*The Benjamin Harrison Historic Site. I know, right?*

02/02/2025

What did I already know?

Nothing. Nothing at all! He was the grandson of another president (William Henry Harrison, if you’re keeping score), but that’s it. This is the one guy I knew absolutely nothing about going in, and I was not about to jinx it by learning anything.

What did I plan to see?

Benjamin Harrison Historic Site, Indianapolis, IN — on The List. The family home. It looked…big.

(His oddly modest gravesite’s a ten-minute drive away. Looking at the map, I think I can get to all the presidents’ burial spots, too.)

The Trip There

After visiting Taft in Cincinnati, I stayed in Shelbyville, Indiana. (You may be delighted to hear that Shelbyville is the canonical home of Marvel’s Bucky Barnes. This factoid would soon reflect my murderous intentions.) Shelbyville is about a half-hour drive from Indianapolis, and I had a good feeling. It was a cool, sunny day, and Indianapolis is a nice city, right? Colts? Pacers? Parks & Rec?

We spent two hours frantically trying to find a local lunch spot in an increasingly-hectic lunch hour. And the traffic…? I’m going to assume we drove through Indy on a bad day, because I thought St. Louis was bad…

After paying what respects we felt like we should at the cemetery, given that again, I knew nothing about the guy, we settled on a local coffeeshop a few blocks from Harrison’s house. By then it was 2:00 in the afternoon, and the combination of road potholes and caffeine withdrawals were doing its work on us. We’ll work on our culinary exploration next time.

Benjamin Harrison: The Shimmy

Homie was born in Ohio in 1833 and moved to Indy after college. He was a preacher, attorney, abolitionist, and overall big “support your local businesses” guy. In 1862, he signed up for the Union Army, and served until 1865, leading part of the Atlanta Campaign.

After the war, he returned to Indy and casually became one of the best lawyers in the state. He campaigned for Republican politicians during Recinstruction (remember, the early GOP ran mainly on an equal rights platform). He tried to run for governor of Indiana twice and failed both times, although he did get elected to the Indiana Senate for six years. (Are we seeing a theme of working our way up in politics? I feel like we’re seeing a theme of working our way up in politics.)

In 1888, he ran for president as a Republican against incumbent Democratic president Grover Cleveland. There’s a whole process to this that I won’t get into, but after the Republican frontrunner dropped out, he supported Harrison. After this endorsement, Harrison went on a nationwide campaign tour, right?

Wrong.

A lot of candidates ran front porch campaigns, staying in their hometowns and giving speeches from their front porches, which is just, like, the coolest. (Could you imagine Donald not leaving Mar-a-Lago for his campaign?) Also, if you look at photos of Harrison’s house, you’ll see this giant, gorgeous wrap-around front porch. This absolutely was not there when he campaigned. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails, don’t it?

Anyway, Harrison won the 1888 election (losing the popular vote, btw). He actually found out when he was at home, when a crowd came in and started breaking down his front fence to take souvenirs.

Harrison served from 1889 to 1893. As president, he supported anti-monopoly measures and heavier tariffs. (Absolutely wild to see this a day after seeing Taft’s stances the day before, and a full generation later.) He also created the concept of U.S. national parks, and six new states: North and South Dakota, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

This was around the time that well-suited mad lads like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were asking forward-thinking questions like “how much money could we actually have?” but not following up with things like “and how can we really screw over the American people with our own sheer greed?”, so philanthropy was very in.

Additionally, Harrison seemed to be ahead of his time with civil rights - according to our house tour guide (who was fantastic, by the way), he had a real shot at kicking off the civil rights movement thirty years early. However…his support for black education and voting measures died on arrival. But he did appoint Frederick Douglass minister resident (read: ambassador) to Haiti, which is pretty hardcore, right?

Around the end of his term, he was running out of steam. He had strained relationships with politicians and lobbyists due to the tariffs, and U.S. spending had increased. In 1892, his wife Caroline died in the White House. That year, he lost the election (to recurring character Grover Cleveland) and returned home to Indianapolis, where he opened up a law practice. And this…this is where I have to drop a bomb on you.

In 1882, Mary Scott Dimmick was a widow at age 23. She got closer to her Aunt Caroline, and when Caroline’s husband became president, she moved into the White House to become her personal aide. She got close to both of them, and when Caroline died, well…she and Benjamin had something new in common, so they - sigh - got close and fell in love and got married in 1896. There! I said it.

He was 62 and she was 37. Eventually there’s no evidence that Benjamin ever actually considered her as anything more than an aide and distant family in the White House, so that’s something. Not marry-your-uncle something, but I’ll let you make your call here.

Oh, yeah, he’s not still alive. He caught pneumonia and died in the house 1901.

Notes from the Trip

Holy god this is a nice house. It’s gotta be one of the nicest houses I’ve ever been in. If you’re an architecture buff, it’s a three-story, sixteen-room Italianate structure. If you’re not, it’s a big cool red-brick house! Pics down below.

I won’t drag Indy’s traffic anymore. We high-tailed it back to STL immediately after the tour. The downtown area seemed nice. Go Pacers!

Themes of Harrison’s Life

I’ve tried to think of one that really encapsulates Harrison, and…I don’t have much. The importance of being calm and emotionally in-tune? The importance of doing the right thing, even when it’s unpopular and you’re not sure you’ll win?

The advent of electricity in housing was another new thing he had to get used to, so maybe going with the flow. He sort of just seemed like a quiet moderate guy.

Where was he at my age?

29 — a married lawyer with two kids, who’d just registered for the Union Army as a colonel in the 70th Indiana Regiment.

Favorite Food?

Ai says he enjoyed corn-based dishes, but since AI’s a sham and its only sources were social media, I’m calling it bogus. My own three minutes of research suggests Blue-Point oysters, French food, and fig pudding.

Where else to go:

I can’t answer this in an unbiased way. Downtown looked great, but it was pre-March Madness.