The Great Big WHH Presentation!

I broke my "at least one blog post per month" rule for the first time in seven years, but it was for a good cause.
My writing and research energy over the past two months was being used for a presentation I mentioned here before. In May 2018, I was recommended by my friend Mark Fischer to Meg Riestenberg to give a talk to a local nature conservation group Meg belongs to in Lawrenceburg IN called the Oxbow. Mark had given previous talks here on Geocaching and the 2017 Solar Eclipse. I'd never done anything like this before but after some trepidation, I accepted as I felt I was up to the challenge.

This was more of a nature interest group but Meg said they enjoy hearing about local history too. A captive audience! The idea I came up with for them was "Tippecanoe and Trivia Too!". This would be a talk about the local ties that William Henry Harrison had to the Ohio Valley. I also decided to bust some of the myths that surround his life. To keep folks engaged, I added in a mini trivia night similar to the ones that are popular in many bars nowadays. I decided that the winning team would get the theme appropriate gift of a six-pack of Cincinnati made Hard Cider from March First Brewing.

one of the team bookmarks

I volunteered Mark to help out with the logistics of the trivia. He came up with a clever and time efficient way to divide up teams. The added bonus was a way to plug my blog and have a takeaway souvenir that could be used as a bookmark.

On the evening of the presentation on October 9th, we arrived a bit early and found no one there yet. What are two geocachers going to do to kill time? Hmmm. Once we grabbed a couple of caches, one with a spectacular view of the Ohio River I must say, we headed back to the Lawrenceburg conference room and I got all set up. After some Oxbow updates by Jon Seymour and Meg Riestenberg and an introduction by Mark, I gave my presentation.

A 1960s reproduction of a 19th booze bottle with
the WHH Pez and the trivia team/bookmarks by Mark.
Presenter selfie with a couple of candid shots from the evening.

There were about 40 people in attendance (a full house!) for my one-hour presentation which was only 45 minutes short of Harrison's speech. On trivia nights they usually play a song while the teams ponder their answer. I had one technical glitch in that I had no audio for the first two trivia question songs. That was a pretty major component of the entertainment factor so that was a bit distressing. Three songs were renditions of 1840 era campaign songs by a man named Oscar Brand. Another was a W.H. Harrison inspired song by a band called The Executive Branch, and the fifth was a version of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" by They Might Be Giants. I finally got the sound figured out and I was pretty pleased with how it all went after that. The audience seemed receptive and engaged. They even laughed at my jokes. One where I said I was going to now read the two-hour speech but was told I didn't have time. My "parley animal" joke went over pretty well too. They even had a few of their own. For example, when it got misconstrued that the trivia answers would be based on something I said, similar to a quiz, I corrected this by saying they would be mainly multiple choice or true/false questions on something I hadn't covered yet. Someone then shouted, "so we really don't have to pay attention then??". That got a good chuckle from everyone including myself.

NWA inspired graphic 

I have to add that this might be the only public WHH discussion where NWA gets mentioned! Although I am pretty positive only one person got that reference.

I had thought of recording my presentation but decided against it so I have no video to show you here. My PowerPoint isn't really suitable for sharing either as it is mostly image based and I relied on my notes vs having so much text on the screen. I can share a few highlights though!

Several of the big myths I busted are written about on this very blog. The circumstances and cause of his death, the confusion surrounding the first photo of a President, and the popularizing of the word booze. I added a bit about the alleged death curse on US Presidents starting with Harrison sometimes attributed to Tecumseh and other times to his brother The Prophet. For local history, I highlighted the two homes in North Bend and talked about his time as a public servant in Ohio and Indiana and of course his military history in the vicinity during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

It turns out that my trivia questions were harder than I anticipated. This was my fault due to some red herrings I added since I thought the questions might be too easy. Here is a sample of the questions...Do you know the answers? No Googling!

To wrap things up I ended with the very amusing spoof of the Hamilton musical by Off The Top.

Afterward, several folks stuck around to chit chat with me. I learned of a few other local Harrison tidbits from a couple of attendees that I'll likely explore further. This was a pretty great experience for someone like me with almost no experience at public speaking. I have to highly recommend the book that helped me out a great deal in preparing for this called, Speak Easy by Maggie Eyre.

Huzzah!...as Harrison might say.

Oxbows, Books, and Geocaches

This update has all the things that named my blog  "Gehio", Geocaching+History+Ohio

Thanks to the person who got me into geocaching, Mark Fischer, I was invited to speak at the Oxbow Tuesday Lecture on October 9th to discuss a local history subject of my choosing. The Oxbow is a wildlife conservation group in SE Indiana. Mark recently did a lecture on Geocaching which I attended. My name got mentioned as a local early area history expert for possible upcoming topics.  I haven’t firmed up my material yet but it will be in some way shape or form about William Henry Harrison regarding some myths and legends about his life and ties to the area. I'm going to have to brush up on some public speaking skills!

