page_title: Benjamin Harrison
section_title: Marriage and early career
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Harrison / Marriage and early career
caption_attribution_description: Benjamin Harrison, probably photographed during his college years.
context_page_description: Benjamin Harrison was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, creating the only grandfather–grandson duo to have held the office. He was also a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a founding father who signed the United States Declaration of Independence.
  Harrison was born on a farm by the Ohio River and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After moving to Indianapolis, he established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876. The Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887.
  A Republican, Harrison was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Grover Cleveland.
context_section_description: After his college graduation in 1852, Harrison studied law with Judge Bellamy Storer of Cincinnati, but before he completed his studies, he returned to Oxford, Ohio, to marry Caroline Scott on October 20, 1853. Caroline's father, a Presbyterian minister, performed the ceremony. The Harrisons had two children, Russell Benjamin Harrison (August 12, 1854 – December 13, 1936) and Mary "Mamie" Scott Harrison (April 3, 1858 – October 28, 1930).
  Harrison and his wife returned to live at The Point, his father's farm in southwestern Ohio, while he finished his law studies. Harrison was admitted to the Ohio bar in early 1854, the same year he sold property that he had inherited after the death of an aunt for $800 (equivalent to $22,764 in 2019), and used the funds to move with Caroline to Indianapolis, Indiana. Harrison began practicing law in the office of John H. Ray in 1854 and became a crier for the federal court in Indianapolis, for which he was paid $2.50 per day. He also served as a Commissioner for the U.S. Court of Claims. Harrison became a founding member and first president of both the University Club, a private gentlemen's club in Indianapolis, and the Phi Delta Theta Alumni Club. Harrison and his wife became members and assumed leadership positions at Indianapolis's First Presbyterian Church.
  Having grown up in a Whig household, Harrison initially favored that party's politics, but joined the Republican Party shortly after its formation in 1856 and campaigned on behalf of Republican presidential candidate John C. Frémont. In 1857 Harrison was elected Indianapolis city attorney, a position that paid an annual salary of $400 (equivalent to $10,976 in 2019).
  In 1858, Harrison entered into a law partnership with William Wallace to form the law office of Wallace and Harrison. In 1860, he was elected reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court. Harrison was an active supporter of the Republican Party's platform and served as Republican State Committee's secretary. After Wallace, his law partner, was elected county clerk in 1860, Harrison established a new firm with William Fishback, Fishback and Harrison. The new partners worked together until Harrison entered the Union Army after the start of the American Civil War.
caption: Benjamin Harrison c. 1850
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