The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-10

de was Secretary or the Northwest territory,
which then included Ohio. under General st.
Clair, for two years, from June 10, 1913. when
he was twenty-five years old, to July 4, 1900,
when he was made Governor of the modified
Northwest territory, from which Ohio had
previously been detached and formed into a
separate territory. Harrison, then a captain. re-
signed from the army and represented the Ohio
Territory one term as congressional delegate.
from July 4, 1900, to the summer of 1872, when
he was appointed TO the military command of
all the Northwest. to succeed Hall whose sur
render at Detroit had partly restored British
ascendancy. A period OF twelve years he was
Governor of Indiana Territory, and in that
twelve years laid the foundation and built
the ediies of his honor and fame.
and little that he did afterwards, went to the ex-
tension or strengthening of the structure. It
was because he was the first Governor of Indiana
that he first became the Wing choice for the
presidency, and. nearly thirty years after his re-
tirement, was mounted on the altar of party
adulation as the Wing idol. He was in Con
gress, in both houses. q considerable time, but
ne made no more show OF force there than
General Jackson, whom he succeeded as chair
man of the military committee, and when he
slipped down into the clerks Office of Hamilton
county, the transition was so slight that it
seemed the natural termination of his career.
His work was done and his fame fixed before he
was forty years old.
Few men have had to shoulder more onerous
az LILO = VA0h bAAo L NJ tWcuJN-
seven, of a vast wilderness peopled with hunters
and trappers, with farmers here and there, with
wild and desperate characters more or less scat
tered everywhere, with a score of Indian tribes,
not so badly beaten by Mad Anthony" Wayne,
in 1874, on the Maumee. that they were not
ready for a fight on the Wabash in 1911, and not
so badly beaten under their prophet at Tippeca-
noe that they might not have become a formida-
BILE foe again in n few years if Harrison had not
demolished the English and Indian alliance, at
tina Thames IN tho fall Of 1919 Tho Torriforioo
then, as now, though with no mineral attrac-
tons, were the refuge of rascals as well as the
promised land of honest and decent emigrants.
These desperadoes made trouble here as
in Colorado, and are now making
trouble in Arizona and Idaho. The Indians
helped them, and the better class of settlers who
were full of hereditary hatred of the Indians,
and held them little better than the game they
both shot at will, helping the general turbulence.
Communication off the navigable streams was
slow and uncertain, and not by any means swift
or sure on them. There was no ready hurrying
from one point to another as danger threatened
or need appeared. The Sadowa campaign could
be fought through in the time needed for the
Governor to travel from Vincennes to Fort
Wayne, in bad weather. Provisions came from
the Whitewater to Indianapolis, as late as 1921,
on horse back, when the shawnee up the river
had no corn to ship hero on their pirogues. In
such a situation. with such a population, the
young Governor Harrison had, for a good part of
his term, to meet and thwart the operations of
Tecumseh. the ablest man, by all odds, that ever
wore a red skin on this continent.
He would have had enough to do to keep his
heterogeneous and hostile classes of population
quiet and in such orderly industry as each chose
to pursue, and he would have done well to do
that alone. When, IN addition, he had to keep
track of the Vaccinations of one of the widest
and most sagacious savages that ever lived,
sworn, like Hannibal, to everlasting enmity to
those whom he held oppressors of his race; and
when, too, he had to be always ready for a hos
tile demonstration somewhere; and when all
these turbulent and disturbing conditions were
doubly aggravated by the i~ntrigues of the British
among the Indians-never abandoned or slack
ened from the days Of the Revolution, notwith-
standing the diplomatic protests of Mr.. Jay-we
can see, dimly at least, the weary time of watch
ing, Of labor, of exposure, peril and frequent
censure that the young Governor had to 60
through. He went through it manfully and sue
cessfully, and the achievement fifty forms the
crown of honor that history, no less than party,
has set on the head of William Henry Harrison.
Although 80 long Governor of Indiana, in her
territorial condition, General Harrison was nsvef
in this city but twice, and never at all during
his tenure of Office. On the 18th of January.
1888, he came here for the first time. The Leg
islature was in session and gave him, as was
proper. a public r%eception and a banquet at
Washington Hall or "Henderson's Tavern. I" as it
was generally called, on the site of the New
York Store. This was on the 18th, so that he
must have made quite a visit of it. At the din.
ner he made an earnest union speech, and the
time demanded such a demonstration, for it was
in the still stormy period of Calhoun's ~nulliica-
ton excitement. He visited the capital again
two years later, on the 18th Of January, 1885,
just as the town was beginning to develop the
leading inland city of the country.
In this brief and imperfect sketch of the ca
reer of General Harrison / have not attempted
either a biography. or history. or consecutive
ronnrH nf tho fnctdonfa IF hio Efn nv an av~nei
ton of the historical events that contributed to
his elevation, but merely to exhibit an outline of
his connection with the development of the
Northwest, in which lies his chief claim to the
place he holds in popular and historical estima-
tion. l have tried to take such a view of his
services and situation as we may imagine he
would have taken himself, on the day of his in
auguration in 1S41, when. standing on such a
pinnacle of popularity as few have attained in
this or any land or age, he looked back over the
forty-two years of his public career-at the
steep depression in the obscurity of a county
Office in Cincinnati, from which be had been
lifted by a party exigency, along an
extended level Of comparative inactivity
and popular indifference to the higher
plane upon which the twelve most ~eventful and
effective years of his life ws4s spent. l have
also tried to exhibit the conditions in which the
strong qualities of his nature, more or less de-
rived from an ancestry of conspicuous force and
integrity, worked out a great result in the de-
velopment of the Northwest More than this
would have required a more elaborate disserta-
ton than / could have given, or you would have
cared to hear, at least in the inadequate treat
ment I could have given it. It is greatly to be
regretted that the eminent Hoosier, and sup.
porter of General Harrison a half century ago.
Col. Richard w. Thompson, whom you expected
to make the address to you on this anniversary,
should have been unable to meet your wishes.
He could have made a review of the life and
services of our first Governor that would have
been worth your hearing. The most that his
substitute can hope is that he has not bored you.
In conclusion, allow me to allude to an Incl
dent in the battle of the Thames, which was the
final event in General Harrison's career prior to
the long period of inadequate effort and con-
sideration that interviewed before his candidacy
for the Presidency in 1886. That fight was
mainly won by the charge of our horsemen,
field was heavily timbered, and the movements