William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 - April 4, 1841), commonly called Old Tippecanoe, was the ninth President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1841 until his death exactly one month later. He was the first POTUS elected from the Whig Party (John Quincy Adams had joined that party after his presidency), the first to pass his 68th birthday before his inauguration (a record unmatched until Ronald Reagan in 1981), and the first to die in office. He was also the last POTUS born before the American Revolution, and had the shortest presidency of any POTUS.

Born in Virginia to Benjamin Harrison, an aristocrat who later signed the Declaration of Independence and served as state governor, young Harrison joined the United States Army when in his teens, eventually rising to the rank of major-general. In the war of 1811 against the Shawnee in Indiana, he won a spectacular victory at Tippecanoe, a place name which became attached to him as a personal nickname. He continued fighting pro-British Native Americans during the War of 1812.

Settling in Ohio after his Army discharge, Harrison served as US Congressman (1816-1819), Ohio State Senator (1819-21), US Senator (1825-8), and Minister to Colombia (1828-9). Harrison was one of several candidates nominated by the Whig Party in 1836 to succeed Democratic POTUS Andrew Jackson, all of which were soundly defeated by Jackson's Vice President, Martin Van Buren.

By 1840, Van Buren was in disgrace for his failure to solve the economic depression which had gripped the nation in 1837. The Whigs nominated Harrison again and made him the center of the first extravagantly gimmick-based presidential campaign in United States history. Playing up the Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison's years patrolling the exotic western frontiers, and a dishonest claim that he had been born a poor everyman, the campaign advertised itself in catchy rhymes, the most famous being "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," the latter part referring to John Tyler, the Virginia ex-Democrat running for the vice presidency.

After winning the election, Harrison gave an inaugural address unparalleled in length on March 4, 1841, a cold and wet day. He had neglected to wear sufficient protective clothing, and soon contracted pneumonia. Within 32 days, before he could prove his qualities as President, Harrison was dead from this pneumonia, exacerbated by typhoid caused by the poor sanitary conditions of the White House and its environs. Virtually all of his term was served by John Tyler.

William Henry Harrison in Joe Steele (novel)
On January 20, 1937, President Joe Steele took his second oath of office from Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Charlie Sullivan observed that Hughes seemed liable to catch pneumonia, and remembered how William Henry Harrison had died from pneumonia caught from his own inauguration. He questioned whether that was Steele's intent regarding Hughes, and knew that his brother Mike would wholeheartedly say yes.