John Scott Harrison | |
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| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromOhio's2nd district | |
| In office March 4, 1853 – March 3, 1857 | |
| Preceded by | Lewis D. Campbell |
| Succeeded by | William S. Groesbeck |
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 4, 1804 (1804-10-04) Vincennes, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | May 25, 1878(1878-05-25) (aged 73) North Bend, Ohio, U.S. |
| Party | Whig Oppositionist |
| Spouses | |
| Relations | Harrison family of Virginia |
| Children | 13, includingBenjamin |
| Parent(s) | William Henry Harrison,Anna Harrison |
| Profession | Politician, farmer |
John Scott Harrison (October 4, 1804 – May 25, 1878) was an American politician who served as a member of theUnited States House of Representatives fromOhio from 1853 to 1857. Harrison was a son of U.S. presidentWilliam Henry Harrison andFirst LadyAnna Harrison as well as the father of U.S. presidentBenjamin Harrison. He is the only person to have been both a father and son of a U.S. president.
Harrison was born on October 4, 1804, inVincennes, Indiana, whereGrouseland, the family home was located. He was one of ten children born to thenGovernor of the Indiana Territory, and future President,William Henry Harrison and future First LadyAnna Tuthill Symmes. His elder brother, John Cleves Symmes Harrison, married the only surviving daughter ofZebulon Pike.
William's parents were Elizabeth (née Bassett) Harrison andDeclaration of Independence signerBenjamin Harrison V from theHarrison family of Virginia.[1] Anna's parents were Anna (née Tuthill) Symmes andJohn Cleves Symmes, an associate justice on theSupreme Court of New Jersey.[2]: 53
Harrison completed preparatory studies and studied law.[3] He later abandoned this to become a farmer.[1]
He was elected aWhig to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1852, reelected anOppositionist in 1854 and served from 1853 to 1857. In 1855, he declined "the use of his name in connection with the office ofGovernor at the coming election".[4] After being defeated for a third term in 1856, Harrison retired to his estate "Point Farm" inNorth Bend, Ohio.[1]
In August 1860 Harrison, along with Larz Anderson, was nominated asConstitutional Union Party candidate (organized largely by formerWhig Party members from theSouthern United States who opposedsecession) for the second district at theBell and Everett Convention.[5] In 1861, he was nominated on theDemocratic ticket asLieutenant Governor of Ohio along withHugh J. Jewett as Governor.[6]
In 1824, he married Lucretia Knapp Johnson (1804–1830). They had three children:[7]
On August 12, 1831, inCincinnati,Ohio, he married Elizabeth Ramsey Irwin (1810–1850), a daughter of Archibald Irwin and Mary (née Ramsey) Irwin.[3] He and Elizabeth had 10 children:[7]
After his father's death, in 1841, his mother moved in with his family to help raise the children.[8]
Harrison died inNorth Bend, Ohio on May 25, 1878, aged 73, the last surviving child of William Henry Harrison.[3] He was interred in the family tomb in North Bend, today theWilliam Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial, with his parents and other family members. Harrison's body was stolen by grave robbers until it was eventually returned to its final place of burial.
At that time it was common practice for graves to be robbed for recently deceased bodies for use in teaching dissection and anatomy at medical colleges. As a result, many precautions were taken to secure Harrison's grave, including building a cemented brick vault, filling the grave with earth mixed with heavy stones, and employing a watchman to check the grave each hour of every night for a week.[9]
On the day of Harrison's funeral, it was discovered that the body of Augustus Devin, which had been buried the previous week in an adjoining grave, had been stolen. The following day, one of John Harrison's sons, often believed to be Benjamin, together with a friend of Devin, traveled to Cincinnati to look for his body. With search warrants in hand they went to the Ohio Medical College, where they discovered not Devin's body but the naked body of John Scott Harrison hanging from a rope in a chute.[9] Devin's body was later found preserved in a vat of brine at the medical college of theUniversity of Michigan.[10]
The outrage over the act, amid changing sensibilities regarding death, contributed materially to passage of the Ohio Anatomy Law of 1881, a landmark statute, whereby medical schools were provided with unclaimed bodies, which in turn discouraged grave robbers by removing their primary market. As to the personal results, suits were brought against the Ohio Medical College; the Harrison estate was entered in a separate damage suit, in the amount of $10,000. The result and decision in the three civil suits brought has been lost in the passage of time, and no documentation is known to exist with this specific information.[11]
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromOhio's 2nd congressional district March 4, 1853 – March 3, 1857 | Succeeded by |
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| International | |
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| National | |
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