My reading has slowed down as the weather warmed up. I typically read on my lunch breaks and to be honest there have been lots of new geocaches near my office, so I’ve been indulging in that instead. I’m currently about 3/4 into an interesting book from the 1980s on Tekamthi called God Gave Us This Country. I ran across it by accident at the library.  Who the hell is Tekamthi??? The author insists on using what is believed to be Tecumseh’s Shawnee name before it became anglicized. The Shawnee language is actually a bit lispy and European speakers would remove this from the pronunciation as being somewhat effeminate. Ironic since the Shawnee were pretty fierce. One thing that is a bit jarring is the author insists on using the term “reds” and “red men” throughout the book. These are terms all considered dated and a bit derogatory to modern ears. Otherwise, despite the terrible cover and title, it’s a great read and well-sourced book that was previously unknown to me. In fact, I went ahead and bought a copy of my own just for the source notes. I've already made note of some Harrison info I wasn't aware of that will come in handy for the aforementioned lecture.

On my to-do list is another book I recently became aware of called The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. I guess it could be titled “Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About the Whigs But Were Afraid To Ask”. It’s 1300 pages! Oh, and the print is tiny. At the rate I read it may take me as long as the Whig party existed to finish it. So far, everyone I know that has this book never read the whole thing. Regardless, this doorstop will at least serve well as reference material. Oh and a tip to used book buyers.

I also picked up an interesting old title called The Intimate Letters of John Cleves Symmes and His Family. I've seen reference to this early 20th-century book many times where Cleves is mentioned. Don't get too excited. These aren't like the Harding letters. "Intimate" in this case just means "personal". No extensive bio of this important man to the history of the Ohio Valley exists due to most of his letters and journals being burned in a fire. Some say it was arson. There were many lawsuits against the man due to his questionable land business dealings.  The letters that do exist were compiled here from some of his recipient's collections that survived. It sort of humanizes a person that tends to be just a static character in the story of others without any idea of his personal thoughts. One weird thing I learned. Cleves kept referring to a daughter he called "Nancy". He only had one daughter named "Anna" (who married William Henry Harrison) so that was confusing. It turns out "Nancy" was originally a nickname for "Anna". I never knew that.
I got this and the Whigs Tecumseh from AbeBooks for just a few dollars each with free shipping. Ironically I've learned this has been owned by Amazon since 2008 but Amazon's used prices were very high for each of these. I'll be shopping there more often for good used book deals!

Speaking of geocaching, the reason so many new caches are getting published around town and my reading has slowed is that a major Geocaching event called GeoWoodstock 2018 will be held May 26th, 2018 at Coney Island in Cincinnati. This event is expected to bring over 5000 geocachers from all over the world. In fact, a geocacher from France contacted me about carpooling from their Airbnb since I have a cache near the event. I had to politely decline as I don’t really know my full schedule for that day, but I will be attending! How could I not be with "my people" that day?

In personal geocaching news, I'm currently sitting at find 6,408 and have had some interesting cache runs lately. Lot’s of new FTF’s (First To Finds), including a Wherigo (a first FTF of this type if you will). That makes FTF 101 for me. Mark Fisher and I hit not one or two, but three “tunnel” caches in so many weeks. These are caches where you go into a large drainage tunnel, usually with a flashlight. The photo to the left is (eventually) 400' into a tunnel and about that many feet below I-74. I used to be pretty adverse to doing these. In one of them, I was ankle deep in water. Those were some fun adventures!

See you in June!

Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of WHH)

not the 1841 photo or the 1850 copy you think it is

 For many years I was under the impression that William Henry Harrison was the first President to be photographed while in office. While this is true, all is not as it seems or what we have been led to believe.

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real - The Cure

A daguerreotype (an early form of photography introduced in 1839) WAS in fact taken of the new President at the US Capitol on inauguration day March 4, 1841. According to the photographer Justus F. Moore, President Harrison was “delighted with the results.” We'll have to take his word on that since it was never seen again and no known copy exists. The image often implied and misreported to be an 1850 photographic copy of that lost image is likely a daguerreotype made by Albert Southworth of an oil portrait by Albert Gallatin Hoit that Harrison sat for in 1840.
One might wonder, perhaps the painting was done from the photo? Good question!...but according to a Salmon P Chase diary entry, Hoit (sometimes spelled Hoyt) traveled from Boston to North Bend OH in May 1840 to paint this portrait of Harrison, then a candidate for President, for the Boston Whig Association.

I have seen the digital version of the painting and the 1850 photo previously and while it occurred to me they are very similar it hadn't dawned on me that they are basically the same image. Everything seems to match up. The photo seems to be tilted a bit counterclockwise from the original. and the early crude photographic process adds some slight variances. Just like an Instagram filter, it also produces some shadowing and contrast changes which give the daguerreotype a more life-like three-dimensional appearance. It's no wonder this myth came to be. It looks very much like a photo and not a photo of a painting. Other engravings were also based on the painting such as this one.

Every picture tells a story, don't it? - Rod Stewart

the 1840 Hoit painting used for the photo 

I asked my new friend over at Harrison Podcast about the matter thinking I'd just been mistaken all along (can you believe there is a bigger Harrison fan than I?) and he was also unaware of any of this and is respectfully not completely convinced of my findings. He takes a much more measured and scholarly approach to such things and would like to examine this more before reaching a final conclusion, although I think I have him leaning my way. I respect his work and look forward to any new evidence and will report back as needed. However, for now, I feel that the visual evidence, as well as the dated journal entry by Chase, confirm my findings.
So alas, while Harrison does indeed get the honor to be the first President to be photographed in while in office, no one has seen it since 1841 and what we often see credited as an 1850 copy of that photo is an 1850 photo of an 1840 painting.

Sorry to break the news on William Henry Harrison' s 245th birthday, born on this day 1773. President's Day is on the 3rd Monday of February. Did you know only four US Presidents were born in February? Washington, Harrison, Lincoln, and Reagan.

