Notable people · First Lady · Settlement · Religion · Women
Anna Harrison
North Bend pioneer's daughter and wife of William Henry Harrison who was first lady for one month in 1841 without ever reaching Washington; grandmother of Benjamin Harrison.
Born July 25, 1775, Morristown, New Jersey
Died February 25, 1864, home of her son John Scott Harrison, five miles below North Bend
At a glance
- Born
- July 25, 1775, Morristown, New Jersey source
- Died
- February 25, 1864, home of her son John Scott Harrison, five miles below North Bend (Hamilton County) source
- Buried
- William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial, North Bend (Hamilton County) source
- Also known as
- Anna Harrison, Anna Symmes Harrison, Anna Symmes, Mrs. William Henry Harrison
- Known as
- First Lady, Settlement, Religion, Women
Life story
Anna Tuthill Symmes was born in Morristown, New Jersey, on July 25, 1775, and raised by her grandparents on Long Island after her mother died. In 1795, at 19, she joined her father, Judge John Cleves Symmes, at North Bend, the settlement he had founded on the Ohio River below Cincinnati. Against his wishes she married Lt. William Henry Harrison of Fort Washington that November. She raised ten children at North Bend and at Vincennes in Indiana Territory while he served as a soldier, governor and congressman, and kept a tutor and a small school in the North Bend house for her own and neighbours' children. When Harrison was inaugurated in 1841 she was too ill to make the winter journey east, and he died on April 4, before she left, so she never reached Washington. She lived on at North Bend, from 1855 in the home of her son John Scott Harrison, died there in 1864 aged 88, and is buried beside her husband in the Harrison tomb on Mount Nebo.
Ohio ties
- North Bend (1795; 1798-1800; c. 1812-1855)
arrived at her father's settlement on January 1, 1795; married there that November; lived in the Harrison homestead, which she inherited from her father, until 1855 Hamilton County · source - Cincinnati (Fort Washington) (1795-1798)
army wife at Fort Washington, where her husband was stationed Hamilton County · source - The Point, John Scott Harrison's farm below North Bend (1855-1864)
lived with her only surviving son's family from the autumn of 1855 and died there Hamilton County · source - Cleves (1864)
funeral at the Presbyterian church on February 28, 1864 Hamilton County · source
Timeline
- 1775 Born July 25 in Morristown, New Jersey, to Anna Tuthill and John Cleves Symmes; her mother died on Anna's first birthday. source
- c. 1779 When she was about four, her father, a Continental Army colonel, put on a British officer's uniform to carry her through the British lines to her grandmother at Southold, Long Island. source
- 1795 Reached North Bend with her father and stepmother, Susan Livingston, on the morning of January 1 after a hard journey west. source
- 1795 Married Lt. William Henry Harrison in a clandestine wedding on November 25, against her father's wishes. source
- 1798 Harrison resigned from the army, bought land at North Bend and built a log cabin for the family. source
- 1800 Gave birth to her third child at Richmond, Virginia, in September, then moved with Harrison to Vincennes when he became governor of Indiana Territory. source
- 1812 With war coming, the family went back to the farm at North Bend, where she bore two more children. source
- 1814 Her father died in Cincinnati on February 26 and was buried in what is now Congress Green Cemetery at North Bend; she inherited North Bend land from him. source
- 1840 On news of her husband's election she said, "I wish that my husband's friends had left him where he is, happy and contented in retirement." source
- 1841 Became first lady on March 4 but stayed in North Bend, too ill for the winter journey; her widowed daughter-in-law Jane Irwin Harrison acted as hostess. source
- 1841 President Harrison died on April 4, exactly one month after his inauguration, while she was packing to join him in May. source
- 1841 The federal government granted her a pension in June, which she spent paying her late husband's debts. source
- 1841 President Harrison's body was brought from Washington and interred in the family tomb on Mount Nebo at North Bend on July 7. source
- 1846 Henry Howe found her living in the white clapboarded log house at North Bend, with her son-in-law managing the farm for her. source
- 1855 In the autumn she moved from the old homestead to the home of her son John Scott Harrison, five miles down the Ohio. source
