History of North Bend, (Hamilton County) Ohio United States of America

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Biographies:

Benjamin Harrison, twenty-third President of the United States, was born at North Bend, Ohio, Aug. 20, 1833; son of John Scott and Elizabeth (Irwin) Harrison; grandson of William Henry and Anna (Symmes) Harrison; and great grandson of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence. His father was a representative from Ohio in the 33d and 34th congresses and conducted a farm of 400 acres on the Ohio river, near the mouth of the Big Miami, where Benjamin was accustomed to farm work. He attended school in a log schoolhouse and in 1848-49 at Farmers college, College Hill, near Cincinnati, Ohio, and was graduated at Miami university, Ohio, A.B, 1852 and A.M., 1855. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 and practised law in Indianapolis. 1854-89. He was reporter of the supreme court of Indiana, 1860-62, and again, 1864-68. He entered the volunteer army July 14, 1862, when he was commissioned 2d lieutenant of Company A, 70th Indiana volunteers. He was promoted captain, July 22 and colonel, Aug. 7, 1862; was in command of his regiment to Aug. 20, 1863; of the 2d brigade, 3d division reserve corps, to Sept. 20, 1863; again of his regiment to Jan. 9, 1864; of the 1st brigade, 1st division, 11th army corps, to April 18, 1864; of his regiment to June 29, 1864; of the 1st brigade, 3d division, 20th army corps, to Sept. 23, 1864; on special recruiting service in Indiana and in command of the 1st brigade, provisional division, army of the Cumberland, to Jan. 16, 1865; and in command of the 1st brigade, 3d division, 20th army corps, to June 8, 1865. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers, Jan. 23, 1865, "for ability and manifest energy and gallantry in command of brigade." He commanded the 70th Indiana volunteers at the battles of Russellville, Ky., Sept. 30, 1862; Resaca, Ga., May 13-16, 1864; Cassville, Ga., May 24, 1864; New Hope Church and Dallas, Ga., May 25-28, 1864; and at Kenesaw Mountain, June 27-28, 1864. He commanded the 1st brigade, 3d division, 20th army corps at the battles of Kenesaw Mountain, June 29 to July 3, 1864, Peach Tree Creek, July 20, 1864; and at the siege of Atlanta, July 21 to Sept. 2, 1864; the 1st brigade, Cruft's provisional division, Steedman's provisional detachment at the battle of Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 15-16 1864, and the 1st brigade, 3d division, 20th corps at the surrender of General Johnston at Durham Station, N.C., April 26, 1865. He was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of Indiana in 1876; was by the appointment of President Hayes a member of the Mississippi River commission, 1879-80; was chairman of the state delegates to the Republican national convention of 1880, and when his name was presented as a candidate for President he insisted that it be withdrawn. He canvassed the state for Garfield and declined a cabinet appointment from the incoming President. In 1881 he was elected U.S. senator for a full term, as successor to J. E. McDonald, and was chairman of the committee on territories. In 1888 he received the nomination of President of the United States from the Republican national convention at Chicago, Ill. He was nominated on the eighth ballot by a vote of 544, and at the general election in November he received 5,440,216 of the popular votes to 5,588,233 for Grover Cleveland, and at the meeting of the electoral college in 1889 he was elected President of the United States, receiving 233 electoral votes to 168 for Cleveland. He was inangurated, March 4, 1889, and James G. Blaine of Maine was made secretary of state; William Windom of Minnesota secretary of the treasury; Redfield Proctor of Vermont secretary of war; John W. Noble of Missouri secretary of the interior; Benjamin F. Tracy of New York secretary of the navy; Jeremiah M. Rusk of Wisconsin secretary of agriculture; John Wanamaker of Pennsylvania postmaster-general, and William H. H. Miller of Indiana attorney-general. The changes in his cabinet occurred in the state department in 1892 when on June 4, Secretary Blaine resigned and was succeeded by John W. Foster of Indiana; in the treasury department in 1891 when upon the death of Secretary Windom, January 29, he was succeeded by Charles Foster of Ohio; and in the war department in 1891 when on the resignation of Secretary Proctor, December 5, he was succeeded by Stephen B. Elkins of West