In case you are wondering, the oldest surviving original photo of a sitting US President is that of James Polk from 1849. The oldest surviving photograph of a US President, recently discovered, is that of elderly John Quincy Adams taken in 1843, well after his time in office.

If I had a photograph of you
It's something to remind me
I wouldn't spend my life just wishing - Flock of Seagulls

A note about the images used. The daguerreotype was taken directly from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website and while slightly cropped by me to match the size of the painting is otherwise an untouched image. Retouched versions of this photo with the scratches and marks removed routinely appear online. 
The Hoit portrait image was taken from a general internet image search also resized and cropped by me for comparison purposes.  The original painting and image can be seen at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. 

Frosted Ohio Presidents

Never in my life did I think I would get excited about mid 20th-century frosted glass tumblers, but here I am blogging about it. Again. I now have several different sets of Ohio related drink-ware and I've posted about one them before. I learned from my previous research that Ohio was a leader in the glass industry from the late 1800's to the mid 20th century so there are many Ohio themed glasses from that period.

I started this next set of  "Presidents From Ohio" glass tumblers by picking up three of them for a good price at an antique mall several years ago. I've seen the rest on eBay but at $8-14 a piece plus several dollars for shipping that was going to set me back a bit to get the entire set of eight. I'm kind of a cheapskate. Another website had an incomplete set of 6 for $120. Ouch.

Thanks to the sharp eye of an old friend browsing at a local antique mall who sent up the Gehio signal (he texted me), yours truly is now the proud owner of an entire eight-piece set. The best part? Only $35!

This series was designed by Fran Taylor and produced by her company, Gay Fad Studios of Lancaster, OH which was open from 1945-1962. Fran obtained blank glassware from various Ohio manufacturers such as Hazel Atlas Glass in Zanesville and Federal Glass in Columbus. Another was Anchor Hocking which was a few doors down from Fran's Pierce Avenue studio. The blanks were then stenciled and hand-painted. Because I had duplicates, I compared them. I noticed that the coloring on the birthplaces is somewhat different. That makes each one is unique.

The 12-ounce frosted glass tumblers are 5" high with a rim diameter or 2-3/4". The front of each President’s glass features his portrait, a facsimile of his signature, and his years in office (or year of the month in W. H. Harrison's case) with “Presidents From Ohio” above, all in brown, while the back shows his birthplace* in brown with colorful accents. In all my research I've never been able to determine the exact year these were made. Perhaps the secret is contained within the two-volume 610 page book published in 2011, Gay Fad: Fran Taylor’s Extraordinary Legacy by Donna McGrady. At $150 that's too rich for my blood to find out. I'm not so much obsessed with Fran's entire impressive career and work as I am about this particular set of glasses. It would be nice to know how many were made since as I stated before, being hand painted, they are all slightly different.

*Since I am William Henry Harrison obsessed, I noticed that being a Virginian by birth, Harrison's is not a birthplace, but a home in Ohio when he was elected. However, he never lived in a home that looked like a log cabin. The same scene is used in grandson Ben Harrison's birthplace. Ben was born on William's farm in North Bend OH but it was more like a mansion. All the others seem pretty accurate.

I have a couple of other full Ohio related glassware sets to write about waiting in the wings, so look for that...

Review: A Child of the Revolution: William Henry Harrison and His World, 1773-1798

A short book review on a biography I read in 2014 of William Henry Harrison on the anniversary of his death in 1841.


A Child of the Revolution: William Henry Harrison and His World, 1773-1798 by Hendrik Booraem
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book's subtitle makes it clear that this is not a full biography of William Henry Harrison. It just covers the first 25 of his 68 years. Most books about Harrison cover his better-documented life after 1798 such as his second military career and/or his later political life through his Trivial Pursuit worthy death in 1841, so this is a nice addition. The author notes that there is scant primary source material on Harrison's early days. Therefore, much of what is in the book is somewhat speculative at times yet Booraem provides ample evidence to support those assumptions.

What little records there are of Harrison's life before 1798 are obtained from a variety of sources and then compared with Harrison's own accounts written decades later as he was ramping up for a Presidential run. Much like today, folks running for political office like to fluff up the old résumé a bit and cast a better light on some of their more youthful indiscretions. Harrison was no different so we must take his words from the 1830s with some caution as most autobiographical accounts should. For those early gaps, Booraem takes Harrison's words, known events, customs and other evidence of the period and constructs educated theories of some of Harrison's early life and whereabouts. He does a fine job at it.

Any student of William Henry Harrison's life or the early American Republic should consider this required reading to better understand how the son of a well-off slave owning Anglican Virginian planter who signed the Declaration of Independence can be transformed into an abolitionist, a military man, and a politician.

View all my reviews

19th Century Booze News You Can Use

WHH never slept here

In the election of 1840, Democrat incumbent President Martin Van Buren and his re-election team attempted to smear his Whig opponent William Henry Harrison by portraying him as a hard cider drunk and a hayseed. It didn't matter that WHH was once a US Ambassador, US Congressman (both kinds), Governor of the Indiana Territory, Secretary of Northwest Territory, a US Army General and a celebrated war hero. He had an impressive resume, was college educated, and came from a wealthy family just like Van Buren and most politicians of that era.  I'm not entirely sure what Harrison’s drinking habits were as a younger man. Most men back then drank quite a bit. Supposedly he was a teetotaler later in life.

