*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. Another family home. It looked…big.

(Oh, and his oddly modest gravesite’s a ten-minute drive away. I realized I could probably get burial spots out of the way, too.)

The Trip There

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

We decided to try a local chain for lunch. The first place was closed, despite the hours or the website and door saying they were open. Same with the second, fifteen minutes away. We went down the list of places to go, getting our hopes up and each time having them dashed by inconsistent hours or a line out the door. And the traffic…? I’m just gonna 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, 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. (This makes me feel a little better about our lackluster lunch experience.) In 1862, he signed up for the Union Army, and led part of the Atlanta Campaign, serving until 1865.

When he came back, he tried to run for governor of Indiana and failed, 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 it’s pretty easy to see.) 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 literally giving speeches from their hometowns, 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 antitrust measures and heavier tariffs. (Absolutely wild to see this a day after seeing Taft’s stances the day before, and a full generation later.) 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 grew closer to her aunt, Caroline Scott, 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. 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 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, really. 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.