Saluting the Tomb of William Henry Harrison, 1843

(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 21^st 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.