What Would WHH Do?

1840 campaign medal

Harrison's team embraced the attempted slander and adopted a log cabin as his campaign symbol, the symbol of frontier rustic-ness, and portrayed himself as a regular "Jebidiah the Blacksmith" every-man who enjoyed his Bud Light, I mean hard cider. This tactic was no different than politicians now that put on those plaid shirts for the camera and walk around a farm with their family or don a hard hat and shake hands with factory workers to connect with the common man. It's all political spin and 1840 was no different. Ironically this populist strategy is also what got former War of 1812 General and war hero Andrew Jackson elected as the 7th US President when he ran against incumbent John Quincy Adams. It was Henry Clay's Democratic-Republicans opposition to Jackson and his policies that gave birth to the Whig party in 1833.
The truth is, Harrison never once lived in a log cabin. His campaign team, again taking a page from Jackson, accented the old General's War of 1812 war hero status by coming up with the very first presidential campaign slogan and song "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" emphasizing his win at the Battle of Tippecanoe. The Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign was on, complete with cups, plates, flags, and sewing boxes made with his image on them.

Booz...but not from the 1840s

Back to the booze...

Now it is known that there were variants of the word “booze” associated with drunkenness going back to the 14th-century Dutch word “búsen” and even in early America, adjectives such as “boosy” meant "drunk". It has been said that Harrison's Presidential campaign popularized the term again in 1840. It's serendipitous to note that Martin Van Buren was of Dutch ancestry and spoke Dutch as his first language. He later learned English in school.

As the legend goes on to say, WHH commissioned the E.G. Booz Distillery (erroneously listed as E.C. Booz at times) in Philadelphia to make log cabin shaped whiskey bottles with the “Booz” surname featured prominently. Harrison allegedly gave away this free booz(e) at campaign stops to potential voters. I've seen this mentioned in an antique glass bottle book from 1920. It's even in the 1941 biography William Henry Harrison, His Life and Times by James A. Green and repeated in many other publications. I myself believed the boozy tale and even wrote about it here*.

Not so fast...

It would be interesting to find the earliest mention of the booze story. I know for example that the Harrison speech/hat and coat/pneumonia story doesn't appear in print until 1939 in the Freeman Cleaves biography "Old Tippecanoe", long considered the go-to book on WHH which incidentally doesn't mention the "booz" story at all, whereas Green's 1941 book does. Hmmm.

Edmund G. Booz was born in 1824, which would make him only 16 years old in 1840. As it turns out, Edmund didn't start selling log cabin shaped whiskey bottles embossed with his family name until 1858. This was at a time when the brand new Republican Party, founded by former Whigs, was gaining popularity with another up and coming log cabin guy named Abraham Lincoln. Since Harrison, the first Whig President, had the famous Log Cabin campaign with lots of other swag, Mr. Booz likely stamped one of them with the 1840 year as a tribute...or possibly as a deception. Either way, this allusion apparently led folks to believe the bottle was from 1840 election and the tale developed from there. I've also learned that Clevenger Brothers Glass made reproductions of the bottles in the 1930s. Sometimes these are sold mistakenly as 19th-century originals. This leads me to believe that the story originated not in the 1850s but in the 1930s, which is around the time Green wrote his book.
So while it is feasible Harrison gave out free booze or hard cider (in regular type bottles with no "booz") in 1840 to lubricate thirsty voters and E. G. Booz, with his convenient, name re-popularized an old term for alcohol in the 1860s, it’s just not possible that William Henry Harrison or his campaign had anything to do with it in 1840.

Myth.Busted.


*Note: This is a rewrite of a post from December 2011 that originally credited the 1840 Harrison campaign with popularizing the term "booze". As explained above, new information had come to my attention that indicates this wasn't true. 

other sources:
- Booz and Booze
- E G Booz Old Cabin Whiskey

Ohio History Harvest

September is rich and abundant in Ohio Presidential trivia goodness. Here is a crop of nine savory nuggets from our ninth month. Let's start with the early adventures of our 9th President.

General Harrison statue
in Cincinnati

1812 - The Siege of Fort Wayne began in the Indiana Territory on September 5th led by Potawatomi and Miami Indians. Future 9th President General William Henry Harrison's Kentucky militia from Newport Barracks (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati) joined Ohio militia on September 8th and arrived at the fort September 12th. Known in advance of the approaching superior force the Indians led by Chief Winimac abandoned their attack.
Although born in Virginia and Governor of the Indiana Territory, Harrison would adopt Ohio as his home state, serving in various Ohio political offices and residing in North Bend OH when he became President. I've probably written more blog posts about Harrison than any sane person ever would. Here is a short one to match his brief Presidency.

1812 - Hey what do you know, another WHH entry!...On September 17th William Henry Harrison is made Major General of the US Regular Army by President Madison. Harrison would later defend Ohio from Indian and British advances by building Fort Meigs near Toledo in the War of 1812.

