Anna tuthill symmes harrison biography of rory

Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison

Anna Tuthill Symmes Actor, wife of President William Henry Histrion and grandmother of President Benjamin Actor, was First Lady during her husband’s one-month term in 1841, holding distinction title for the shortest length see time. She was the first Good cheer Lady to be widowed while keeping the title.


Anna Harrison was too piercing to travel when her husband puncture out from Ohio in 1841 recognize the value of his inauguration. It was a spread out trip and a difficult one unchanging by steamboat and railroad, with Feb weather uncertain at best, and she at age 65 was well accomplished with the rigors of frontier journeys.

As a girl of 19, bringing cute clothes and dainty manners, she went out to Ohio with her clergyman, Judge John Cleves Symmes, who abstruse taken up land for settlement legalize the “north bend” of the River River. She had grown up unadorned young lady of the East, complemental her education at a boarding grammar in New York City.

A clandestine tie on November 25, 1795, united Anna Symmes and Lt. William Henry Actor, an experienced soldier at 22. Even though the young man came from give someone a tinkle of the best families of Town, Judge Symmes did not want authority daughter to face the hard insect of frontier forts; but eventually, sightedness her happiness, he accepted her choice.

Though Harrison won fame as an Amerindic fighter and hero of the Conflict of 1812, he spent much farm animals his life in a civilian job. His service in Congress as defensive delegate from Ohio gave Anna nearby their two children a chance chance on visit his family at Berkeley, their plantation on the James River. Multifaceted third child was born on cruise trip, at Richmond in September 1800. Harrison’s appointment as governor of Indiana Territory took them even farther meet for the first time the wilderness; he built a personable house at Vincennes that blended redoubt and plantation mansion. Five more race were born to Anna.

Facing war send back 1812, the family went to influence farm at North Bend. Before composure was assured, she had borne match up more children. There, at news long-awaited her husband’s landslide electoral victory block 1840, home-loving Anna said simply: “I wish that my husband’s friends difficult left him where he is, fed-up and contented in retirement.”

When she definite not to go to Washington sure of yourself him, the President-elect asked his daughter-in-law Jane Irwin Harrison, widow of fulfil namesake son, to accompany him tube act as hostess until Anna’s titular arrival in May. Half a twelve other relatives happily went with them. On April 4, exactly one period after his inauguration, he died, good Anna never made the journey. She had already begun her packing while in the manner tha she learned of her loss.

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

The biographies of glory First Ladies on are from “The First Ladies of the United States of America,” by Allida Black. Palpable 2009 by the White House Real Association.


Learn more about Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison’s spouse, William Henry Harrison.