File:William Henry Harrison Memorial and Tomb, North Bend, OH - 52708555903.jpg

English: Built in 1924, this Art Deco and Classical Revival-style monument was built around the tomb of William Henry Harrison (1773-1841). Harrison was the ninth United States President, a General in the United States Army, and first governor of Indiana Territory. Harrison died in 1841, a month after being sworn in as president, after falling ill, in what remains the shortest presidency in the nation’s history. Harrison was the first president to die while in office, causing a constitutional crisis, as the specifics of presidential succession had not been made clear in the constitution. Harrison was many things during his life, but spent much of his adult life owning a farm North Bend, Ohio, a town founded by his father-in-law, John Cleves Symmes, and which his wife, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, was an early resident, which included the land where his tomb now stands.

The legacy of Harrison is a complicated and controversial one, as he was inconsistent and acted with great contradiction on one of the most significant issues of his lifetime - Slavery in the United States. Harrison was born in Virginia in 1773 to a wealthy slave-owning planter family, and inherited slaves when his mother died in 1793. Thereafter, despite selling the property and slaves he inherited to his brother, he still tried to legalize slavery in Indiana Territory between 1803 and 1810, claiming it would boost the economic development of the state, but was unsuccessful in these attempt. Despite slavery not being legal in Ohio or Indiana, Harrison continued to own slaves whom lived on property outside those two states, which are the same two states where he primarily resided during his adult life. In 1822, he told Ohio voters that he opposed slavery to get elected as a representative, and he later wrote a statement that suggests that he did not support slavery lasting indefinitely and wished for eventual abolition. However, as a politician, did not take a hard stance for or against slavery, often making the assertion that states should decide for themselves. He made few concrete actions that challenged the status quo of slavery existing as an institution within the United States. However, to keep this in context, the time, a politician wanting to get elected as President of the United States would not have succeeded if they had been too pro-slavery or too pro-abolition, and thus a neutral middle ground was the most pragmatic choice, especially as a Whig like Harrison. Being neutral was far from the best choice or most moral choice, which would have been a pro-abolition stance on the issue. In addition to his problematic relationship with slavery, Harrison also participated in wars against indigenous peoples in Indiana and Ohio, being a lieutenant during the Battle of Fallen Timbers of the Northwest Indian War in 1794, at what is today Maumee, Ohio, as well as being a general during Tecumseh’s War during the period between 1810 and 1813, defeating Tecumseh’s Confederacy, and destroying the indigenous village of Prophetstown near what is today Battle Ground, Indiana during the notable Battle of Tippecanoe, a victory that Harrison later played up with his catchy presidential campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” celebrating the slaughter and displacement of the indigenous people of the land conquered in favor of white settlement. Harrison would later defeat Tecumseh’s Confederacy at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, during the War of 1812, which resulted in the death of the confederacy’s leader, Tecumseh, and the signing of a peace treaty that ceded vast areas of land previously inhabited by indigenous peoples to white settlement.

Harrison primarily became the President of the United States during the 1840 election due to his neutrality on Slavery and his reputation as a victorious military commander whom conquered land for additional white settlement, which were both seen as politically expedient in the United States in the first half of the 19th Century. Harrison also served as the Clerk of Courts for Hamilton County, Ohio from 1836 to 1840, the third United States Minister to Gran Colombia, a diplomatic position, in 1829, a Senator representing the state of Ohio from 1825 to 1828, member of the Ohio State Senate representing Hamilton County from 1819 to 1821, member of the United States House of Representatives representing Ohio’s 1st District from 1816 to 1819, a delegate to the United States House of Representatives representing the Northwest Territory from 1799 to 1800, and as the second Secretary of the Northwest Territory from 1798 to 1799. His biggest legacies, however, are the treaties he signed with indigenous tribes that ceded large areas of the Midwest in the modern states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois to white settlement, turning the former Northwest Territory of the late 18th Century into the modern-day Midwest. Harrison’s usage of novel and effective campaign tactics when running for president was precedent-setting, with many of those tactics still utilized today, and was the oldest person to be elected president, doing so at age 68, until Ronald Regan became president at age 69 in 1981. His son, John Scott Harrison, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1853 to 1857, representing Ohio, and his grandson, Benjamin Harrison, was the 23rd President of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893.

The tomb sits atop a hill known as Mount Neo on the former Harrison family farm in North Bend, and was initially a simple rusticated stone vault partially buried in the hillside with a gated entrance. In 1871, John Scott Harrison sold all of the farm except the six acres surrounding the tomb, and offered it to the State of Ohio in exchange for the state taking on the maintenance of the tomb. However, the state was not very concerned with these obligations, and the site was severely neglected, with the tomb in disrepair and the surrounding area becoming overgrown. In 1919, the Ohio General Assembly, driven by the fervor of American Nationalism in the wake of World War I, finally allocated funding for the maintenance and repair of the tomb, with the newfound attention leading to the reconstruction and expansion of the tomb. By 1924, the tomb had been repaired, with a new limestone monolith pillar, Art Deco in character, being built in front of the tomb’s entrance that bears several carved writings that list the various accomplishments and important positions held by Harrison, with his military positions and victories listed on the north side of the pillar and his political positions listed on the south side of the pillar. The sides of the pillar feature two pilasters, with two stars on the taller, wider pilaster and the dates 1773 and 1841 engraved at the top of the shorter and narrower pilaster, with the north and south facades of the pillar featuring arrow slit openings at the top, and the base of the monument featuring a wrought iron gate that serves as an entrance to the tomb, with an antechamber in the bottom of the pillar and the original tomb belong, which still features the original arched brick burial vaults, the rusticated stone walls, and the stone lintel over the entrance with the name “Harrison” emblazoned on it. South of the tomb is an elliptical stone terrace, enclosed by a stone balustrade on the south side and a stone bench to the north, centered on the pillar and tomb. To the west of the terrace is a stone walkway to the parking area on Cliff Road, which features an ornate cast iron flagpole on an octagonal concrete base in the middle of the walkway slightly east of the terrace, on which are displayed the flags of the United States of America and the State of Ohio, with a series of three stone steps with intermediate landings cascading down to the west of the flagpole, framed by Magnolia Trees. Next to Cliff Road is a set of steps leading up to a stadium-shaped lower terrace that is partially covered in grass with a stone walkway in the middle, at which are located two pillars with statues of eagles atop them which have his various accomplishments carved into their western faces, with stone benches running around the east side for he terrace and a stone wall with bushes running around the west side of the terrace. Additionally, a more modern asphalt path with no stairs runs to the north of the historic grand entrance walk, before looping around to the east side of the upper terrace at the tomb, allowing for access to the site for people with physical disabilities and to allow better pedestrian traffic circulation through the site. This modern path connects directly to both parking areas of the site, as well as the site’s nature trail, located in the valley behind the hill.

The tomb was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and today is managed by the Harrison-Symmes Memorial Foundation, in partnership with the Ohio History Connection. The site does not appear to see a ton of visitation, as Harrison is not as significant of a historical figure as many other presidents from the early United States, but nonetheless, he did make some major contributions to history, both for better and for worse.