HARRISON, William Henry, Congress, OH (1773-1841)

Senate Years of Service: 1825-1828
Party: Adams

HARRISON, William Henry, (son of Benjamin Harrison [1726-1791], father of John Scott Harrison, brother of Carter Bassett Harrison, grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, and great-great-grandfather of William Henry Harrison [1896-1990]), a Delegate from the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, a Representative and a Senator from Ohio, and 9th President of the United States; born on ‘Berkeley Plantation,’ Charles City County, Va., February 9, 1773; pursued classical studies; attended Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia; studied medicine; entered the Army in 1798 as an ensign in the First Infantry, served in the Indian wars, and rose to the rank of lieutenant; resigned from the Army in 1798; appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory 1798-1799; elected as a Delegate from the Northwest Territory to the Sixth Congress and served from March 4, 1799, to May 14, 1800, when he resigned to become Territorial Governor of Indiana 1801-1813 and also Indian commissioner; defeated the Indians at Tippecanoe in November 1811; major general in the United States Army in the War of 1812; resigned from the Army in 1814; head commissioner to treat with the Indians; elected to the Fourteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John McLean; reelected to the Fifteenth Congress and served from October 8, 1816, to March 3, 1819; unsuccessful candidate for governor, Ohio in 1820; member, State senate 1819-1821; presidential elector in Ohio in 1822; unsuccessful candidate for House of Representatives in 1822; elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1825, to May 20, 1828, when he resigned to become Minister to Colombia 1828-1829; chairman, Committee on Military Affairs (Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses); unsuccessful Whig candidate for president in 1836; elected President of the United States in 1840 and served from March 4, 1841, until his death in Washington, D.C., April 4, 1841; interment in William Henry Harrison Memorial State Park, opposite Congress Green Cemetery, North Bend, Ohio.

Bibliography American National Biography ; Dictionary of American Biography ; Cleaves, Freeman. Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison . New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1939; Goebel, Dorothy. William Henry Harrison: A Political Biography . Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1974.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present