Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison
Wife of 9th President, William Henry Harrison

1775-1864

Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison
Anna Harrison was too ill to travel when her husband set out from Ohio in 1841 for his inauguration. It was a long trip and a difficult one even by steamboat and railroad, with February weather uncertain at best, and she at age 65 was well acquainted with the rigors of frontier journeys.

As a girl of 19, bringing pretty clothes and dainty manners, she went out to Ohio with her father, Judge John Cleves Symmes, who had taken up land for settlement on the "north bend" of the Ohio River. She had grown up a young lady of the East, completing her education at a boarding school in New York City.

A clandestine marriage on November 25, 1795, united Anna Symmes and Lt. William Henry Harrison, an experienced soldier at 22. Though the young man came from one of the best families of Virginia, Judge Symmes did not want his daughter to face the hard life of frontier forts; but eventualy, seeing her happiness, he accepted her choice.

Though Harrison won fame as an Indian fighter and hero of the War of 1812, he spent much of his life in a civilian career. His service in Congress as territorial delegate from Ohio gave Anna and their two children a chance to visit his family at Berkeley, their plantation on the James River. Her third child was born on that trip, at Richmond in September 1800. Harrison's appointment as governor of Indiana Territory took them even farther into the wilderness; he built a handsome house at Vincennes that blended fortress and plantation mansion. Five more children were born to Anna.

Facing war in 1812, the family went to the farm at North Bend. Before peace was assured, she had borne two more children. There, at news of her husband's landslide electoral victory in 1840, home-loving Anna said simply: "I wish that my husband's friends had left him where he is, happy and contented in retirement."

When she decided not to go to Washington with him, the President-elect asked his daughter-in-law Jane Irwin Harrison, widow of his namesake son, to accompany him and act as hostess until Anna's proposed arrival in May. Half a dozen other relatives happily went with them. On April 4, exactly one month after his inauguration, he died, so Anna never made the journey. She had already begun her packing when she learned of her loss.

Accepting grief with admirable dignity, she stayed at her home in North Bend until the house burned in 1858; she lived nearby with her last surviving child, John Scott Harrison, until she died in February 1864 at the age of 88.

SOURCE: White House Web Site.
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FROM OTHER SOURCES:

Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison
(1775-1864)

NOTES:
Wife of William Henry Harrison

In secret, Anna Symmes married William Henry Harrison, an officer in the Army of the Northwest, on November 25, 1795.

Her father, Judge John Symmes, who did not condone the relationship, soon learned to accept the marriage.

Harrison had been born of a well-to-do family in Berkely, Virginia and decided early that he wanted a military career but it was cut short.

He soon become a war hero, at Tippecanoe [near West Lafayette, Indiana], and later even more successful battles led to appointment as territorial delegate from Ohio.

Later he served as governor of the Indiana Territory.

The couple had ten children:

  • Elizabeth Bassett Harrison (1796-1846);
  • John Cleves Symmes Harrison (1798-1830);
  • Lucy Singleton Harrison (1800-26);
  • William Henry Harrison (1802-38);
  • John Scott Harrison (1804-78);
  • Benjamin Harrison (1806-40);
  • Mary Symmes Harrison (1809-42);
  • Carter Bassett Harrison (1811-39);
  • Anna Tuthill Harrison (1813-65);
  • James Findlay Harrison (1814-17)

When Anna learned that he had been elected President she was reluctant to move to Washington. Harrison went ahead without her but with an understanding that she would join him later.

One month later, on April 4, she was preparing to leave for Washington when she learned he had died.

She remained in North Bend and out lived all of her children except John Scott Harrison. She died in February 1864 at the age of 88.