The First Ladies: Anna Harrison
Anna Harrison was first lady in name only. Her husband was president for only 31 days, during which time she hadn't gone to Washington yet. Her daughter-in-law Jane Findlay Harrison served in the role of White House Hostess for that brief period. Nonetheless, Anna was a remarkable woman who had a long life and who has the distinction of being the president's wife to be mother to the most children (10), though with mortality being what it was in the 19th century, she oulived all but one of them.
Anna Tuthill Symes was born on Solitude Farm, near Morristown, Sussex County, New Jersey on July 25, 1775, almost a year before the Declaration of Independence. Her father was John Cleves Symmes, a Colonel of the Continental Army during American Revolution, and later an associate justice on the New Jersey Superior Court (1778-1785), a delegate from Delaware to the Continental Congress (1785-1786), and Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court (1787). In 1787 John Symmes was appointed judge of the Northwest Territory. In 1788 he obtained from the government a grant of 1,000,000 acres, bounded south by the Ohio, and west by the Miami, and was the founder of the settlements of North Bend, and Cincinnati thereon. Her mother was also named Anna Tuthill Symes. The elder Anna died giving birth to the future first lady. After the death of his first wife, John Symmes married a second time to a Mrs. Halsey, and later to Susan Livingston, daughter of New York Governor William Livingston.
Anna Harrison had one older sister, Maria Symmes Short. Anna is descibed as being small in height, with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Her religion was Presbyterian. She was educated at Clinton Academy in East Hampton, New York and later at the Boarding School of Isabella Marshall Graham in New York City. Anna Harrison was a classmate of incumbent First Lady Martha Washington's granddaughter Nellie Custis for one year, from 1789 to 1790.
For the first three years after the death of her mother, Anna Symmes was raised by her father but as an officer in the Continental Army, he was unable to fully care for her. According to legend, he put on the uniform of a British soldier and rode by horseback from New Jersey through British-occupied New York to take the four year old to her maternal grandparents Henry and Phoebe Tuthill in Southhold, Suffolk County, on Long Island. They raised her through late adolescence. In 1794, she rejoined her father and her second stepmother Susan Livingston Symmes at a temporary home on his extensive land holdings in the Northwest Territory along the Ohio River near Cincinnati. While the home was being built in North Bend, Ohio, she and her stepmother lived with Anna Harrison's elder sister Maria and her husband Peyton Short in Lexington, Kentucky. There she met and fell in love with a young Army officer, Captain William Henry Harrison, who had fought in Indian wars in the Northwest Territory.
At age 20 she married 22 year old William Henry Harrison on November 22, 1795, at North Bend, Hamilton County, Ohio. Judge Symmes initially opposed the marriage on the basis that a military career was not stable enough to support a wife and family but relented once he came to know and admire the character of his new son-in-law.
The couple had ten children together: 1. Elizabeth Bassett Harrison Short (1796-1846); 2. John Cleves Symmes Harrison (1798 – 1830); 3. Lucy Singleton Harrison Estes (1800 – 1826); 4. William Henry Harrison II (1802 – 1838); 5. John Scott Harrison (1804-1878); 6. Benjamin Harrison (1806 – 1840); 7. Mary Symmes Harrison Thornton (1809 – 1842); 8. Carter Bassett Harrison (1811 – 1839); 9. Anna Tuthill Harrison Taylor (1813 – 1845); 10. James Findlay Harrison (1814 –1817). Only John would outlive Anna.
Through her husband's early military career, Anna remained at the small log home that they built on 169 acres in North Bend. In 1799, when Harrison was elected to Congress as Territorial Representative, Anna Harrison joined him in the capital city of Philadelphia. When Harrison was named Territorial Governor of Indiana in 1801, Anna Harrison moved with her children to the former French trading post of Vincennes, Indiana where her husband built the family a sturdy brick mansion they called Grouselands. It included a fortress-like wall to protect it from raids by Native American Indians. Anna Harrison was responsible for the education and religious training of her children and also served as hostess at the governor's house to a number of prominent figures ranging from a visiting Vice President Aaron Burr to Indian leaders Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa. She also managed the family property.
When the War of 1812 began, Anna Harrison took her children back to North Bend, Ohio where there was less chance of danger. Upon her father's death in 1814, she and her husband inherited Judge Symmes' substantial land holdings, which came with great debts. They enlarged their cabin into a 22-room house. Subsequently Harrison was elected to the U.S. House and then Senate, and was appointed as Minister to Columbia. Anna Harrison remained in Ohio the entire time. What most engaged her outside of her family, were her activities in the Presbyterian Church. She even was known to invite her entire congregation back to the Harrison home after Sunday service for an open house supper.
Anna Harrison voiced her opposition to the drafting of her husband as the Whig candidate for President in both 1836 and 1840. Although she opposed his candidacy, Anna Harrison was a visible presence at the Harrison home during the colorful "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" campaign of 1840 where supporters, Whig organizers and reporters came to see the candidate. Harrison was 68 years old when he became President, at the time the oldest man to assume the office. In the winter of 1841, as an entourage consisting of her husband and family members were leaving Ohio by a caravan of horse-drawn carriages to go to Washington, D.C. to attend President-elect Harrison's Inauguration, Anna Harrison was ill and too weak to join them. She was still mourning the 1839 death of her son Carter, and the June, 1840 death of her son Benjamin.
