Family and education

William Henry Harrison was born on February 9, 1773, at Berkeley, the family plantation near Richmond, Virginia. He was the third son of Benjamin Harrison and Elizabeth Bassett Harrison. His father was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Young William was educated at home until he attended Hampden-Sydney College from 1787 to 1790. He then studied medicine in Richmond and Philadelphia.

Early military career

After his father's death in 1791, Harrison decided to join the Army. He was 18 years old when President George Washington made him an officer. Harrison was sent to serve in the Northwest Territory, a vast tract of land including most of the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Harrison was so successful as an officer that in just two years he became an aide to the well-known Gen. Anthony Wayne. At the time Wayne was leading a campaign against the Northwest Indian Confederation. This alliance of Native American tribes had been formed to resist white settlement in the Midwest. Harrison served with distinction in the battle of Fallen Timbers, which took place near present-day Maumee, Ohio, in 1794. The Army's victory in that battle ended 20 years of border warfare with the Indians.

Marriage and family

In 1795 Harrison married Anna Symmes, daughter of a wealthy landowner in North Bend, Ohio, near Cincinnati. They had six sons and four daughters. Harrison was promoted to the rank of captain in 1797. The next year he resigned from the Army, however, to settle with his family on a farm in North Bend.

Old Tippecanoe

In June 1798 President John Adams appointed Harrison secretary of the Northwest Territory. The following year he was sent to the United States Congress as the territory's first representative. In 1800 the territory was divided into the Ohio and Indiana territories. Harrison became governor of the Indiana Territory.

Harrison was also put in charge of Indian affairs. Between 1802 and 1809 he negotiated a number of treaties with Native American tribes. Through these agreements he acquired millions of acres of land in Indiana and Illinois for the United States.

Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawnee tribe, believed that these treaties were invalid and organized an Indian uprising. Harrison defeated the Indians at the battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811, near present-day Lafayette, Indiana. This victory brought him national acclaim. He came to be known as Old Tippecanoe.

In 1812 Harrison was made a brigadier general. He was placed in command of all federal forces in the Northwest during the War of 1812 with Great Britain. On October 5, 1813, troops under his command defeated the British and their Indian allies at the battle of the Thames, in Ontario, Canada. Tecumseh was killed in the battle, and the British-Indian alliance was permanently destroyed.

Congress and the presidency

After the war Harrison settled in Ohio. He soon became active in politics. Harrison served in the United States House of Representatives (1816–19), the Ohio state senate (1819–21), and the United States Senate (1825–28). He was minister to Colombia in 1828–29. In 1836 the Whig Party nominated him for the presidency, but he lost the election to Martin Van Buren.

Popular as a war hero and a frontiersman, Harrison again won the Whig presidential nomination in 1840. John Tyler of Virginia was the vice-presidential candidate. Their campaign slogan was “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” recalling Harrison's military triumph 29 years earlier. Harrison won the election with 234 electoral votes to President Van Buren's 60.

Harrison took the oath of office on March 4, 1841. He caught a cold while delivering his long inaugural address, and later his cold developed into pneumonia. On April 4, 1841, a month after taking office, Harrison died in the White House. In 1888 his grandson Benjamin Harrison was elected the 23rd president of the United States.