50 Fun Facts About Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was related to the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, in what way?

Grandson is the link: Benjamin was seven when William Henry Harrison won the White House. John Scott Harrison, between them, is the only person to be both child and parent of a president.

Benjamin Harrison beat Grover Cleveland in 1888 by carrying the Electoral College despite losing what?

The popular vote went to Cleveland by about 90,000 ballots, yet Harrison took the Electoral College 233 to 168. Four years later Cleveland won the rematch and returned to the White House.

Which White House first under Benjamin Harrison left his family so nervous that they avoided using it themselves?

Electric lights were wired in by the Edison company, but the Harrisons feared a shock from the switches and often went to bed with the lamps still burning.

Which White House tradition is credited to Benjamin Harrison's first wife Caroline, who loved celebrations and holidays?

The Christmas tree made its White House debut with the Harrisons. Caroline also rescued old presidential dinnerware from the attic, starting the mansion's porcelain collection.

What kind of animal was Old Whiskers, the pet Benjamin Harrison once chased down Pennsylvania Avenue, top hat in hand?

A goat it was: Old Whiskers belonged to Harrison's grandchildren, who were allowed to keep as many pets on the White House grounds as they liked.

More states joined the Union under Benjamin Harrison than under any other president; which of these was one?

Montana joined in November 1889, one of six new states in under a year. Idaho and Wyoming followed in July 1890, redrawing the map of the West.

Which 1890 law signed by Benjamin Harrison was the first federal act aimed at curbing monopolies and is still in force?

The Sherman Antitrust Act passed both houses by wide margins and marked a new use of federal power, though Harrison's own administration enforced it only lightly.

The first federal immigration station opened in 1892, under Benjamin Harrison, at which New York Harbor site?

Ellis Island opened to arrivals in 1892, two years after Harrison's government took control of immigration away from the individual states.

A peacetime Congress first appropriated which round sum under Benjamin Harrison, earning itself a nickname?

One billion dollars was the sum that got the 51st Congress branded the Billion-Dollar Congress. Speaker Thomas Reed shot back that this was a billion-dollar country.

Which city was home to Benjamin Harrison for most of his adult life and now holds his house museum and grave?

Indianapolis drew the newlywed Harrisons in 1854, a move paid for by selling land he had inherited from an aunt. His 16-room house there is now a presidential museum.

Although the Harrison family is tied to Virginia, Benjamin Harrison was born on a riverside farm in which state?

Ohio claims him by birth: he was born in 1833 at North Bend, on a farm next to the estate of Old Tippecanoe, and spent much of his boyhood outdoors hunting and fishing.

What name is given to the way Benjamin Harrison ran in 1888, speaking to delegations who travelled to his home?

A front-porch campaign let him stay home while the crowds came to him. He gave more than 90 short speeches that summer and autumn without taking to the road.

Benjamin Harrison left the Union Army in 1865 holding which rank, granted by brevet for his battlefield record?

Brigadier general was the brevet rank Lincoln nominated him for in January 1865. He had joined up three years earlier with no military experience at all.

In his last weeks in office, Benjamin Harrison sent the Senate a treaty to annex which Pacific islands?

Hawaii had just seen Queen Liliuokalani overthrown in a coup. The Senate never acted on the treaty, and Grover Cleveland withdrew it soon after returning to office.

Which of these men did Benjamin Harrison appoint as United States minister to Haiti in 1889?

Frederick Douglass took the post and Harrison relied on his counsel frequently, though the administration's push for a naval base in Haiti came to nothing.

Benjamin Harrison was dubbed the Centennial President because his 1889 inauguration fell a century after whose?

George Washington first took the oath in 1789, so 1889 doubled as an anniversary. Weeks after his own swearing-in, Harrison joined a three-day centennial celebration in New York.

As a senator, Benjamin Harrison opposed an 1882 law shutting out immigrants from which country?

China had treaties with the United States that Harrison believed the Chinese Exclusion Act violated. The act passed anyway, without his support.

Benjamin Harrison's great-grandfather and namesake, a Virginia planter, signed which founding document?

The Declaration of Independence bears the name of Benjamin Harrison V, who chaired the final debate on it in Congress and later became governor of Virginia.

Which 1890 massacre of Lakota people by the 7th Cavalry took place on Benjamin Harrison's watch as president?

Wounded Knee followed a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota amid official alarm at the Ghost Dance movement. Harrison ordered an inquiry and sent 3,500 troops to the region.

Benjamin Harrison opened the Unassigned Lands to settlers in 1889, setting off a famous land rush in which future state?

Oklahoma's first land run began at high noon on April 22, 1889, with an estimated 50,000 people lined up at the start. Harrison himself had named the day and the hour.

Which bandleader conducted the Marine Band at Benjamin Harrison's 1889 inaugural ball in the Pension Building?

John Philip Sousa led the Marine Corps band for a large crowd. Earlier that day Harrison's speech ran half the length of Old Tippecanoe's, still the longest inaugural address ever given.

After losing the 1892 election, Benjamin Harrison told his family he felt as though he had been freed from what?

Prison was his word for the presidency by the end: his wife had died two weeks before polling day, and his own party's bosses had tried to deny him the nomination.

While out hunting in secret, Benjamin Harrison made the national press by shooting which farm animal by mistake?

A pig belonging to a farmer was the victim, on one of many escapes from the capital by a president who usually worked only until noon.

Which disease killed Benjamin Harrison's wife Caroline two weeks before the 1892 election, muting the contest?

Tuberculosis took her on October 25, 1892, after a summer in the Adirondack air failed to help. Grover Cleveland declined to stump in person once he learned how ill she was.

Which future president lent his name to the 1890 tariff that Benjamin Harrison signed into law?

William McKinley framed the bill as a congressman, and the price rises it brought helped cost him his own seat that autumn. Six years later he won the White House.

Which future president did Benjamin Harrison put on the Civil Service Commission, then largely ignore?

Theodore Roosevelt kept calling for a wider merit system and complaining about patronage in the Post Office, but Harrison barely advanced the reform cause otherwise.

Benjamin Harrison's stiff, aloof manner led even his own White House staff to call him by which nickname?

The human iceberg impressed big crowds from the platform but froze visitors one to one. With family he thawed, and he loved to play with his grandchildren.

Benjamin Harrison's wife Caroline served as the first president general of which newly founded women's society?

The Daughters of the American Revolution organised in 1890 with the First Lady at its head. At the White House she made orchids the official flower for state receptions.

Benjamin Harrison's second wife, Mary Dimmick, was related to his late first wife Caroline in what way?

Her niece Mary had lived in the White House as the First Lady's assistant. Harrison's two grown children disapproved of the match and stayed away from the 1896 wedding.

Benjamin Harrison fought at Resaca and Peachtree Creek in the 1864 Union drive on which Confederate city?

Atlanta fell on September 2, 1864, and Harrison was among the first Union troops to enter the city. At Resaca his regiment had stormed a gun battery in hand-to-hand fighting.

Benjamin Harrison served as a church elder and stayed a lifelong member of which Protestant denomination?

Presbyterian faith stayed with him to the end: he was serving on a national committee to revise the church's creed when he died in 1901, before he could cast his ballot.

After leaving office, Benjamin Harrison argued which country's border dispute with Britain before a tribunal in Paris?

Venezuela hired him in its quarrel over the frontier with British Guiana. He filed an 800-page brief and spent more than 25 hours arguing in court, but lost the case.

Benjamin Harrison took the United States to the brink of war with which country after two USS Baltimore sailors died?

Chile gave way and apologised after Harrison threatened to break off relations over the shore-leave brawl in Valparaiso. He drafted the first demand himself while his secretary of state lay ill.

Benjamin Harrison created the first federal forest reserve in 1891 on public land beside which national park?

Yellowstone's neighbour in Wyoming became the first forest reserve within a month of the law. The power came from a clause Harrison's interior secretary added to an 1891 land law at his request.

Benjamin Harrison lost his Senate seat in 1887; who chose United States senators at that time?

State legislatures picked senators until the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Democrats had redrawn Indiana's districts, so they held the chamber despite a Republican majority statewide.

Which California national park, home to giant trees, was created by a bill Benjamin Harrison signed in 1890?

Sequoia became a national park on September 25, 1890, with Harrison's signature. He also signed the bill for the nearby General Grant National Park that year.

After Caroline Harrison died in 1892, who served as White House hostess for the rest of Benjamin Harrison's term?

His daughter Mary McKee, who had lived in the White House throughout as her mother's assistant, took over for the final months of the term.

Which steel magnate helped lead Benjamin Harrison's delegation to the 1889 conference of American nations?

Andrew Carnegie co-led the delegation with John B. Henderson. The talks produced no breakthrough, but they left behind an information bureau that became the Pan American Union.

Which new third party, led by James B. Weaver, pulled western voters away from Benjamin Harrison in 1892?

The Populists promised free silver and an eight-hour workday, and Weaver took about a million ballots and 22 electoral votes, most of them in the West.

Which banker and former minister to France served as Benjamin Harrison's vice president from 1889 to 1893?

Levi P. Morton was dropped from the ticket in 1892 and went on to be governor of New York. He stayed friendly enough to be a guest at Harrison's second wedding in 1896.

Which two states did Benjamin Harrison admit on the same day in 1889, shuffling the papers to hide which came first?

North and South Dakota both became states on November 2, 1889. Because nobody saw which paper Harrison signed first, the two are officially numbered in alphabetical order.

An 1889 recording of Benjamin Harrison is the oldest of a president speaking while in office; what was it captured on?

A wax cylinder cut by Gianni Bettini holds about thirty seconds of Harrison's voice, in which he speaks about the first Pan-American conference.

An 1891 lynching in New Orleans led which country to recall its ambassador during Benjamin Harrison's presidency?

Italy broke off relations when the mob's leaders went unprosecuted, and there were rumours of war. Harrison eased the crisis by agreeing to pay $25,000 to the victims' families.

Benjamin Harrison graduated in 1852 from which school in the small college town of Oxford?

Miami University was where he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, a network he drew on for much of his life. He finished near the top of his class.

Which Supreme Court justice appointed by Benjamin Harrison wrote the 1896 majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson?

Henry Billings Brown, a Michigan judge and admiralty expert, was Harrison's second pick for the Court. His Plessy opinion upheld the legality of racial segregation on public transport.

What is the title of the 1897 book in which Benjamin Harrison explained the workings of the federal government?

This Country of Ours began as a series of articles on the presidency and the federal government, gathered into a book four years after he left office.

Which New-York Tribune editor was Benjamin Harrison's running mate in the 1892 election?

Whitelaw Reid had been Harrison's envoy in Paris before joining the ticket. The pair lost, and Reid ended his career as ambassador to the United Kingdom.

A cottage given to Benjamin Harrison's wife by admirers stirred an 1890 scandal in which New Jersey seaside resort?

Cape May Point was where the postmaster general and Philadelphia friends bought the cottage. To quiet talk of a bribe, Harrison sent a cheque for $10,000 to cover it.

Which Maine politician, the Republican nominee of 1884, served as Benjamin Harrison's first secretary of state?

James G. Blaine helped swing the 1888 convention to Harrison, but the two fell out. He resigned in June 1892 as party rivals tried to draft him for the nomination.

Which Philadelphia department-store pioneer served as postmaster general throughout Benjamin Harrison's presidency?

John Wanamaker held the job from 1889 to 1893. His Grand Depot is counted as Philadelphia's first department store, and reformers grumbled about his use of patronage.