Hendricks is the only VP on US money

1819 - One of three Ohio born US Vice Presidents, Thomas A. Hendricks, 1st VP under Grover Cleveland was born on September 7th in Muskingum County OH. Having spent most of his life as a Hoosier and served as its 16th Governor, he ran with Indiana as his home state in the 1884 election. Hendricks is the only VP whose portrait appears on US paper currency, the $10 silver certificate of 1886. Hendricks died unexpectedly in his sleep just 8 months after being sworn in as Vice President in 1885.

grade school book
about Woodhull

1838 - Suffragette Victoria Woodhull is born September 23rd in Homer OH. Who? In 1872 she was the first woman to run for President and she couldn't even vote for herself. It wasn't just because she was a woman, but she was also in jail on election day. Oh, and black abolitionist Frederick Douglass was named as her running mate by her Equal Rights Party. One problem. Douglass was, in fact, supporting Grant. There’s also no record of how many votes the Woodhull/Douglass ticket received because they apparently weren't even counted. As you can deduce, this Presidential run was more of a protest.

I have to admit I didn't know much about Hendricks or Woodhull before researching for this post. I definitely would like to read more about Woodhull. Notorious Victoria by Mary Gabriel is on my Goodreads to do list.

I have several blog posts about the next four items which are linked in the text.

1855 - Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln Rudely was rudely greeted in Cincinnati on September 20th. One of the impolite greeters was Steubenville OH born Edwin Stanton who would later become Secretary of War seven years later under President Lincoln during the Civil War. Politics makes strange bedfellows they say. Upon Lincoln’s death in 1865, it was Stanton who tearfully said the famous words “Now he belongs to the ages.” 

Taft birthplace in Cincinnati

1857 - Speaking of Cincinnati, 27th  President William Howard Taft was born September 15th in the suburb Mt Auburn. Taft would finish his term unlike many Ohio Presidents, but not get re-elected to a second one mainly due to a public dispute with Teddy Roosevelt. He was the only former POTUS to become a member of the SCOTUS.
Random thought: If Hillary Clinton becomes President in 2016, she will have become the first FLOTUS to become POTUS. Bill would become the first...FGOTUS? Anyway...

Garfield Tomb in Cleveland

1880 - Arriving in San Francisco by train on September 8th, 19th US President Rutherford B. Hayes became the first US President to visit the West Coast while in office. I never had a whole post about Hayes but he gets a mention here. This is the only Ohio President who I've never visited the birthplace or grave site. I understand his Delaware OH birthplace is now the site of a BP gas station. At least there is a plaque. The more substantial Hayes Presidential Center and grave is on my Ohio bucket list. Hayes was also Ohio's 29th and 32nd Governor.

1881 - On September 19th, Moreland Hills OH born 20th President James Garfield succumbed to his bad doctors one excruciating month after an attempted assassination. I recommend reading the riveting Destiny of the Republic by Candace Millard which is all about that. It's a great book and one of my favorites. I've read it twice!

McKinley Tomb in Canton

1901 - Well we made it to the 20th century! Just 20 years after Garfield, on September 14th, 25th US President William McKinley died after being shot by an assassin eight days earlier in Buffalo NY while headed to Cleveland. McKinley was born in Niles OH and spent most of his life in Canton where his tomb is. He was the 39th governor of Ohio from 1892 to 1896. Rutherford B Hayes was McKinley's commanding officer during the Civil War in the 23rd Ohio Regiment and were both at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. For more on McKinley's assassination, I recommend The President and the Assassin by Scott Miller.

Ohio's Mint Condition

obverse

Did you know Ohio is home to America's oldest private mint? It's also only 6 miles from my house.
Here's the story.
A few months ago I ran across an item on eBay and ended up purchasing it for about $12.
It's a mint condition 62mm (2 ½ inch), 16-gram (.5 ounce) 1953 brushed aluminum medal commemorating the sesquicentennial of Ohio statehood.
The obverse features the Ohio State Seal surrounded by busts of the eight Ohio US Presidents:
William Henry Harrison (9th), Ulysses S. Grant (18th), Rutherford B. Hayes (19th), James Garfield (20th), Benjamin Harrison (23rd), William McKinley (25th), William Howard Taft (27th), and Warren G. Harding (29th).
The reverse notes the company and location "Osborne Coinage Co. Cin. 25, O." At first, I didn't know what the "25" signified. I discovered that it references the zip code of the company location which would be "Cincinnati Ohio, 45225" in the Camp Washington area.

reverse

The medal was struck by the Osborne Coinage Company of Cincinnati, OH which happens to be the oldest private mint in the US and still in operation today. I checked with them but unfortunately, they didn't have any further information on the history of this item, such as how many were made or who specifically it was created for. The early 1950s produced many Ohio Statehood promotional items to gear up for the 150th anniversary. As far as this coin goes, it doesn't show up on eBay much. Another site, which I lost the link to, was selling one and said they'd only seen two of these in twenty years. I don't think it's valuable or anything but I am happy with the price I paid.

Osborne traces its beginning back to 1835 as the Z. Bisbee Co. originally located on 5th Street in downtown Cincinnati a few miles from Osborne's present location in Camp Washington.
During its 181 year history, Osborne produced everything from campaign coins for eight presidents including Lincoln and FDR, food ration tokens in WWII, subway tokens, Alcoholic Anonymous sobriety coins, casino coins, commemorative sports coins, and Chuck E. Cheese tokens. In other words, pretty much anything that was coin-like and wasn't legal tender.

If you need a custom coin, head over to Osborne and tell then Gehio sent you.

related Gehio posts:
- Happy 58th Birthday to our 49th State...Ohio!
- Ohio Statehood Day!
- Ohio History on a Stick
other sources:
- 1997 LA Times article on the Osborne Coinage Co.

