The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-11-17
General Harrison's Neglected
Tomb.
Cincinnati News-Journal.

lOknclnHhtl NoWs-JOurnAl.
Within the bounds of the little village of
North Bend, below Cir cinnati lie the re
mains of one of the "Nation's dead," Will
liam Henry Harrison, ninth President of the
United States. What was quiet farm on
the banks of the Ohio when he was laid to
rest that spring morning nearly forty-three
years ago, is now part of the busy world,
alive with the hustle of trade. The little
hill from whose top the old warrior so often
viewed theabeautiful valley he had helped
redeem from the red men, and where he
wished to be laid to rest is now of all points
in the landscape the most nearly in a state
of pristine wilderness Rising gradually to
its apex, the knoll is perhaps fifty feet
square on the summit, occupied by the
tomb. The rigid simplicity of the tomb be-
fits the Spartan plainness of the man, but it
might as well mark the grave of common
man whose name was never heard beyond
his native county. 1t is of plain brick, per-
haps fifteen feet square, rising about thirty
feet above the ground, its entrance on the
west side, facing the path, reached by six
stone steps leading to an iron door four feet
wide, perfectly plain, unreleved by aught
savb the necessary bolts and rivets, and
rusted by the weather OF forty years. No
inscription is to be seen save the uncouth
autographs of chance visitors, who have
found ghoulish pleasure in etching their
names oD the rusted door and on the stone
steps and entrance. A heavy iron band once
bound the brick together just above the
ground, but at one or two corners the bolts
have rusted away, and the brick walls have
spread and cracked apart. A decay has set
in that will soon end in the sides crumbling
down, the top tumbling in on the casket In
side and the whole structure sinking into
the ground. shapeless ruin, if something is
not done to save it from the relentless de
struction of time. The top is fat and COW
cred with cement fresher than the rest,
showing that within few years some one
has taken an interest in its care. But there
cannot be more unprstentious grave, one
more f0rlorn in it's desolation, or apparently
more neglected or forgotten.
A few feet in the rear and to the east is a
large red-bud tree, to the left walnut,
whose nuts strew the ground and tempt the
neighborhood children. Their branches in
termingle and droop over the tomb, making
it dark and damp. A dozen kinds of native
forest trees have sprung up within as many
steps. To the left and north of the hill the
deep ravinel is as.it was hundred years ago.
A blackberry thicket of stout, thick canes
cover the northern and eastern slope wher-
ever the trees are thin enough to give the
sun a chance to ripen their berries. The
south and right of the hill, facing the river,
is thickly covered with growth of slim
young galantus-"heavsn trees" the old coun-
try neighbors call them-the shoots from
trees planted after the burial and recently
cut down. A thick tangle of underbrush
and vines covers the most of theshill. Be
sides the cedars along the path others ars
scattered about in way that shows they
were planted according to some plan, evi
IDENTITY to surround the grave, at least on two
sides. Not even rail intefposes between
the tomb of President and the cows thai
feed on the village common. The nation
that honors the memory of a Eircoln and
Garfield cannot afford to allow the grave Of
William Henry Harrison to be thus desc
Grated