It is the general opinion that William Henry Harrison was rich, but the opinion is not founded in fact. With great care for his personal honor he seems, throughout his life, to have scrupulously avoided speculation. The salaries he received. were not commensurable with the dignities he came to. The demands upon him from his family and his associations generally made it impossible for him to accumulate money. At the time of his election to the Presidency he was poor; his entire property consisted of the farm at North Bend. When out of office he was occupied exclusively as a farmer, and must be thought of, not as a gentleman addicted to broadcloth clothes of the latest style, nor as a martial figure going about uniformed and sworded and in a cocked hat. In that respect his habits were unlike Washington's. The plantation at North Bend had not in any degree the baronial likeness of the plantation at Mount Vernon on the banks of the Potomac. The western proprietor had not a retinue of slaves subject to his call. He never travelled to and from the city in state, a liveried rider upon the near horse and a footman perched upon the carriage of state. He was a farmer in fact who took part in his own plowing, planting and reaping; altogether the most unaristocratic of men, his children were reared accordingly. The third son was John Scott Harrison, in whom the greater interest now centres because he was the father of Benjamin Harrison, our immediate subject of biography. John Scott Harrison, upon coming of age, settled down a farmer like his father, by whom he had set apart to him a portion of the North Bend property. His house, as has been observed, was a plain structure, similar to those dotting the imperfect farms of the day. The farm itself had to be created, and was situated just five miles below North Bend on the Ohio river at its intersection with the Big Miami. Its western boundary was the Indiana and Ohio line. He was twice married. He had by his first wife three children, two daughters, Betsey and Sarah, who are still living, the former as the widow of Dr. Eaton, now resident on a part of the old homestead at North Bend, the latter Mrs. Devin, also of Ohio. His second wife was a Miss Elizabeth Irwin, daughter of Archibald Irwin, of Mercersburg, Franklin county, Pennsylvania. By her he had Archibald Irwin; Benjamin; Jennie, who married Mr. Morris; Carter Bassett, who is still living, and has the distinction of having been during the late war a Captain in the Fifty-first Ohio (Stanley Matthews') regiment. He also served a good part of the time on the division staff of Gen. Vancleave. At present he resides in Murfreesboro, Tenn., having married in the South. Besides those named, John Scott Harrison had two other children: John Scott, living in Kansas City, Mo., and Anna, at present of Indianapolis, married to Mr. Morris, The reader may arrive at the manner of bringing up this family had by observing the particulars of the childhood and youth of Benjamin Harrison, the second of the sons. Continuing the sketch of John Scott Harrison, it may be remarked that he lived and died upon his farm, having been an agriculturalist all his life. In his earlier days he took care of his own little plantation and aided his father in the general management of the homestead. He varied the occupation by boating to New Orleans, whither he went almost every year with a cargo of produce of his own raising. Having become involved in debt, largely through ill-advised endorsements, he left no property. Years prior to his death his farm passed from him into the ownership of the heirs of Judge Short, who has been mentioned as the husband of Betsey Harrison. Through their kindness, and out of great respect, he was permitted to continue in its occupancy. He left no estate whatever. It will perhaps please the reader to be assured that from this point forward he will be given nothing that is not directly concerned with the gentleman to whom the volume is in title and fact devoted. Benjamin Harrison, the second son of John Scott Harrison, was born at North Bend in his grandfather's house on the 20th day of August, 1833-nearly fifty-five years ago. There is nothing more surprising in the lives of Americans than the similarity of their childhood and youth. Their sports are the same; they go through the same trains of petty adventure; at length a period arrives at which they are sent to school; there a new-comer very nearly takes up a book left behind by a predecessor, is subjected to the same recitation, and whirled with astonishing rapidity along a course of study which, after all, is little more than a deeply worn rut. This may perhaps be a necessity; it certainly is monotonous. There are even teachers of experience and excellent judgment who have been heard to express a wish that they might live to see the results of experiments in education out of the common. There is no hack so worn and weary as a master or mistress of a public school, unless it be a college professor. That a lad ever rises above the dead level is attributable purely to a superiority of intellect. In the light of this remark and its context, together with his admitted success in life, it is worth while to make a study of the youth and school-days of the Republican candidate for the Presidency. Extending southward from the old Harrison homestead at North Bend there is a tongue of land, quite five miles in length; its lower extremity touches the Indiana boundary line; the north side is swept by the Miami river; upon the south side the Ohio rolls its placid stream. |