THE NEW STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.
By Frank B. Gessner.
The erection of an equestrian statue of General William Henry Harrison, in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a fitting but also a tardy commemoration of a man who rendered his State and the nation most distinguished services. For fifty years there has been talk of doing him honor in some such fashion, and even the statue which as this Magazine goes to press is being formally dedicated in Cincinnati (in the presence of a grandson of the subject who is himself an ex-President), has been completed for some years, and has been stowed away in dust and darkness because there was not public interest enough in the matter to meet the cost of setting it up.
Although now almost a forgotten figure, General Harrison was one of the ablest and worthiest of our public men. Born in Berkeley, Virginia, February 9, 1773, he grew to manhood with the close of the Revolution and the establishment of the national government. His father was the friend of Washington, and when the son went into the Western wilds he held a commission as ensign signed by the first of the Presidents. At the age of thirty he was a delegate in Congress from the Northwest Territory. For a succeeding decade he was governor of that wide stretch of country which in time he saw carved into States all owing much to his genius as warrior and statesman. In the second war with Great Britain he commanded the Western armies, and won the notable victories of Tippecanoe and the Thames. The first gave him a name which became the slogan of the Whigs in the memorable campaign of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." At the battle of the Thames fell Tecumseh, whose death broke the Indian power east of the Mississippi. After the war of 1812 General Harrison was successively Congressman, Senator of the United States, and Minister to Colombia.
STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, MADE FOR THE CITY OF CINCINNATI BY MR. L.T. REBISSO.
From a photograph by Landy, Cincinnati.
Returning in 1830 to his home at North Bend, on the line between Indiana and Ohio, he lived more or less in retirement until 1836, when he was made the Whig candidate for President. He was defeated; but in 1840 he was again the nominee, and, after the greatest campaign of the century, was elected, defeating Martin Van Buren. The campaign of 1840 was called the "log-cabin and hard-cider" campaign, though the reputed log-cabin home of the Whig candidate was in reality a spacious mansion. General Harrison was inaugurated March 4, 1841, and on April 4, a month later, he died in the White House, a victim of exposure and the wearing importunities of office-seeking constituents. Something of the character of the man is disclosed in his last words, spoken four hours before his death. To whom he thought himself speaking can only be conjectured—Vice-President Tyler, some authorities claim; but he was heard by his physician to say: "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more."
Physically, General Harrison has been described as "about six feet high," straight and rather slender, and of "a firm, elastic gait," even in his last years. He had "a keen, penetrating eye," a "high, broad and prominent" forehead, and "rather thin and compressed lips."
ANNA SYMMES HARRISON, WIFE OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, AND GRANDMOTHER OF PRESIDENT BENJAMIN HARRISON.
From a painting in possession of the Harrison family.
Mrs. Harrison was not with her husband at his death, and never became an inmate of the White House. For that reason there hangs on its walls no portrait of her, among those of the various ladies of the mansion. She was the daughter of John Cleves Symmes, a scion of the Colonial aristocracy. She loved better than the excitement of social life in Washington the domestic peace of her North Bend home and the society of her thirteen children, growing up in usefulness and honor. In her youth she had been a great belle, and she remained a beautiful woman even in her declining years. She was educated in that first fashionable school for young women in America founded by Isabella Graham in the city of New York. A sister, Polly Symmes, was also a famous beauty. They went together to share their father's fortunes in the unsettled West, and both found their fates in the hand of the Miamis. Polly married Peyton Short, who became a millionaire.
Mrs. Harrison had been detained by illness from going with her husband to witness the proudest event of his life, his inauguration; and she had purposed following him to Washington later in the spring, when the weather should be more favorable for the long, wearisome journey by stage-coach. But, alas! before the spring fully opened, instead of following him to Washington she was following his body to its silent, stone-walled tomb, overlooking the wide sweep of the Ohio southward. This noble woman lived to be eighty-nine and to see her grandson, Benjamin Harrison, now ex-President, a general in the Union army. She retained to the last much of her beauty and that sweetness of disposition which has endeared her memory to those of her blood who knew her best. She sleeps by the side of her husband in the old vault at North Bend.
The Cincinnati statue of General Harrison is the work of L.T. Rebisso, who made the statue of General McPherson which stands in one of the circular parks in Washington, and the equestrian statue of General Grant for the city of Chicago. Its cost, which, exclusive of the pedestal, is twenty-seven thousand dollars, is paid by the city. Mr. Rebisso has given a portrayal of Harrison unlike any of the more familiar pictures. These usually present a decrepit old man, from whose eye have vanished that fire of youth and flash of soul which made Harrison a leader of men. The Rebisso statue, as will be seen by the reproduction of it given herewith, presents a soldier in the full flower of vigorous manhood. And this conception is no mere ideal of fancy, but is taken from a portrait painted in 1812, which now hangs in the house of a grandchild of General Harrison near the old North Bend homestead.