Virginia. During his trip through the southern states to California and return in 1890 he accomplished a journey of 10,000 miles from April 15 to May 15, and made one hundred forty non-political and patriotic addresses, which were published and elicited praise from American and European statesmen. President Harrison arranged for an arbitration of the differences between the United States and England in reference to the killing of seal in the Bering sea; for the Pan-American congress held in Washington in the winter of 1889-90, in which the South and Central AmeriCan countries were represented and a system of reciprocity in trade established; signed the acts for the admission of the territories of North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming as states; secured the extinguishment of Indian titles to vast tracts of land formerly claimed by the Indians, through commissioners appointed under the direction of the secretary of the interior and which secured the territory of Oklahoma; quelled the Indian disturbances in the northwest, 1890-91; and defined in a message to congress the rights of aliens to the protection of the U.S. government, in connection with the demand of the Italian government for redress and indemnity for loss caused by the lynching of Italian residents of New Orleans, La. During his administration the battle-ships Maine and Texas, the armed cruiser New York, the protected cruisers Chicago, Baltimore, Charleston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Newark, and the gunboats Yorktown, Bennington, Concord and Machias were completed. These vessels had been planned and constructed largely under Mr. Cleveland's administration and during Mr. Harrison's the battle ships Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Oregon and Texas, the armed cruiser Brooklyn and the protected cruisers Cincinnati, Columbia, Detroit, Marblehead, Montgomery, Minneapolis, Olympia and Raleigh were planned and their keels laid. He was renominated by the Republican national convention of 1892 at Minneapolis, Minn., and in the general election in November, 1892, he received 5,176,108 of the popular votes, ex-President Cleveland receiving 5,556,918 votes; and in the electoral college Mr. Cleveland received 277 votes to 145 for Mr. Harrison. On retiring from the presidency, March 4, 1893, he resumed the practice of law in Indianapolis; and was non-resident professor of constitutional law at the Leland Stanford, Jr., university, Cal., 1893-98. He was married, Oct. 20, 1853, to Caroline Lavinia, daughter of Prof. John W. Scott of Oxford, Ohio. She died in Washington, D.C., Oct. 25, 1892. Their son, Russell Benjamin, was graduated from Lafayette in 1877; became a journalist; was married in 1884 to Mary Angeline, daughter of the Hon. Alvin Saunders, U.S. senator from Iowa; and in 1898 was appointed assistant inspector-general in the U.S. volunteer army in the war with Spain with the rank of major and assigned to the staff of Maj.-Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. Their daughter Mary Scott was married to James Robert McKee, a merchant of Indianapolis and subsequently of New York city. Mr. Harrison was married a second time in April, 1896, to Mrs. Mary Lord Dimmick, and on Feb. 21, 1897, a daughter was born, who was christened Elizabeth. In May, 1898, Mr. Harrison was retained as principal counsel for Venezuela before the court of arbitration on the British-Venezuelan boundary question. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Miami university in 1888 and from the college of New Jersey in 1889. He is the author of Indiana Supreme Court Reports, Vols. 15-17 and 23-29; This Country of Ours (l897); and articles in magazines and newspapers. He died in Indianapolis, Ind., March 13, 1901.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

John Scott Harrison, representative, was born in North Bend, Ohio, Oct. 4, 1804; son of Gen. William Henry and Anna (Symmes) Harrison, and grandson of Benjamin (the signer) and Elizabeth (Bassett) Harrison and of John Cleves and Anna (Tuthill) Symmes. He was married, Aug. 21, 1831, to Elizabeth Irwin. He received a liberal education. He was a Whig representative in the 33d and 34th congresses, serving from Dec. 5, 1853, to March 3, 1857. He is the author of Pioneer Life at North Bend (1867), an address delivered before the Whitewater and Miami Valley pioneer association. He died on his farm at North Bend, Ohio, May 26, 1878.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor