Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was born in North Bend, Ohio, in 1833, in a 16-room mansion on a farm established by his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, who was the ninth President of the United States.

The house burned down in 1858, and the riverbank was reengineered, with highways, railways, and house lots. Nothing remains to mark the site except a plaque that celebrates it as the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison.

Harrison lived in that house for 18 years, went to Miami University in nearby Oxford, Ohio, then to Cincinnati to study law, and on to Indianapolis, Indiana to practice. He did well enough to build his own 16-room mansion in Indianapolis in the 1870s, which would be his primary residence for the rest of his life.

Harrison is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery, in town.

Harrison returned to his house in Indianapolis after his defeat in 1892, married his first wife’s niece, renovated the house, and continued his legal practice. He died in 1901, in the master bedroom upstairs.

In 1937 his widow sold the house to a local music school, which later formed the President Benjamin Harrison Foundation to restore the residence and open it to the public. The carriage house in back has a gift shop and other displays.

After serving in the Civil War, he returned to Indianapolis and got into politics. In 1888 he accepted his nomination to the presidency at the house. He was president for one term, bookended between the two non-consecutive terms of Grover Cleveland.

Other occupants at Crown Hill include three vice presidents, the founder of Eli Lilly, the bank robber John Dillinger, and Richard Gatling, the inventor of the machine gun.