At the age of nineteen she bade adieu to her aged grandparents, and accompanied her father and step-mother to Ohio, in 1794. A year previous to this time, Judge Symmes had located a small colony of settlers who had accompanied him from New Jersey, at a point on the Ohio river, afterward known as North Bend. Returning to the Eastern States, he married Miss Susan Livingston, a daughter of Governor Livingston, of New York, and in the autumn started again, accompanied by his wife and daughter, for his frontier home. The journey was made with great difficulty, and the party did not reach North Bend until the morning of the 1st of January, 1795. Thus was the youthful Anna a pioneer in the land which she lived to see blossoming as the rose under the hands of civilization and material progression.
Judge Symmes was one of the Associate Judges of the Supreme Court of the Northwestern Territory, and was often called to attend court in a distant part of the Territory. During the absence of her father on these journeyings, Anna would spend most of her time with an elder sister, who had previously removed to Lexington, Kentucky. It was while on one of these visits to her sister, Mrs. Peyton Short, that she formed the acquaintance of her future husband, then Captain Harrison,[[16]] of the United States Army, and in command of Fort Washington, the present site of Cincinnati. The youthful Virginian was much attracted by the gentle, modest manners and the sweet face of Anna Symmes, and he determined on winning her hand. The effort was highly successful, for they were married at her father’s house, North Bend, Ohio, November 22d, 1795.
[16]. William Henry Harrison, the third and youngest son of Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, was born the 9th day of February, 1773, at Berkley, on the James river, about twenty-five miles below Richmond, in Charles City county. His father was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the Continental Congress, and afterward Governor of Virginia. Young Harrison was educated at Hampden Sydney College, and afterward studied medicine. After his father’s death, in 1791, he became the ward of Robert Morris, the celebrated financier, whose private fortune so often relieved the sufferings of the Continental Army. When about to graduate as a physician, the reports of troubles in the West decided him to join the frontier troops. The opposition of his excellent guardian was not sufficient to deter him from his purpose, and as his design was approved by Washington, who had also been a warm friend of his father, he received from that noble warrior an ensign’s commission in the first regiment of United States Artillery, then stationed at Fort Washington.
Thus, in less than one year after her removal from her childhood’s home, in the twentieth year of her age, Anna Symmes became the wife of Captain Harrison, subsequently the most popular General of his day and President of the United States.
Soon after their marriage, Captain Harrison resigned his commission in the army, and was elected the first delegate to Congress from the Northwest Territory. Mrs. Harrison accompanied him to Philadelphia, then the seat of the General Government, but spending, however, most of the session in visiting her husband’s relatives in Virginia.
From those who knew Mrs. Harrison at this period of her life, is given the assurance that she was very handsome. Her face was full of animation and kindliness, and her health, which was perfectly robust, added a glow to her features, very pleasing to behold. Her figure was not large, but a happy medium, although rather inclined to become reduced upon the slightest occasion. Later in life, as her health grew more delicate, she looked much smaller than when in youth’s bright morn she became a bride. In a letter received by her in 1840, from a friend who had known her at eighteen years of age, this passage occurs: “I suppose I should not recognize anything of your present countenance, for your early days have made such an impression upon my mind that I cannot realize any countenance for you but that of your youth, on which nature had been so profusely liberal.” In the pictures taken later in life, her face exhibits a very intellectual and animated expression, and there are traces of former beauty in the delicate features and bright black eyes.
When the Indiana Territory which now forms the State of Indiana, was formed out of a portion of the old Northwestern Territory, General Harrison was appointed its first Governor by President Adams.
He removed his family to the old French town of Vincennes, on the Wabash, then the seat of the Territorial Government, where Mrs. Harrison lived for many years a retired but very happy life.
Dispensing with a liberal hand and courteous manner the hospitality of the Governor’s Mansion, she was beloved and admired by all who knew her. General Harrison retained this position during the administrations of Adams, Jefferson and Madison, until the inglorious surrender of Hull in 1812, when he was appointed to the command of the northwestern army. Mrs. Harrison remained in Vincennes during the fall of 1811, while her husband was marching with his small force to disband the tribes of hostile Indians gathering for battle at Prophet’s Town, and was there when the news of the battle of Tippecanoe reached her. But she rejoiced that it was over, and the formidable combinations of Tecumseh and the Prophet were dissipated forever. Henceforth the settlers might work in peace, for the foot of the red man came never again across the Wabash with hostile intent.
The battle-ground of Tippecanoe, the scene of General Harrison’s dearly-bought triumph, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, is as quiet and green as a village churchyard. A low white paling fence surrounds it, and the trees are tall and carefully pruned of undergrowth. Mounds, so frequently observed in the west, and here and there a quaint wooden headboard marks the spot of some brave soldier’s fall. The train as it rushes from Lafayette, Indiana, through what was formerly a wilderness, to the west, gives the traveller but a moment to look upon this historic spot, where on that fatal 7th of November morning, the Indians rushed unexpectedly upon the weary troops, sleeping after the exhaustive fatigue of travel, and met with a defeat that made the spot famous.