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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that demystifies history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gaye Lousier, and today we're exploring the life and

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Speaker 1: death of William Henry Harrison, the man with the briefest

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Speaker 1: tenure in US presidential history, whose true cause of death

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Speaker 1: remains the subject of dispute. The day was April fourth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty one. President William Henry Harrison died after serving

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Speaker 1: only thirty two days in office. It was and still

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Speaker 1: is the shortest term of any American president. Harrison's official

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Speaker 1: cause of death was listed as pneumonia of the lower

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Speaker 1: lobe of the right lung, complicated by congestion of the liver. However,

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Speaker 1: Thomas Miller, the doctor who wrote that explanation, wasn't convinced

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Speaker 1: of its accuracy himself. He went on to say that

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Speaker 1: the illness wasn't a pure case of pneumonia, and that

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Speaker 1: there were quote innumerable questions as to the nature of

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Speaker 1: the attack. It took nearly two centuries, but modern scholars

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Speaker 1: now think they may have finally found the answers. Harrison

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Speaker 1: was the first U S president to die in office,

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Speaker 1: but he was also the last president to have been

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Speaker 1: born as a British subject prior to the American Revolution.

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Speaker 1: He was born on February ninth, seventeen seventy three, at

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Speaker 1: Berkeley Plantation in Virginia. He was the seventh child of

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Speaker 1: a prominent political family and grew up with all wants

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Speaker 1: provided it. In seventeen ninety one, he began studying medicine

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Speaker 1: at a college in Richmond, but before the end of

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Speaker 1: the year he abandoned his degree and joined the army instead.

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Speaker 1: Over the next decade, Harrison made a name for himself

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Speaker 1: during the Indian Wars of the Northwest Territories, so much

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Speaker 1: so that in eighteen o one he was appointed governor

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Speaker 1: of that sizeable region. This eventually led him to open

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Speaker 1: conflict with Tecumpsa, the area's leading Native American chief, after

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Speaker 1: Harrison and his settlers began encroaching on land belonging to

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Speaker 1: the Shawnee. The bitter dispute culminated in the Battle of Tippecanoe,

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Speaker 1: when Harrison and about nine hundred and fifty U. S.

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Speaker 1: Troops overwhelmed and decimated a Native American camp while Tecumso

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Speaker 1: was away recruiting allies. This brutal attacked alongside the Tippecanoe

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Speaker 1: River quickly became the talk of the nation. Not everyone

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Speaker 1: agreed with Harrison's actions, but many did. His fans took

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Speaker 1: to calling him Tippic Canoe, and Harrison would later capitalize

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Speaker 1: on the nickname during his run for president. He and

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Speaker 1: his Whig Party running mate John Tyler coined the campaign

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Speaker 1: slogan Tippe Canoe and Tyler Too. After gaining even more

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Speaker 1: notoriety during the War of eighteen twelve, Harrison was elected

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Speaker 1: as a Senator for Ohio. He then served as the

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Speaker 1: ambassador to Columbia before finally launching his bid for the

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Speaker 1: presidency in eighteen forty. Harrison and Tyler's campaign was quite

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Speaker 1: a shock to the political establishment of the era. Prior

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Speaker 1: to Harrison, presidential candidates had never actively campaigned for themselves,

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Speaker 1: viewing self promotion as undignified. However, Harrison and Tyler had

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Speaker 1: no such misgivings. While the incumbent President, Martin Van Buren

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Speaker 1: sat cooped up in the White House, his opponents set

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Speaker 1: to work convincing voters that Harrison was a man of

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Speaker 1: the people. In public, he portrayed himself as a tough

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Speaker 1: as nails frontiersman, despite the fact that he came from

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Speaker 1: a pretty posh Virginian family. His campaign took out ads

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Speaker 1: showing what was supposedly his own log cabin along with

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Speaker 1: a big barrel of hard cider right out front. The

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Speaker 1: ads build Harrison as the log cabin and hard cider candidate,

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Speaker 1: a man who lived and drank just like a regular guy,

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Speaker 1: or in other words, someone you could have a beer with.

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Speaker 1: To really sell this idea, Harrison and Tyler started holding

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Speaker 1: giant rallies in town after town, sometimes with as many

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Speaker 1: as sixty thousand people in attendance. At the events, supporters

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Speaker 1: took part in log rolling competitions, and Harrison himself handed

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Speaker 1: out free hard cider in custom log cabin shaped bottles.

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Speaker 1: Subtle or not, the plan worked perfectly, and Harrison easily

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Speaker 1: beat out Van Buren to become the ninth President of

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Speaker 1: the United States. Harrison took the oath of office on

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Speaker 1: March fourth, eighteen forty one, a bitterly cold and extremely

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Speaker 1: wet winter day. I mentioned the weather because for a

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Speaker 1: long time many historians believe that's what ultimately lead to

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Speaker 1: Harrison's death. And when you look at the details, that

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Speaker 1: story seems to fit. Harrison was sixty eight years old

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Speaker 1: at the time, the oldest first term president until Ronald

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Speaker 1: Reagan in Despite both his age and the bad weather,

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Speaker 1: Harrison made a series of reckless decisions that day, probably

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Speaker 1: to prove that he really was as tough as his

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Speaker 1: campaign had claimed. For starters, he insisted on riding to

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Speaker 1: the ceremony on horseback rather than inside a covered carriage.

