William Henry Harrison Timeline

President John Adams appointed Harrison as secretary of the Northwest Territory in July 1798, marking the beginning of his political career after he campaigned among friends and family for a post in the territorial government.

Image source: Northwest Territory

The Northwest Territory's population reached a sufficient number to have a congressional delegate in October 1799, and Harrison ran for election, becoming the territory's first delegate at age 26. He served in the Sixth United States Congress from March 4, 1799, to May 14, 1800.

As chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, Harrison promoted the Land Act of 1800, which made it easier to buy Northwest Territory land in smaller tracts at a lower cost. The Indiana Territory was formally established by law that year.

Image source: Land Tax (England)

On May 13, 1800, President John Adams appointed Harrison as governor of the Indiana Territory, based on his ties to the west and his apparent neutral political stances. His governorship was confirmed by the Senate and he resigned from Congress to become the first Indiana territorial governor in 1801.

Harrison began his duties on January 10, 1801, at Vincennes, the capital of the Indiana Territory. He founded a university at Vincennes in 1801, which was incorporated as Vincennes University on November 29, 1806.

Image source: Vincennes, Indiana

Through multiple treaties with American Indian tribes, Harrison acquired millions of acres for the nation. In 1805 alone, he succeeded in acquiring as many as 51,000,000 acres after plying five chiefs with alcohol, comprising two-thirds of Illinois and sizable chunks of Wisconsin and Missouri. The Treaty of Grouseland (1805) appeased some Indians, and the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) purchased more than 2.5 million acres from the Potawatomi, Delaware, Miami, and Eel River tribes, raising new tensions along the frontier.

Image source: Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809)

In 1803, Harrison lobbied Congress to temporarily suspend for ten years Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance prohibiting slavery in the Indiana Territory. Lacking that suspension, in 1807 the territorial legislature enacted laws authorizing indentured servitude. He also donated $100 in 1806 and $20 in 1808 to support Lemen's abolition efforts and fund Bethel Baptist Church.

Image source: Northwest Ordinance

Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both Democratic-Republicans, reappointed Harrison as governor of the Indiana Territory in 1803, 1806, and 1809.

In 1804, Harrison was assigned to administer the civilian government of the District of Louisiana. He conducted the district's affairs for five weeks until the Louisiana Territory was formally established on July 4, 1805, when Brigadier General James Wilkinson assumed the duties of governor.

Image source: District of Louisiana

In 1805, Harrison built a plantation-style home near Vincennes that he named Grouseland, in tribute to the birds on the property.

Image source: Grouseland

After the Indiana Territory held elections for its legislature in 1809, the Territory's general assembly convened in 1810, and its anti-slavery faction immediately repealed the indenturing laws previously enacted. After 1809, the legislature assumed more authority and the territory advanced toward statehood.

Image source: Indiana Territory

In August 1810, Tecumseh led 400 warriors down the Wabash River to meet with Harrison in Vincennes amid rising tensions over land cessions. Tecumseh was traveling in 1811, leaving Tenskwatawa in charge of Indian forces.

Image source: Tecumseh

President Madison appointed Harrison in June 1815 to help negotiate a second treaty with the Indians known as the Treaty of Springwells, in which the tribes ceded a large tract of land in the west, providing additional land for American purchase and settlement.

Image source: Treaty of Spring Wells

After moving to Ohio, Harrison was elected in 1816 to complete John McLean's term in the House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 1st congressional district until 1819. In May 1817, he served as one of the founding vestry members of Christ Church Episcopal congregation in downtown Cincinnati.

Image source: United States House of Representatives

Harrison was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1819 and served until 1821, having lost the election for Ohio governor in 1820. He ran again for the House in 1822 but lost to James W. Gazlay.

Image source: 2026 United States Senate special election in Ohio

In 1824, Harrison was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his appointment as minister plenipotentiary cut his Senate term short in 1828.

Image source: United States Senate

Harrison resigned from Congress and was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia in 1828. He arrived in Bogotá on December 22, 1828, finding the condition of Colombia saddening. Andrew Jackson recalled him upon taking office in March 1829 to make his own appointment, and Harrison returned to private life in Ohio.

Image source: Gran Colombia

Harrison was the western Whig candidate for president in 1836, one of four Whig Party nominees. Local supporters had appointed him Clerk of Courts for Hamilton County, where he worked until 1840. In an address to the Hamilton County Agricultural Board in 1831, he said he had sinned in making whiskey and hoped others would stop producing liquor.

Image source: 1836 United States presidential election

In the 1840 presidential election, the Whigs nominated Harrison again, with John Tyler as running mate, under the slogan 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too', and Harrison defeated Van Buren, whose administration was blamed for the economic crisis caused by the Panic of 1837. Democrats ridiculed him as 'Granny Harrison, the petticoat general'. In June 1840, a Harrison rally at the site of the Tippecanoe battle drew 60,000 people.

Image source: 1840 United States presidential election

Harrison took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, a cold and wet day. Following his speech, he rode through the streets in the inaugural parade, stood in a three-hour receiving line at the White House, and attended three inaugural balls, including the 'Tippecanoe' ball at Carusi's Saloon with 1,000 guests who had paid $10 per person.

Image source: Inauguration of William Henry Harrison

Three weeks after taking office, on March 24, 1841, Harrison took his daily morning walk to local markets without a coat or hat and fell seriously ill nine days before his death.

Harrison died on April 4, 1841, exactly one month after taking the oath of office, becoming the first president to die in office. A 2014 analysis by Mackowiak concluded he likely died of septic shock due to enteric fever (typhoid or paratyphoid fever) from contaminated White House water downstream of public sewage. He died nearly penniless, and Congress voted Anna a presidential widow's pension of $25,000, one year of his salary.

Image source: William Henry Harrison

Vice President Tyler obliged and was sworn into office on April 6, 1841. On May 31, 1841, Congress passed a joint resolution confirming Tyler as president for the remainder of Harrison's term. This succession became the Tyler Precedent, followed on seven occasions until codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967.

Image source: Tyler Precedent