Anna sent her daughter-in-law Jane Harrison to serve as White Houe hostess. She was in good health and preparing to leave by stagecoach from Ohio to Washington when a courier arrived at the Harrison farm with the news that the President had died. Anna Harrison remained in Ohio since she would not have arrived in time for the funeral services. Harrison's body was later buried in North Bend, Ohio. Anna Harrison is the only incumbent First Lady who never entered the White House.
During the brief four weeks of the Harrison Administration, Jane Irwin Harrison. Jane Irwin had married the President's son and namesake William Henry Harrison, Jr. He was a struggling lawyer who suffered from alcoholism. He died on 6 February, 1838 in North Bend, Ohio. A thirty-six year old widow of three years at the time she served as White House hostess, Jane Irwin Harrison brought her two young sons, James and William along with her to live in the mansion with their grandfather. Jane Irwin Harrison died just four years later, in 1845, at age 41 years old.
Anna Harrison was the first presidential widow to be awarded a pension by Congress, a lump sum of $25,000. They also granted her right to free postage on all her outgoing correspondence. After a state funeral in Washington, her late husband was interred in Congressional Cemetery in the capital. However, Anna Harrison selected a site on a knoll near Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, where her father was buried, and began construction of a final burial place there for him husband. A few years later, the late President's remains were re-interred there, following a service in a nearby chapel. Within four years of her husband's death, Anna Harrison also lost her three remaining daughters - Mary Thornton died in 1842, Anna Taylor in 1845, and Betsy Short in 1846. She remained close to, and relied upon the financial assistance of her widowed son-in-law John Cleves Short.
Anna Harrison kept abreast of political news and had strong objections to policies of both the Administrations of Tyler and Polk. She nevertheless made use of her status as a presidential widow to press both Presidents into awarding her numerous nephews and grandsons either commissions to federal or military positions. She became a rabid supporter of the emerging Republican Party because of its pro-abolition stand. Her primary focus, however, remained her local Presbyterian Church. Despite having to subsist on a small income, she was generous with the poor members of her church and community.
As the Civil War began, Anna Harrison encouraged her grandsons to fight for the Union. After her 22-room home burned in 1858, Anna Harrison went to live at the home of her only living child, John Scott Harrison, thus living in the same household as her grandson Benjamin Harrison, the future 23rd President.
Anna Harrison died on February 25, 1864 at the age of 88 at her home in North Bend, Ohio. She had outlived her husband for nearly 23 years. She is also buried at Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, Ohio.
Anna Tuthill Symes was born on Solitude Farm, near Morristown, Sussex County, New Jersey on July 25, 1775, almost a year before the Declaration of Independence. Her father was John Cleves Symmes, a Colonel of the Continental Army during American Revolution, and later an associate justice on the New Jersey Superior Court (1778-1785), a delegate from Delaware to the Continental Congress (1785-1786), and Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court (1787). In 1787 John Symmes was appointed judge of the Northwest Territory. In 1788 he obtained from the government a grant of 1,000,000 acres, bounded south by the Ohio, and west by the Miami, and was the founder of the settlements of North Bend, and Cincinnati thereon. Her mother was also named Anna Tuthill Symes. The elder Anna died giving birth to the future first lady. After the death of his first wife, John Symmes married a second time to a Mrs. Halsey, and later to Susan Livingston, daughter of New York Governor William Livingston.
Anna Harrison had one older sister, Maria Symmes Short. Anna is descibed as being small in height, with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Her religion was Presbyterian. She was educated at Clinton Academy in East Hampton, New York and later at the Boarding School of Isabella Marshall Graham in New York City. Anna Harrison was a classmate of incumbent First Lady Martha Washington's granddaughter Nellie Custis for one year, from 1789 to 1790.
For the first three years after the death of her mother, Anna Symmes was raised by her father but as an officer in the Continental Army, he was unable to fully care for her. According to legend, he put on the uniform of a British soldier and rode by horseback from New Jersey through British-occupied New York to take the four year old to her maternal grandparents Henry and Phoebe Tuthill in Southhold, Suffolk County, on Long Island. They raised her through late adolescence. In 1794, she rejoined her father and her second stepmother Susan Livingston Symmes at a temporary home on his extensive land holdings in the Northwest Territory along the Ohio River near Cincinnati. While the home was being built in North Bend, Ohio, she and her stepmother lived with Anna Harrison's elder sister Maria and her husband Peyton Short in Lexington, Kentucky. There she met and fell in love with a young Army officer, Captain William Henry Harrison, who had fought in Indian wars in the Northwest Territory.
At age 20 she married 22 year old William Henry Harrison on November 22, 1795, at North Bend, Hamilton County, Ohio. Judge Symmes initially opposed the marriage on the basis that a military career was not stable enough to support a wife and family but relented once he came to know and admire the character of his new son-in-law.