William Henry Stemwinder

March 4th, 1841

William Henry Harrison gets a bad rap. Conventional wisdom states that our 9th President must have been a blustery egotistical old fool to give a speech that lasted nearly two hours in the cold rain. Maybe he was but while it's true that his inaugural speech was twice as long as any of his eight predecessors, it was common to give lengthy speeches in those days. In our modern sound bite world, the thought of a speech like that generates gasps and ridicule. Most movies aren't even that long. But this was 1841, not 2016.

Oratory skills in the 19th century were highly prized. They especially came in handy for Harrison during his old frontier Governor days. He became a seasoned negotiator with Native American tribes who relied on verbal tradition and valued such speaking skills. WHH was also well read and idolized Plato and Cicero so much so that he emulated and referenced them in his public speeches. In the 1800s a term was coined for a long rousing speech, a stem-winder. This was slang for speeches so long that listeners had to rewind their watches during its course. And it was a compliment! Lincoln is famous for his short two-minute address at Gettysburg but the speech that preceded it by former Secretary of State Edward Everett was two hours. People thought that was too short. American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once exclaimed "The highest bribes of society are all at the feet of the successful orator. All other fame must hush before his. He is the true potentate."

Practicing oratory skills with Tecumseh in 1810

The bottom line is, while still a tad bit lengthy, it was shorter than Harrison's original. Future Harrison/Tyler US Secretary of State Daniel Webster (a contemporary of Emerson) had edited down the President elect's speech in February 1841 killing "seventeen Roman proconsuls", Webster boasted. Still, none of this had any bearing on his cause of death. Harrison probably died from a deadly combo of typhoid and early 19th-century medical treatment, not just the pneumonia that is often cited. A cold can irritate the lungs creating an environment where the bacteria that cause pneumonia can thrive, but one doesn't catch a cold from dressing poorly in the cold. That's common knowledge now. Also, Harrison complained of no symptoms until March 27th. That was 23 days after the speech. 

I doubt his cause of death will ever be corrected (or fully known) in the history books. It's repeated so much so that it is now the "truth" much like other moments in history that make great stories. Daniel Boone wore a coonskin cap (only on TV). Paul Revere yelled, "the British are coming" (he didn't). Al Gore claimed he invented the internet (he didn't really say that). 

April 4th, 1841

Could Harrison have given a 20-minute speech and survived?  Maybe. But his death certainly wasn't caused by ego-driven fashion choices on a cold and damp March day. In fact, the idea that the weather and the length of the speech is what killed him didn't appear until the 1939 Harrison bio "Old Tippecanoe". Yes, NINETEEN thirty-nine.

It seems to me that at the age of 68 and environmental factors he would have contracted some sort of malady. Bacteria-infested drinking water caused by open sewage was literally everywhere in DC. No matter what he got sick from, Harrison would have likely died anyway given the state of medicine in 1841. 

Harrison's doctors did what they thought was best in their day for their high profile patient. Yet...they did have another option. Instead of leeching, cupping, and enemas along with cocktails of mercury, opiates, and brandy, they could have just done nothing and let whatever was ailing him run its course. Oddly, had he not been the President, this is what a doctor may have prescribed for a mere citizen. Non-treatment was even prescribed for gunshot victims in those days. As long as the shrapnel wasn't endangering an organ or bleeding someone out, leave them be. The crude medical treatments here were, in fact, weakening the 68-year-old President even further. Harrison died a week later on April 4th, 1841 at 12:30 AM. The official cause of death was listed as "bilious pleurisy", known now as pneumonia, which was really a secondary diagnosis from a few days earlier.

Hey, it sure has been good fodder for one and a half centuries. Let's stop now.

President Mangum

We almost had a President Willie Person Mangum.

You can hear the theme song, can't you?

No, this is not some far-fetched probability. 

It almost happened. 

Not once, not twice, but three times.

OK really once. Maybe twice. And one is really far-fetched.

Once.

In 1836, North Carolinian Democratic Senator turned Whig Willie Person Mangum ran as one of the four regional Whigs opposing  Democrat Vice President Martin Van Buren. With 148 electoral votes needed to win in a Jacksonian world, the Whig strategy was to deny Van Buren an Electoral College victory and throw the selection to the House to decide...if their collective candidates received a majority. They didn't. Little Van won the election with 170 electoral votes to the Whigs 124. Mangum (and "John Tyler too!" as VP nominee) got 11 electoral votes. But let's face it. Willie didn't stand a chance. He didn't even appear on a ballot. The South Carolina legislature gave Senator Willie Person Mangum those 11 votes. A better chance for the highest office was coming five years later.

Twice.
The Whigs eventually defeated Little Van with William Henry Harrison in 1841. We know how that went. He died 31 days after his inauguration. Harrison's VP (and Mangum's 1836 running mate), John Tyler then assumed Harrison's term after a brief Constitutional crisis regarding Presidential succession. The Vice Presidency was then vacant from 1841-1845.

"His Accidency" John Tyler was having all sorts of problems. As a result, there was a failed impeachment attempt in 1842. Had it succeeded and the President removed from office with no VP,  the Presidency would have gone to President pro tempore of the Senate. This was now Willie Person Mangum. More likely than what happened in '41 but the real chance came two years later.

Three times for Willie.