- 1858 The old Harrison log house at North Bend burned on July 25, destroying the furniture, library and 1840 campaign relics kept there. source
- 1864 Died February 25 at her son's home, aged 88; her funeral was held at the Presbyterian church at Cleves on February 28 and she was buried beside her husband. source
- 1864 A Cincinnati telegraph dated February 27 carried the news of her death at North Bend to Eastern papers such as Washington's Daily National Intelligencer. source
- 1871 John Scott Harrison sold all but 6 acres of the estate and offered the tomb plot to the State of Ohio in exchange for perpetual care. source
- 1919 The Ohio General Assembly formally accepted the tomb and paid for its care after years of neglect. source
- 1970 The Harrison tomb was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 10. source
Stories
Through the British lines in disguise
Anna Symmes's mother died when Anna was a year old, and for the next few years her father, Col. John Cleves Symmes of the Continental Army, kept her with him in New Jersey. He was determined to place her with her grandparents, the Tuthills, at Southold on Long Island, which was then held by the British. When she was nearly four, he put on a British officer's uniform and carried her through the lines himself. He then rejoined his regiment and did not see her again until after the British left New York in 1783. Henry Howe, who met Anna at North Bend in 1846, wrote that she remembered the journey all her life.
The first lady who stayed home
When William Henry Harrison left North Bend for his inauguration in early 1841, Anna, at 65, was too unwell to face a long February journey by steamboat and rail. The president-elect took his widowed daughter-in-law, Jane Irwin Harrison, to act as hostess until Anna came east in May, and half a dozen other relatives went with them. Harrison died on April 4, exactly one month after taking office. Anna had already begun packing when the news reached her, so she never made the trip. She remains the only first lady who never went to the capital during her husband's presidency, and the first to be widowed while holding the title.
A school in the North Bend house
With her husband away for years at a time on military and public business, Anna Harrison ran the North Bend household of ten children and often her neighbours' children as well. Schools in the new country were, as Laura Holloway put it in 1881, 'few and far between'. She kept a private tutor in the house, and any neighbourhood child who wished could join the little school for as long as the family chose. Holloway also recorded that she gave quietly to the Bethel Sabbath school and the city poor with notes such as 'This is but a widow's mite.'
The fire of 1858
In 1846 the historian Henry Howe stayed two nights at North Bend and sketched the Harrison house. It was a long building, clapboarded and painted white, whose eastern half was built of logs. Anna was living there, and her son-in-law managed the farm for her. Decades later he wrote to Howe that he was still living in the house, the famous 'log cabin' of the 1840 campaign, on the night of July 25, 1858, when it was set on fire and burned to the ground. By then Anna had moved to her son's farm. The family escaped in their nightclothes and lost the furniture, the library and the relics of 1840, some of which had been in the family for two hundred years.
Sites to know
Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.
- 1 William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial (her grave beside the president), Mount Nebo, Brower Road
North Bend Hamilton County · source - 2 Ohio Historical Marker 47-31, William Henry Harrison / Benjamin Harrison, near the Harrison homestead site
250 yards south of 23 Washington Street, North Bend Hamilton County · source - 3 Congress Green Cemetery (her father John Cleves Symmes's grave) and Ohio Historical Marker 8-31, 35 Cliff Road
North Bend Hamilton County · source - Harrison homestead, North Bend (the 1840 'log cabin'; burned 1858) (demolished)
North Bend Hamilton County · source
Ohio places
Where Anna Harrison was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.
- Connected: North Bend, Hamilton County North Bend · Hamilton County
- Connected: Cincinnati, Hamilton County Cincinnati · Hamilton County
- Connected: The Point, Hamilton County Hamilton County
- Connected: Cleves, Hamilton County Cleves · Hamilton County
- Buried: William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial, Hamilton County Hamilton County
Myths and corrections
Things often said about Anna Harrison, and what the record shows.
