Harrison, Anna Symmes (1775–1864)

American first lady and wife of William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. president, who was the only first lady not to assume any of her duties due to her husband's death one month after his inauguration. Born Anna Symmes on July 25, 1775, in Morristown, New Jersey; died on February 25, 1864, in North Bend, Ohio; second daughter of John Cleves (sometime chief judge of the New Jersey Supreme Court) and his first wife Anna (Tuthill) Symmes; attended Clinton Academy in East Hampton, New York, and Miss Graham's School in New York City; married William Henry Harrison, on November 25, 1795, in North Bend, Ohio; children: six sons, four daughters (her son John Scott Harrison was the only child to outlive her and was the father of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States).

At age 65, Anna Harrison wanted nothing more than to share a quiet retirement with her husband. Instead, following the Whig "log cabin

and hard cider" campaign of 1840, William Henry Harrison ("Old Tippecanoe") defeated Martin Van Buren to become the ninth president of the United States. A month after delivering what was reported to be an 8,555-word inaugural address in the pouring rain, William Harrison was dead of pneumonia. Anna, who had been forbidden to accompany her husband to Washington because of her own serious illness, also missed his elaborate state funeral.

Born in 1775 at the start of the Revolutionary War, and motherless at age four, Anna Symmes was taken to Long Island, New York, by her father to live with her maternal grandmother in genteel society. Well educated for her day, she attended Clinton Academy in East Hampton and a prestigious boarding school in New York City. At 19, she left her fashionable surroundings to join her father on land he had taken up in the frontier settlement of North Bend, on the Ohio River. There Anna met William Henry Harrison, a young army officer stationed at nearby Fort Washington. Immediately smitten with each other, the couple embarked on a whirlwind courtship. Against her father's wishes, they were wed in November 1795, eloping while Judge Symmes was away on a business trip. Only after William established himself as a military leader did he win his father-in-law's approval, and his famous defeat of the Indians at Tippecanoe during the War of 1812 gained him more than just his famous nickname.

Throughout most of her husband's career as a soldier, delegate to Congress, minister to Columbia, and governor of the Indiana Territory, Anna remained in the background, living an "unguarded" life in the wilderness. With spirit and determination, she managed homes in North Bend and Vincennes, Indiana. When tutors were unavailable for her ten children, she taught them herself and encouraged other children of the settlement to attend her home school. An avid reader and student of religious history, Anna also provided her family with spiritual instruction. One of her few respites from frontier life was a six-month social whirl in Philadelphia with her husband, soon after his election to Congress.

After William's landslide victory of 1840, while Anna continued her recuperation from influenza, a number of proud and enthusiastic relatives accompanied the president-elect to Washington. His daughter-in-law Jane Irwin Harrison , widow of his namesake son, served as hostess for the single month William Harrison resided in the White House.

Remaining in North Bend, Anna lived 22 years after her husband's death. Congress awarded her the earliest pension ever paid to a first lady—William's first year presidential salary of $25,000. She also received free postage privileges for the rest of her life. She lived alone until her house burned down in 1855. Moving in with her son John Scott Harrison, she supervised the education of her grandson, Benjamin Harrison, who became the 23rd president of the United States. Anna Harrison died at age 89 and was buried next to her husband in her beloved North Bend.

sources:

Healy, Diana Dixon. America's First Ladies: Private Lives of the Presidential Wives. NY: Atheneum, 1988.

Klapthor, Margaret Brown. The First Ladies. Washington, DC: The White House Historical Association, 1979.

Melick, Arden David. Wives of the Presidents. Maplewood, NJ: Hammond, 1977.

Paletta, LuAnn. The World Almanac of First Ladies. NY: World Almanac, 1990.

collections:

James Albert Green-William Henry Harrison Collection, Cincinnati Historical Society.