(Harrison's unadorned tomb as it wold have appeared in the nineteenth century. The current, more imposing monument dates from 1924)
Saluting the Tomb of William
Henry Harrison, 1843
Way
back in 1991, I wrote an MA thesis titled “William Henry Harrison and the
Rhetoric of History.” In that thesis, I
surmised that Harrison the man was subsumed by Harrison the symbol. Partly by his own efforts and partly by
people campaigning and eulogizing him before and after 1841, writers used the
story of Harrison’s life as a rhetorical device to explain the passage of
time. Depending on their point of view,
contemporaries viewed Harrison as one who had heroically lived through the
pioneer settlement of Ohio to a pastoral utopia. Others saw his untimely death as a meaningful
warning from the Almighty to a sordid and sinful generation. Celebration or warning, Harrison was more
than just a foolish old man who died a month into his term, possibly from
talking too much during his hour-and-a-half Inaugural Address.
Looking
back on this early work and the journal article that followed, I have over the
years spotted a primary source that would have been useful had I known of it. The penultimate chapter of my thesis
discussed the ways in which Harrison’s tomb came to be viewed as a postmortem
symbol of the conquering hero. I
remember scouring printed primary sources for nuggets in those pre-Internet
days, and would have been overjoyed to lay hands on this newspaper article:
“The steamers Republic and Nodaway arrived here yesterday, having on board the tribes of the Wyandots
consisting of 630 men, women, and children moving from Lower Sandusky, in the
state of Ohio, to their new homes. . . . They are in good health and appeared
cheerful. Many of the braves were with
General Harrison during the last war and boast of their prowess at the battle
of Ft. Meigs. They entertain for the memory
of the ‘White Chief’ the highest veneration, as is envisaged by the following affecting
incident, which was related to us by Capt. Claghorn, of the Nodaway: ‘Before the boat reached North Bend [Ohio,
where Harrison is buried], the principal chief requested Captain Claghorn to
have the “Big Gun’ loaded, and as the boat neared that hallowed spot, the
chiefs and braves silently gathered upon the hurricane roof, and formed in line
fronting the resting place of their departed chief. The engine was stopped and the boat suffered
to drift with the current. As they
passed the tomb they all uncovered and gently waved their hats in silence; and
after the boat had passed and the report of the cannon had died away the head
chief stepped forward, and in an impressive manner, exclaimed, ‘Farewell Ohio,
and her Brave.’” [St. Louis Republican, July 25, 1843,
quoted in Muriel Kinney, The Biography of
John Carey: An Ohio Pioneer (Denver, 2010), p. 143.]
Perhaps
no one but myself will take satisfaction in knowing a little more of the
story. The quote is not politically
correct, and even superficial readers will confront the issue of whether this
is believable. I think it really
happened, but whether the Wyandot Indians waving their hats at Harrison’s tomb
were saluting a respected fellow soldier or were secretly despising the man who
had done so much to divest them of their homelands is an open question. Harrison in the 21st century is
seen less often as a military and political hero as a participant in the
genocide of Native America and at least a tacit collaborator in the enslavement
of African Americans.
Many
years after my thesis, my son asked me, wryly, if William Henry Harrison was my
“hero.” A loaded question from a
ten-year-old! No, I answered, Harrison
was no hero of mine. I cannot judge him either
depraved or heroic. He remains of
interest as a tool to gauge some things that were going on in early nineteenth
century America. For this reason, I will
continue to follow Harrison’s tracks as the years go by.
