William Henry Harrison was born on February 9, 1773 in Berkeley, Virginia. His father was Benjamin Harrison (a signer of The Declaration of Independence) and his mother was Elizabeth Bassett Harrison. He studied classics and history at Hampden-Sydney College and medicine at Richmond. He served as our 9^th President from March 4, 1841 to April 4, 1841.

     General Harrison was a soldier. He battled the Indians along with General “Mad Anthony” Wayne in the Ohio territory.  Harrison also commanded troops in The War of 1812. He served as Secretary of the Northwest Territory, Territorial Delegate to Congress, Governor of the Indiana Territory, U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator from Ohio and U.S. Minister to Colombia.

     William Henry Harrison, or “Old Tippecanoe” as he was known, married Anna Tuthill Symmes in 1795. They had ten children: Elizabeth, John Cleves, Lucy, William, John Scott, Benjamin, Mary, Carter, Anna and James. The day of President Harrison’s inauguration was extremely cold in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Harrison delivered an inaugural address, edited by the great Daniel Webster, which went on for 105 minutes – the longest such speech in our history. He did not wear a hat that day and contracted a cold that developed into a fatal case of pneumonia.

     Mr. Harrison was our first President to die while still in office, on April 4, 1841 at The White House in Washington, D.C.