The couple had ten children together: 1. Elizabeth Bassett Harrison Short (1796-1846); 2. John Cleves Symmes Harrison (1798 – 1830); 3. Lucy Singleton Harrison Estes (1800 – 1826); 4. William Henry Harrison II (1802 – 1838); 5. John Scott Harrison (1804-1878); 6. Benjamin Harrison (1806 – 1840); 7. Mary Symmes Harrison Thornton (1809 – 1842); 8. Carter Bassett Harrison (1811 – 1839); 9. Anna Tuthill Harrison Taylor (1813 – 1845); 10. James Findlay Harrison (1814 –1817). Only John would outlive Anna.
Through her husband's early military career, Anna remained at the small log home that they built on 169 acres in North Bend. In 1799, when Harrison was elected to Congress as Territorial Representative, Anna Harrison joined him in the capital city of Philadelphia. When Harrison was named Territorial Governor of Indiana in 1801, Anna Harrison moved with her children to the former French trading post of Vincennes, Indiana where her husband built the family a sturdy brick mansion they called Grouselands. It included a fortress-like wall to protect it from raids by Native American Indians. Anna Harrison was responsible for the education and religious training of her children and also served as hostess at the governor's house to a number of prominent figures ranging from a visiting Vice President Aaron Burr to Indian leaders Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa. She also managed the family property.
When the War of 1812 began, Anna Harrison took her children back to North Bend, Ohio where there was less chance of danger. Upon her father's death in 1814, she and her husband inherited Judge Symmes' substantial land holdings, which came with great debts. They enlarged their cabin into a 22-room house. Subsequently Harrison was elected to the U.S. House and then Senate, and was appointed as Minister to Columbia. Anna Harrison remained in Ohio the entire time. What most engaged her outside of her family, were her activities in the Presbyterian Church. She even was known to invite her entire congregation back to the Harrison home after Sunday service for an open house supper.
Anna Harrison voiced her opposition to the drafting of her husband as the Whig candidate for President in both 1836 and 1840. Although she opposed his candidacy, Anna Harrison was a visible presence at the Harrison home during the colorful "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" campaign of 1840 where supporters, Whig organizers and reporters came to see the candidate. Harrison was 68 years old when he became President, at the time the oldest man to assume the office. In the winter of 1841, as an entourage consisting of her husband and family members were leaving Ohio by a caravan of horse-drawn carriages to go to Washington, D.C. to attend President-elect Harrison's Inauguration, Anna Harrison was ill and too weak to join them. She was still mourning the 1839 death of her son Carter, and the June, 1840 death of her son Benjamin.
Anna sent her daughter-in-law Jane Harrison to serve as White Houe hostess. She was in good health and preparing to leave by stagecoach from Ohio to Washington when a courier arrived at the Harrison farm with the news that the President had died. Anna Harrison remained in Ohio since she would not have arrived in time for the funeral services. Harrison's body was later buried in North Bend, Ohio. Anna Harrison is the only incumbent First Lady who never entered the White House.
During the brief four weeks of the Harrison Administration, Jane Irwin Harrison. Jane Irwin had married the President's son and namesake William Henry Harrison, Jr. He was a struggling lawyer who suffered from alcoholism. He died on 6 February, 1838 in North Bend, Ohio. A thirty-six year old widow of three years at the time she served as White House hostess, Jane Irwin Harrison brought her two young sons, James and William along with her to live in the mansion with their grandfather. Jane Irwin Harrison died just four years later, in 1845, at age 41 years old.
Anna Harrison was the first presidential widow to be awarded a pension by Congress, a lump sum of $25,000. They also granted her right to free postage on all her outgoing correspondence. After a state funeral in Washington, her late husband was interred in Congressional Cemetery in the capital. However, Anna Harrison selected a site on a knoll near Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, where her father was buried, and began construction of a final burial place there for him husband. A few years later, the late President's remains were re-interred there, following a service in a nearby chapel. Within four years of her husband's death, Anna Harrison also lost her three remaining daughters - Mary Thornton died in 1842, Anna Taylor in 1845, and Betsy Short in 1846. She remained close to, and relied upon the financial assistance of her widowed son-in-law John Cleves Short.
Anna Harrison kept abreast of political news and had strong objections to policies of both the Administrations of Tyler and Polk. She nevertheless made use of her status as a presidential widow to press both Presidents into awarding her numerous nephews and grandsons either commissions to federal or military positions. She became a rabid supporter of the emerging Republican Party because of its pro-abolition stand. Her primary focus, however, remained her local Presbyterian Church. Despite having to subsist on a small income, she was generous with the poor members of her church and community.
As the Civil War began, Anna Harrison encouraged her grandsons to fight for the Union. After her 22-room home burned in 1858, Anna Harrison went to live at the home of her only living child, John Scott Harrison, thus living in the same household as her grandson Benjamin Harrison, the future 23rd President.
Anna Harrison died on February 25, 1864 at the age of 88 at her home in North Bend, Ohio. She had outlived her husband for nearly 23 years. She is also buried at Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, Ohio.