On February 28th, 1844, President Tyler and members of his cabinet were on the Potomac aboard the USS Princeton. She was a brand new state of the art steam powered prop driven warship with big new shiny weapons. Many other dignitaries such as former first lady Dolley Madison and Tyler's young fiance Julia Gardiner were also on board for this grand social event with much food and drink. The President's entourage included the Secretaries of State and Navy. Part of the entertainment was a demonstration of the Princeton's giant experimental long gun dubbed the "Peacemaker", the largest naval gun in the world. As the men (no girls allowed) went topside for the big show Tyler, as one story goes, stayed behind for one more drink.  During its firing, the Peacemaker's barrel exploded sending iron shrapnel everywhere. It even tore apart a section of the hull. This instantly killed six people including both Secretaries and his fiance's father Senator David Gardiner. Many more were injured. If Tyler had been above deck, he would have no doubt been killed with his party. Having no VP, Presidential succession would have again gone to President pro tempore of the Senate, Willie Person Mangum.

The beer that denied us
President Mangum

And what of the deadly incident on the USS Princeton? Who was held accountable? No one. Apparently, a whole scandal arose with Robert Stockton who used his political connections to escape punishment for his poor design. Some things don't change. Even though it was the gun that failed, a stigma was attached to the ship itself. The Princeton saw admirable service in the Mexican-American War but what was supposed to have been the pride of the US Navy was decommissioned and scrapped just 5 years later in 1849.

And what of Willie Mangum? His name was floated around as a possible Presidential or VP candidate in the next couple of elections. He finished his Senate term and retired to his home in North Carolina where he died in 1861 at age 69.

So anyway...President Willie Person Mangum. Think of it! Especially if you are dyslexic.



More info:
- Military.com article on the USS Princeton
- Washington Post
-Wikipedia entry on the 1836 election
-A great detailed account of the disaster
- Biography of W.P. Mangum
- FindaGrave entry for W.P. Mangum

Indiana Giver

Toth working on one of his creations

I was in Vincennes IN recently checking out the gubernatorial home of frontier General and brief 9th US President William Henry Harrison. I was aware of a nearby 23' wood carving of  Shawnee War Chief Tecumseh, Harrison's adversary in the beginning of the 19th century, and planned to stop by. It was a nice bonus that geocache had been placed near the statue since it was a Tecumseh historical sign early in my geocaching life that sparked my interest in this era of history.

It was pretty impressive seeing it up close but I had WHH on my mind and really hadn't thought much more about it since that visit. I figured it was a one-off thing by a local artist, which in itself would still be pretty cool. The real story is more impressive though. It turns out that this was made by a guy named Peter Wolf  Toth. Nope, he's not the guy in the J. Geils Band either.

Since 1974, Toth has created a series of 74 sculptures across North America called the Trail of the Whispering Giants to honor Native Americans. It's to honor his own heritage right? Nope. He's not even Indian. He wasn't even born in North America. He's from Hungary. His dirt poor family fled during the 1956 Soviet takeover and settled in Akron OH at a young age. He later developed an interest in Native American culture and history in his new country. Paul saw in their story a parallel to the violent repression he had experienced in Hungary. In fact, his only non-Indian statue is #73 of St. Stephan, King of Hungary c.1000AD. Toth completed that one in 2008 in his native country.

my view of Chief Tecumseh in Vincennes IN

He has one in his adopted hometown of Akron called Rotayna he sculpted in 1985.
Chief Tecumseh in Vincennes IN is the most recent statue #74 completed in 2009. It is made of oak and stands 23' tall.

Unfortunately, some of the other statues have been destroyed by rot, termites, lightning, disease or other natural forces over the years, including his first one in CA made of stone. He is trying to replace the ones that he can. Toth accepts no money for his sculptures and works odd jobs in between projects.

For more about Peter Wolf Toth and his work, use the links above. His bio even mentions that geocachers have used the sites of his statues for geocaches.


Also, I mean no disrespect with the blog post title. It's a slight play on the title of his 1983 book, Indian Giver: Gifts Of Statues For All 50 States To Honor The Indian

The Whirlwind Weekend WHH History Tour

inside the 2nd gate at last!

Perhaps you've noticed that I have a zeal for our trivialized 9th President? My wife has. For my half-century birthday, she surprised me with a Whirlwind Weekend William Henry Harrison History Tour in Ohio and Indiana. How about that? All the stops were presented to me in a sealed envelope along the way, so I didn't know what was next! She even packed my "got William Henry Harrison?" t-shirt for the occasion. Huzzah!

Stop #1 on Saturday, June 13th was a short drive to the Harrison Memorial and Tomb in North Bend OH.
I've been here several times but my wife really went the extra mile on this one. You can usually only go into the 1st gate of the tomb and peer into the main area. The 2nd gate stays locked except on special occasions. I guess this was one those. Tricia got a hold of Terry Simpson who is in charge of the property. She arranged for him to meet us there at 7:30AM and let me in the 2nd gate to stand inches away from WHH himself!  I've spoken to Terry before over at the Harrison-Cleves Museum. It was fantastic of him to meet us there early on a Saturday morning. Oh, and there appeared to be some empty spots in the tomb near William Henry and wife Anna Symmes. I called dibs on one of them. I just found out I'm related to WHH by marriage. My 4x Great Grandfather William Henry Smith was a cousin of the Symmes family.

