Anna Harrison
Anna Tuthill Harrison (née Symmes; July 25, 1775 – February 25, 1864) was the first lady of the United States in 1841 as the wife of President William Henry Harrison. She served in the role for only one month, as her husband was afflicted with pneumonia and died shortly after his term began. She was also the paternal grandmother of President Benjamin Harrison. She never entered the White House during her tenure as first lady, remaining the only presidential wife to never visit the capital during her husband's presidency. At age 65 at the start of her husband's presidential term, Harrison was the oldest woman ever to assume the role of first lady, a record held until Jill Biden became first lady at age 69 in 2021. She also has the distinction of holding the title for the shortest length of time, and the first first lady to be widowed while holding the title. Harrison was the last first lady to have been born before the inauguration of George Washington.
Anna Harrison | |
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| First Lady of the United States | |
| In role March 4, 1841 – April 4, 1841 | |
| President | William Henry Harrison |
| Preceded by | Angelica Singleton Van Buren (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Letitia Christian Tyler |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anna Tuthill Symmes July 25, 1775 Morristown, New Jersey, British America |
| Died | February 25, 1864 (aged 88) North Bend, Ohio, U.S. |
| Resting place | Harrison Tomb State Memorial North Bend, Ohio, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 10, including John Scott and Carter Bassett |
| Parent(s) | John Cleves Symmes Anna Tuthill |
| Signature |  |
Anna was raised by her grandparents in Long Island and given an education better than that of most women. She married military officer William Henry Harrison against her father's wishes in 1795, and she raised their family of ten children in the frontier of Ohio and Indiana while William pursued a political career. Anna would see nine of her ten children die over the following decades, causing her to become more deeply involved in her Presbyterian faith. She became first lady when William became president in 1841, though she did not attend his inauguration. William died while Anna was preparing to travel to Washington, D.C., only one month into his term. Anna lived the remainder of her life in Ohio, first in their family log cabin, and then with her only surviving son. Her short tenure as first lady, her absence from the White House, and the destruction of her personal papers in a fire have caused her to be overlooked by historians, and her life has been the subject of relatively little scholarly analysis.
Early life
Anna Tuthill Symmes was born on July 25, 1775, in Sussex County, New Jersey.[1]: 53 She was the second child of Anna Tuthill and John Cleves Symmes, an associate justice on the Supreme Court of New Jersey.[2]: 98 Anna's mother died one year later, on her first birthday, and Anna was raised solely by her father for the following three years. Later in the American Revolutionary War, her father fought as a colonel in the Continental Army. To protect Anna, he disguised himself as a British soldier and carried her to Long Island to stay with her maternal grandparents.[2]: 100 One anecdote describes him carrying a second bag holding turnips, claiming to be delivering them to the British commander.[1]: 54
Anna was raised by her grandparents, who ensured that she was well-educated. She attended Clinton Academy in East Hampton on Long Island, and the private school of Isabella Graham in New York City. Her grandparents raised her as a Presbyterian, and her education had a strong religious component.[1]: 54 Her father visited her at the end of the war in 1783,[2]: 100 but he then moved to the Northwest Territory and founded the town of North Bend, Ohio. She joined her father and her stepmother Susannah Livingston in 1794, at the age of 19.[1]: 54
Marriage and family
While visiting her sister Maria in Lexington, Kentucky, Anna met William Henry Harrison, and they began a courtship. Anna's father disapproved, as Harrison was a military officer with no other established career, and Anna's father feared that he would not be able to provide for a family.[1]: 54 He also had a low opinion of soldiers in the Northwest Territory, seeing them as little more than criminals.[2]: 101
While her father was away on business, the couple eloped, and they were married on November 25, 1795[2]: 101 with Dr. Stephen Wood presiding.[1]: 54 They may have married in the home of the presiding minister or at the home of Anna's father; historians disagree on the exact location.[1]: 54 It was weeks before Anna's father would speak to his new son-in-law. He eventually demanded to know how William intended to support a family with Anna,[3] with William responding that he would use his sword.[lower-alpha 1] John would grow to respect William, eventually campaigning on his behalf and naming him an executor of his estate.[2]: 102
After they married, they moved to the nearby Fort Washington where William was stationed.[1]: 54 Anna lived as an army wife and sometimes traveled with her husband.[5] William resigned from the army in 1798 and built a log cabin on land that he had purchased in North Bend.[2]: 102 William and Anna would go on to have ten children[1]: 54 over a period of 18 years,[6] with the first born in 1796.[1]: 54 Nine of them preceded Anna in death.[6]
Husband's rise to fame
The family moved to the country's capital in Philadelphia after William was elected to the House of Representatives in 1799. They also traveled to Richmond, Virginia for a time to visit William's family, where Anna had her third child in 1800. Later that year, William was appointed territorial governor of Indiana, and they moved to Vincennes, Indiana.[2]: 102 William built a brick house, Grouseland, in 1804, which would become a social hub for the territory in addition to serving as the family's home.[2]: 103 Attacks on families by Native American soldiers sometimes occurred in the region, and the children were regularly forced to hide inside the home, which was built to be readily defensible. A Methodist minister lived with the Harrisons in Grouseland, and he guarded the house during attacks.[1]: 55
Anna had five more children while living in Indiana.[2]: 103 Though she was given the opportunity to meet many important national figures while living in Vincennes,[7] she was lonely on the frontier and felt disconnected from her extended family.[1]: 55 Anna read extensively on political topics while living there, seeking out whatever newspapers and journals she could find.[7]
While William was away in the War of 1812, Anna took the children to stay with her father in Cincinnati.[1]: 55 Here she had her ninth child, and she joined the First Presbyterian Church. Anna's father died in 1814, and she inherited his land in North Bend. William retired from the military the same year, and they moved their log cabin, the Bend, onto the property.[2]: 104 Here Anna would receive many visitors, as her husband had become a war hero.[1]: 55 Among their most frequent guests was their church congregation, who were invited to dinner each Sunday morning.[3] Anna personally educated her children, and she eventually founded a school in North Bend, though the children's religious upbringing was handled by a circuit rider. William was often away in the 1810s and 1820s, as he had a successful political career that took him to the United States Congress, the Ohio Senate, and the diplomatic mission to Colombia.[1]: 55
Their tenth and final child was born in 1814, but he died in 1817.[2]: 104 He was followed by several more of their children: a daughter Lucy died in 1826 and their son William died in 1830, followed by the deaths of three more sons in 1838, 1839, and 1840. The Harrisons also struggled financially during this period of their lives. Their growing children were demanding on their expenses, particularly through weddings and college tuition.[2]: 105 They did not efficiently manage their finances, and they often had a limited budget.[2]: 104 Their son William had also accumulated $12,000 (equivalent to $305,363 in 2021) in debt before his death, which they took on.[5]
While Anna took pride in her husband's political and military accomplishments, she did not wish to see him become the president of the United States,[3] and she disapproved of his presidential ambitions when he was a candidate in the 1836 and 1840 presidential elections.[1]: 56 Despite this, she was active in his campaign, hosting as prospective supporters visited their home in North Bend.[8]: 46 With her knowledge of politics, she was able to engage directly with the politicians that visited their home. Her influence was also felt when William declined to campaign on Sundays due to her observance of the Sabbath.[6] She ended her involvement abruptly after the death of her son in 1840, and she became reclusive.[8]: 46
First Lady of the United States
Anna was unhappy when her husband was elected president, saying "I wish that my husband's friends had left him where he is, happy and contented in retirement."[6] She also worried about how she would perform as first lady, fearing that she would not be capable of the task or that she would not be well received by Washington society.[5] At the age of 65, she was the oldest woman to that point to become first lady.[3] William was inaugurated in 1841, but Anna did not accompany him to Washington, citing her illness and the harsh weather. In her stead, she sent Jane Irwin Harrison, the widow of their late son.[8]: 46 Her intention was to join her husband at the White House in May,[6] but the president died of pneumonia before she could prepare for the journey.[1]: 56 She declined to travel to Washington for her husband's state funeral.[6]
Later life and death
Harrison disapproved of her husband's successor, President John Tyler. Despite this, she used her influence as a former first lady to lobby the president, asking that he give political appointments to members of her family. She was also granted a pension by the federal government in June 1841,[6] but it was spent paying debts that her husband had accumulated.[1]: 56 Harrison later lobbied the following president, James K. Polk, for military commissions for her grandsons.[6] She became more religious and more politically engaged later in life. She took an abolitionist stance during the Civil War, and she was supportive of her grandsons that served in the Union Army.[1]: 56 [2]: 107 Following her husband's death, she lived in North Bend. Her cabin was destroyed in a fire in 1855, after which she moved in with her son John.[2]: 107 Harrison died on February 25, 1864, and she was buried beside her husband in North Bend. Her funeral sermon was preached by Horace Bushnell.[2]: 107
Legacy
Harrison was the first in a long series of first ladies that were unwilling or unable to carry out the duties associated with the role.[8]: 45–46 She had little time to develop a reputation, as her husband died before she arrived at the White House. As such, Harrison and her performance as first lady have not been the subject of significant scholarly analysis or debate. Historical analysis is further limited by the destruction of her personal papers during the fire at her log cabin. Presidential historians portray Harrison as a devoutly religious woman that was dedicated to her family. A subject of debate among historians is how much influence Harrison had over her husband; earlier presidential historians such as Laura Carter Holloway and Freeman Cleaves argued that she had a strong command over her husband and his career, but more recent historians have contested this.[6] One historian, Paul Boller, compared her to Rachel Jackson, as both were wives of men that were often away on military and political duties, both wished for their husbands to retire from public life, and both used their Presbyterianism to cope with these struggles.[3]
Harrison was the first first lady to receive a formal education,[3] and she was the last first lady to be born before the inauguration of George Washington.[9]: 61 She was the oldest woman to become first lady at the time, doing so at the age of 65. She held this record until 2021, when Jill Biden became first lady at the age of 69.[10] She also holds records due to her husband's short term: she served the shortest tenure of any first lady, only holding the title for 31 days, and she is the only first lady to have never been to the capital during her husband's presidency.[9]: 80 Her grandson Benjamin Harrison became president of the United States in 1889, making Anna the first woman to be both the wife of one U.S. president and the grandmother of another.[2]: 100
In the 1982 Siena College Research Institute asking historians to assess American first ladies, Harrison was included. The first ladies survey, which has been conducted periodically since, ranks first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. In the 1982 survey, out of 42 first ladies and acting first ladies, Harrison was assessed as the 23rd most highly regarded among historians. Due to the brevity of her time as First Lady, Harrison has been excluded from subsequent iterations of the survey.[11]
Notes
References
- Schneider, Dorothy; Schneider, Carl J. (2010). "Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison". First Ladies: A Biographical Dictionary (3rd ed.). Facts on File. pp. 53–57. ISBN 978-1-4381-0815-5.
- Young, Nancy Beck (1996). Gould, Lewis L. (ed.). American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy. Garland Publishing. pp. 98–108. ISBN 0-8153-1479-5.
- Boller, Paul F. (1988). Presidential Wives. Oxford University Press. pp. 75–77.
- Dole, Robert J. (2001). Great Presidential Wit: -- I Wish I was in this Book. Simon and Schuster. p. 222. ISBN 978-0-7432-0392-0.
- Diller, Daniel C.; Robertson, Stephen L. (2001). The Presidents, First Ladies, and Vice Presidents: White House Biographies, 1789–2001. CQ Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-1-56802-573-5.
- Leahy, Christopher J.; Leahy, Sharon Williams (2016). "The Ladies of Tippecanoe, and Tyler Too". In Sibley, Katherine A. S. (ed.). A Companion to First Ladies. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 142–144. ISBN 978-1-118-73218-2.
- Anthony, Carl Sferrazza (1990). First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power, 1789-1961. William Morrow and Company. p. 120. ISBN 9780688112721.
- Caroli, Betty (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-539285-2.
- Strock, Ian Randal (2016). Ranking the First Ladies. Carrel Books. ISBN 9781631440601.
- "Jill Biden becomes oldest sitting first lady and marks it with a bike ride". The Independent. 2021-06-03. Retrieved 2022-11-12.
- "Ranking America's First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt Still #1 Abigail Adams Regains 2nd Place Hillary moves from 5 th to 4 th; Jackie Kennedy from 4th to 3rd Mary Todd Lincoln Remains in 36th" (PDF). Siena Research Institute. December 18, 2008. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
