William Henry Harrison
1841 Whig”Tippecanoe and Tyler too!”; First Whig President
William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States of America, serving for less than a month in 1841. He was born on February 9, 1773, in Charles City County, Virginia, and died on April 4, 1841, in Washington, D.C., after just 32 days in office.
Harrison served as a military commander and a politician throughout most of his life. He was the first presidential nominee of the Whig Party, winning the election of 1840 with a campaign focused on his military heroics in the Battle of Tippecanoe and the War of 1812. He was also known for his speeches delivered without notes, earning him the nickname “Old Tippecanoe.”
Unfortunately, Harrison’s presidency was short-lived. He caught a cold while delivering his inaugural address on a cold, wet day in March 1841, which quickly developed into pneumonia. Despite the best efforts of his medical team, Harrison died on April 4, 1841, becoming the first US president to die in office.
While Harrison’s presidency was short and largely unremarkable, his legacy is still felt in U.S. history. He was the first president to come from a western state (Ohio) and set a precedent for more democratic presidential campaigns. He also opened the West to settlement with the 1837 Treaty of Washington with the Indians, which ceded most of present-day Illinois and Wisconsin to the United States.
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