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Speaker 1: He also refused to wear a coat, hat, or gloves

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Speaker 1: when delivering his inaugural address. This was a crucial misstep,

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Speaker 1: as Harrison also insisted on giving the longest inaugural speech

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Speaker 1: in US history. It spanned eight thousand, four hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty five words and took him nearly two hours to deliver.

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Speaker 1: When it was finally over, Harrison rode through the streets

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Speaker 1: of Washington in the inaugural parade. Then he stood in

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Speaker 1: a three hour receiving line at the White House, shaking

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Speaker 1: hands with guests, many of whom were likely still soaking wet.

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Speaker 1: Later that evening, Harrison attended three separate inaugural balls in

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Speaker 1: his honor, and drank rather liberally at all of them.

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Speaker 1: Three weeks later, Harrison woke up feeling fatigued and anxious.

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Speaker 1: He sent for his doctor, Thomas Miller, and began receiving

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Speaker 1: treatment for what was assumed to be pneumonia. Miller tried

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Speaker 1: several standard cures of the day, including the application of leeches,

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Speaker 1: castor oil, and opium. He also gave Harrison period enemas

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Speaker 1: for good measure, but like the rest of the treatments,

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Speaker 1: this only seemed to make things worse. After eight days

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Speaker 1: of delirium and pain, Harrison died on April fourth, eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty one. It was his thirty second day as president.

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Speaker 1: With all that in mind, it makes sense why people

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Speaker 1: would connect Harrison's long winded speech with his fatal case

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Speaker 1: of pneumonia, But as I mentioned earlier, that's no longer

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Speaker 1: the most credible explanation for his death. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: Harrison didn't complain of anxiety and fatigue until more than

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Speaker 1: three weeks into his presidency, and according to Miller's notes,

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Speaker 1: the president's abdominal discomfort and constipation were far more severe

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Speaker 1: and persistent than the discomfort and his lungs, which is

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Speaker 1: not the norm for pneumonia. So if it wasn't pneumonia

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Speaker 1: that killed him, what did. The current thinking is that

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Speaker 1: the real culprit may have been typhoid fever, a bacterial

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Speaker 1: ease spread through contaminated food and water. In President Harrison's case,

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Speaker 1: he likely came in contact with the deadly bacteria through

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Speaker 1: the White House's water supply. In the eighteen forties, there

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Speaker 1: was no sewer system in Washington, d c. Instead, all

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Speaker 1: the sewage in the city had to be rounded up

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Speaker 1: each day and then hauled away to a nearby marsh

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Speaker 1: to be dumped. For obvious reasons, this work was confined

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Speaker 1: to the evening hours once the sun had gone down,

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Speaker 1: and for that reason the cargo became known as night soil.

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Speaker 1: In an example of poor planning, the night Soil Marsh

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Speaker 1: was located just seven blocks upstream from where the White

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Speaker 1: House drew its water. The kind of gastro intestinal sickness

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Speaker 1: that Harrison went through is commonly linked to at least

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Speaker 1: two different bacteria that would have been found there. This

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Speaker 1: has led researchers to theorize that bacteria had seeped into

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Speaker 1: drinking water caused Harrison's severe illness and his eventual death.

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Speaker 1: As for why only Harrison himself would be affected by

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Speaker 1: the water, it's believed that his chronic dyspepsia made him

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Speaker 1: more susceptible to the tainted water. But also Harrison wasn't

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Speaker 1: the only one affected. Both James Polk and Zachary Taylor

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Speaker 1: also dealt with gastro intonitis while living in the White House,

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Speaker 1: with Taylor even dying in office just like Harrison. Harrison's

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Speaker 1: untimely death created a sudden power vacuum in Washington at

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Speaker 1: the time. There were no rules in place for presidential succession,

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Speaker 1: no one had ever died in office before, and the

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Speaker 1: Constitution was mute on the matter. The practice of the

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Speaker 1: vice president assuming the role wasn't formally adopted until the

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Speaker 1: passage of the twenty five Amendment in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: So in eighteen forty one, the country was an uncharted territory,

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Speaker 1: and Vice President John Taylor decided to take advantage of

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Speaker 1: that uncertain Rather than wait for Congress and the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court to figure out a solution, Tyler got a district

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Speaker 1: judge to swear him in as president right in his

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Speaker 1: hotel room, just two days after Harrison's demise. So effectively,

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Speaker 1: John Tyler made himself president. Though you could argue that

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Speaker 1: the twenty five Amendment later vindicated his actions, even if

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Speaker 1: that was a hundred and twenty four years later. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gade Loucier and hopefully you now know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn

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Speaker 1: even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send

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Speaker 1: them my way at this day at I heart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history. Glass m