Stop #2 was the main course, Harrison's home he had built in Vincennes IN, the Indiana Territorial capital in the early 19th century, population 700. He named his home Grouseland, for the many game birds on this 300-acre tract of land in this former French trading post. Harrison arrived in Vincennes in 1801 as Governor and once completed lived at Grouseland from 1804 - 1812. This has been on my "local" history bucket list for a while.

view of Grouseland from the historic walnut grove

William Henry Harrison moved from North Bend OH to Vincennes with his wife Anna Symmes after he was appointed Governor by President Jefferson. Tricia and I had the luxury of a modern highway that took a pleasant 4 hours. By contrast, land routes were rare, rugged and dangerous in 1801 so the Harrison family took the 4 week trip by boat down the Ohio River to Louisville KY and then to southern Indiana where they continued upriver by keelboat on the Wabash. By all accounts, they had good weather or it would have taken much longer. I'm glad we live in 2015!

Our drive along Rt 50 was beautiful and highly recommended vs the somewhat faster but more boring I-74 to I-70 route. We passed through and by Hoosier National Forest , Martin State Forest, a couple of wildlife refuges and many small historic towns. I would like to come back to that area and explore it a bit more. Indiana ain't just corn fields. One would think it would all be flat (like the Interstate) but it was hilly and forested in many spots and reminded me of driving through parts of rural Kentucky. Of course, if you enjoy billboards and chain restaurants take the interstate. Your call.
My friend and fellow geocacher Mark also helped Tricia pre-plan some geocaches for me to find on the way so I didn't have to do that on the fly. Huzzah!

Harrison and Tecumseh met here!

Once we got to Grouseland we took the guided tour of the Virginian plantation styled brick home and its 17 rooms, including an attached one and a half story dependency. The friendly staff there was great and rather than just be a good sport, my wife actually enjoyed it herself. Because it was a private collection, no photos were allowed in the home. There were signs everywhere about that. Did I cheat? Maybe once. This site and the official site have some pretty good interior photos and descriptions as well as some history of the home after Harrison moved back to Ohio during the War of 1812.
Some interesting tidbits I took away from the visit - The house was built to withstand attacks by hostile Indians, British or any general melee. The windows were shuttered inside and out as a defensive measure. There was, in fact, a bullet hole in the dining room shutter, an alleged attempt on Harrison's life by a rogue frontier ruffian. The basement windows also had bars with a clear view of the Wabash River so that any incoming river traffic could be observed and defended if necessary. Exterior and interior walls were three bricks thick and the basement had a water well, munitions storage and a French drain toilet in the case of any long siege. As I understood it reading elsewhere, Harrison started the first Indiana Public Library in this basement too.
It's worth noting that Vincennes University, across the street from Grouseland, was Indiana's first college and, you guessed it, founded by WHH in 1801.

gift shop stop

The home was quite spacious for his large family (I think five of his ten children were born here). We learned that the good Governor had an open door policy whereby any citizen that felt unsafe in this hostile frontier could find refuge at the mansion. It was common for one to find regular citizens and travelers sleeping in the upstairs hallways.
We could also see some minor structural damage from the powerful 1811-12 New Madrid Earthquakes. These were the quakes that caused the Mississippi River to run backward in one section and the rumble was felt as far away as Boston. This is one strong house and it's clear that Harrison cared for the people he governed based on his protective policies and promotion of education. Huzzah!
One of the highlights for me was seeing the hat and sword that Harrison wore at Tippecanoe along with a remnant of the flag from his regiment in that battle. It was also great sitting in the walnut grove where the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and Governor Harrison had their parleys in 1810. One of those meetings almost ended in bloodshed but cooler heads prevailed. If that had turned out differently we may never have heard much of Tecumseh or Harrison, if at all. Lewis and Clark, whom Harrison knew from the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, also stopped here on the way back from their famous expedition.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Indy

I was unsuccessful in playing matchmaker to my teenage daughter (unbeknownst to her back in Cincinnati) with the teenage docent who really seemed to enjoy his volunteer work and knew his stuff. He was taken, so I'll have to look for another future son-in-law. Because of my yakity yak with the wonderful like-minded staff and my dawdling in the gift shop (where I picked up some great trinkets for my collection), we blew Tricia's timeline a bit for the next stop. That just meant we had to eat lunch on the run.

Stop #3 was an overnight stay at the Hilton in Downtown Indianapolis a block away from the mighty impressive 19th century Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Monument Circle which includes accolades to local early history including of course WHH. They were doing repairs so it was all covered in scaffolding. We had a nice dinner downtown that evening.

Stop #4 on Sunday was also near the hotel. It was the grandiose Indiana War Memorial which was dedicated by General Pershing in 1927. It had well-done displays on Indiana's contributions to the various war efforts from the Revolutionary War to WHH's War of 1812 service up to the present day and ended with the 110' tall Shrine Room with its massive 24 marble pillar. You can see it in a virtual tour here. It is quite overwhelming to stand in that quiet and massive room.

Pez Prez WHH overlooks Downtown Indy

Alas, all good things must come to an end and we had to head home on Sunday afternoon. What a great way to spend a weekend for a WHH and local history fan like me!

Maybe for the 60th, Tricia will take me to Harrison's birthplace, Berkeley Plantation in Virginia? Fingers crossed!

Other Gehio related WHH posts you may find interesting:

Gehio: Straight Outta Tippecanoe
Gehio: Tippecanoe and Trivia too!
Gehio: WWWHH Do? Free Booz!
Gehio: RIP WHH