Often said Her father smuggled her through the British lines in a saddlebag, beside a bag of turnips he showed to suspicious soldiers.
The record Wikipedia gives the turnip story only as a rumour. The two 19th-century accounts, Holloway (1881) and Henry Howe (1891), say only that Symmes wore a British officer's uniform to take her, at about age four, to her grandmother at Southold, Long Island. source
Often said Anna Harrison's father was the inventor of the 'Symmes Hole' hollow-earth theory (as her New York Herald obituary of February 29, 1864, said).
The record The hollow-earth lecturer was Capt. John Cleves Symmes Jr. (1780-1829), son of Thomas Symmes and named for his uncle. Anna's father was the uncle: Judge John Cleves Symmes, founder of North Bend and of the Miami Purchase. source
Often said Her North Bend cabin burned in 1855, after which she moved in with her son (Wikipedia).
The record Holloway (1881) says she moved to her son John Scott Harrison's home in the autumn of 1855. In a letter printed by Henry Howe, her son-in-law says he was living in the old log house when it was set on fire and burned on July 25, 1858. The official White House biography also dates the fire to 1858. source
Often said Her funeral sermon was preached by the noted Connecticut theologian Horace Bushnell (Wikipedia links the name to him).
The record Henry Howe identifies the preacher as 'Rev. Horace Bushnell, the blind preacher of Cincinnati, long her pastor and friend'. Holloway likewise calls him her pastor and intimate friend for many years. He preached at the Presbyterian church at Cleves, so this was evidently a local minister, not the Hartford theologian. source
Often said Anna Harrison was the oldest woman to become first lady.
The record At 65 in 1841 she held that record for 180 years. Jill Biden passed it when she became first lady at 69 in 2021. source
Often said She married William Henry Harrison on November 22, 1795, at her father's house (Holloway, 1881).
The record The White House biography and Wikipedia give November 25, 1795. Wikipedia notes that historians disagree on whether the wedding was at the home of Dr. Stephen Wood, who presided, or at her father's house. source
Documents
Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.
- Laura C. Holloway, The Ladies of the White House (1881), chapter 'Anna Symmes Harrison' 1881, Internet Archive
- Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, vol. 2 (1891), Hamilton County: North Bend, the Harrison house and tomb, and recollections of Mrs. Harrison 1891, Internet Archive
- New York Herald, February 29, 1864, p. 5: obituary 'Mrs. Harrison, Widow of President Harrison' 1864, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
- Daily National Intelligencer (Washington), February 29, 1864, p. 3: 'Death of Mrs. Harrison' (Cincinnati telegraph) 1864, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
Pictures
Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.
Title: Mrs. William Henry Harrison, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left Abstract/medium: 1 photograph : b...
Public domain
Anna Symmes Harrison
Public domain
Anna Symmes Harrison
Public domain
Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, wife of the 9th President of the United States William Henry Harrison, 1841. Cre...
Public domain
Portrait drawing of Anna Harrison, wife of William Henry Harrison, 9th president of the United States of Ameri...
Public domain
No known restrictions 
Title: Mrs. William Henry Harrison, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left Abstract/medium: 1 photographic p...
Public domain
.jpg)
.jpg)
Sources
Confidence. High: the main facts were confirmed in sources we opened.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Harrison
- https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/anna-harrison
- https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/anna-tuthill-symmes-harrison/
- https://archive.org/details/ladieswhitehous01hollgoog
- https://archive.org/details/HistoricalCollectionsOfOhio1891V2
- https://remarkableohio.org/marker/47-31-william-henry-harrison-benjamin-harrison/
- https://remarkableohio.org/marker/8-31-congress-green-cemetery-john-cleves-symmes/
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19596
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison_Tomb_State_Memorial
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cleves_Symmes
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Anna_Symmes_Harrison
- https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030313/1864-02-29/ed-1/?sp=5
- https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83026172/1864-02-29/ed-1/?sp=3
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cleves_Symmes_Jr.
Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.
