but continued to function as minister until his replacement arrived in September. His stern republicanism, however, proved uncongenial to the prevailing Colombian government headed by Gen. Simón Bolívar. Once relieved of office, Harrison wrote a patronizing letter to Bolívar, declaring that "the strongest of all government is that which is most free." This epigram aroused controversy in Colombia but proved to be useful in Harrison's later political career.

The Campaign Trail

The Jacksonian era was one of adversity for Harrison. A persistent office seeker, he found himself obliged in 1834 to accept a position as clerk of the court of common pleas in Hamilton county, Ohio, in order to cope with financial troubles. Having aspirations for the presidency, he promoted his candidacy by tours of Indiana and Illinois during the summer of 1835. Anniversary celebrations of the battles of Tippecanoe and the Thames glorified his military career, friendly editors publicized his political availability, and local Whig conventions in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, and Indiana pledged their support.

When friends of Daniel Webster suggested Harrison as a Whig running mate, Old Tip proclaimed that he would not run for Vice President "on that ticket or any other." During
the summer of 1836 he broke with tradition and openly campaigned at rallies throughout the country. Because the Whigs could not agree on a candidate, their vote was divided among Harrison, Webster, and Hugh L. White. Harrison, nevertheless, carried 7 states, losing to Democrat Van Buren by an Electoral vote of 170 to 73.

The Log Cabin Campaign

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."

At their convention in Baltimore in May 1840, the Democrats renominated President Van Buren. Hard times following the Panic of 1837 made Democratic prospects gloomy. The Liberty party nominated James G. Birney.

Democratic campaigners wept crocodile tears for Clay and ridiculed Old Tip, now past 67, as "Granny," belittling his military record and accusing him of senility. "Give him a barrel of hard cider, and settle a pension of $2,000 a year on him," advised one reporter, "and ... he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin ... and study moral philosophy."

Whig editors exploited this tactless observation by proclaiming Harrison "the log-cabin and hard-cider candidate." Van Buren was unfairly stereotyped as a dandy who preened himself before huge mirrors in the presidential palace. Whig rhymsters dramatized the contrast:Let Van from his coolers of silver drink wine And lounge on his cushioned settee, Our man on a buckeye bench can recline, Content with hard cider is he. Once again Harrison conducted a vigorous campaign, delivering at least 23 speeches ranging from one to three hours in length. Partisans measured the size of his rallies by acres, and John Quincy Adams noted a state of political agitation "never before witnessed."

The irrational campaign brought out an unprecedented vote of 2,400, 000--a 50% increase over that of 1836. Harrison carried 19 of the 26 states, winning an electoral total of 234 to Van Buren's 60, although his popular majority was less than 150,000. Tolling the knell of Jacksonianism, Horace Greeley hoped for an end to "official insolence and unblushing corruption."

On March 4, 1841, in one of the longest inaugural addresses ever delivered, Harrison promised not to run for a second term--a promise that proved to be unnecessary. Harassed and fatigued by the demands of office seekers, he accomplished little during his one month in the presidency. Having contracted pneumonia in late March, he died in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1841.

Moved from Sharon, Windsor to Strafford, Orange between 1870 and 1880, probably to live near his oldest son, Charles who was living there with his wife and children. Royal had already moved on to Michigan. 1870 says birthplace was Vermont, earlier ones list New Hampshire.

William Hart was a master-mariner; his home was in Portland.

Emma received her early education at the Dansville Seminary and was graduated from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie in the class of 1880. She returned to Vassar after her graduation as a member of the faculty for one year, as assistant to the Professor of Music. Except for summers, Emma spent more than twenty years in New York with her son and daughter and had lived in Dansville continuously for the past twenty years, where she as taken an active interest in managing the farm, formerly owned by her parents. She was the last surviving charter member of the of the Dansville's Red Cross Chapter No.1, organized August 22, 1881 under the leadership of Clara Barton. Emma's children donated her house on Elizabeth Street to the Red Cross.

William assisted his father on the old home farm until twenty-five years old, and then took a part of the homestead property, upon which he engaged in mixed husbandry until his death. When his father died, the estate contained 579 acres, the was divided among William's siblings and the share that fell to William was 69 acres. He then moved on to a five acre lot that he purchased of the heirs of Susannah Hartman, his grandmother, where he lived and carried on farming. He continued and had always followed farming and had been eminently successful. By his energy, economy and enterprise he has acquired a large propertry and is ranked among the leading agriculturists of the county. His advantage for an education were such were afforded by the common schools of his town and the academy at Dansville. He had never been an office seeker nor an active politician. He gave his allegiance to the Democratic party until 1860, when he voted for Abraham Lincoln, and voted for the candidates of the Republican party from 1860 to 1872, when he voted for Horace Greeley. Since that time he had voted for whom he had considered the best man, regardless of party. William had never united with any religious denomination, but attends, as does his family, the English Lutheran church in Dansville. From William Hartman's obituary in the Dansville Express dated 17 April 1890, we find the following, "A GOOD MAN GONE. William Hartman, Whom Every One Knew and Respected. William Hartman died at his home one mile north of the village after a two week illness of gastro-enteritis. The best efforts of his family physician aided and assisted by a coucil of eminent physicians from Buffalo and the Sanatorium, were rewarded by only an apparent mitigation of his disease. Heart failure supervening, he suddenly passed away, surrounded by his devoted wife and loving family on Saturday morning April 12th, 1890. Mr. Hartmanwas born Jan 30. 1820, on the old homestead farm. In 1850 was married to Catherine Driesbach, and moved to his present home, which was adjoining and part of the old homestead. Here he lived for forty years acquiring an honest reputation for industry and sound judgementwhich will always attach to his memory. His integrity was beyond question and his industry has always been apparent in the care he bestowed upon his several farms. He did not live simply to enjoy the prudent and honest accumulation of property, but commencing with a common school education he sought the aid of the best periodicals and publications of the day, which he perused and stored in his mind until his knowledge became extensive and versatile. He has taken Harper's Magazine from its first number dated June 1850, having read every number up to his last illness. A conservative man, it was only in his present home when dispensing hospitality to his friends that Mr. Hartman was at his best. It was then his well-stored mind gave forth its rich treasure. He leaves a wife and three children, William H. Hartman, Miss Lydia M. Hartman, and Mrs. F. W. Noyes. The funeral services were conducted on Monday by the Rev. W. R. McCutcheon and Geo. K. Ward, and a large concourse of relatives and friends followed his remains to Greemount cemetery, where amid the smiles and tears of an April day he was quietly laid to rest."The home in which he built in 1850 and lived for forty years, is just north of the Elementary School, and is today known as the Barden House.

Had a two-acre lot in Rowley which he sold to Thomas Crosby; moved from Rowley to Merrimack (a section of Rowley) in 1649, then to Bradford, and then, in 1660 to Haverhill. Occupation: farmer. One of three original settlers of what is now Bradford.

Shipbuilder and deacon of the church.

A soldier in King Philip's War.

Worked for many years in Lincoln's Pulpwood Mill as a Paper Machine Mechanic. After retiring from the pulpwood mill, he and his two boys, George and Bernard, built a Saw Mill in North Lincoln, which they maintained throughout their lifetime and is still run today by members of the Haskell family.