Benjamin Harrison was the twenty-third president of the United States and was popularly known as the grandson of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States.
When the reforms started to become popular, he became president and one of the most critical reforms enacted during his tenure in office was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. He is remembered as a man of strong values who possessed a remarkable memory and a sharp intellect. He was regarded as a man of moral bravery before, during, and after his years of public service.
In this article, let us take a different approach towards the Harrison family and discover who the children of Benjamin Harrison are.
Caroline Lavinia Scott Harrison
Caroline Scott Harrison was a music teacher and the wife of Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third President. Fascinated by history and preservation, she helped create the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution as its first General President in 1890.
On October 1, 1832 in Oxford, Ohio her parents were John Witherspoon Scott and Mary Potts Neal gave birth to Caroline Scott. Her father was a Presbyterian minister and also a professor of mathematics and science in Miami University. Caroline and Benjamin met when he became her father’s student in 1848.
Sometimes, Caroline took Ben to dance against his father’s wishes, a stern Presbyterian who frowned on such practices. The couple became engaged in 1852, during the second semester of Ben’s senior year. Although Benjamin studied law in the law office of Storer & Gwynne in Cincinnati, they agreed to postpone their wedding, and she finished school. With a degree in composition, she graduated in 1852. She relocated to Carrollton, Kentucky, that year to teach music. Suffering from pneumonia, shortly after, she returned to Ohio.
On October 20, 1853, at her home, Benjamin and Caroline were married, with her father officiating. She was 21 years of age. A year later, after Benjamin finished his law studies and set up his first practice, they settled in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She soon returned to Indianapolis with him. Not long after, the Harrison house and all their possessions were destroyed by a fire. After Benjamin took a job managing litigation for a small law firm whose founder had wanted to run for office, the family began to recover financially. Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Mary Scott in 1858.
As a First Lady
Their daughter, Mary Harrison McKee, her two children, Caroline’s father, and other relatives lived in the White House during her husband’s administration. The First Lady attempted to enlarge the overcrowded mansion, but was unsuccessful. She secured $35,000 in Legislative funds to renovate the White House; and she oversaw a large-scale project bringing up-to-date adjustments.
Caroline aided to raise funds for the Johns Hopkins University Medical School together with other ladies of progressive opinions on the condition that it admit women. The centennial of the inauguration of President Washington in 1889 intensified the interest of the country in its heroic history, and in 1890 she lent her repute to the formation of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and became its first President General. She also took a keen interest in the White House’s history.
She attempted to fulfill her social duties, but after her health deteriorated, she moved to the Adirondack Mountains to spend the summer of 1892. She returned to the White House after her illness became terminal, where she died at the age of 60 on October 25, 1892.
Russell Benjamin Harrison
Russell was born on August 12, 1854 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He graduated from Pennsylvania Military Academy and graduated from Lafayette College in 1877, where he took mining and engineering classes.
He moved to Helena, Montana, at the end of 1878, where he took a position in the U.S. Assay Office, supported by his father, who was then a senator from the United States. He met and married May Saunders during his time there, the daughter of Governor Alvin Saunders, on January 10, 1884. The couple had two children, Marthena and William Henry.
Using the wealth, Russell Harrison invested in Richmond and Muncie, Indiana, in the Austin and Northwestern Railway, public transit networks, and engaged in land speculation in Montana. In 1894, as president of the Terre Haute Street Railway Company, which he reorganized into the Terre Haute Electric Street Railway Company, he moved to Terre Haute, Indiana. He was admitted to the bar during the late 1890s.
He first entered politics in 1921, sitting in the Indiana House of Representatives for two two-year terms. He was elected to the Indiana State Senate in 1924 and served two four-year terms there. On December 13, 1936, in Indianapolis, he died of a heart attack.
Mary Harrison
Mary was born on April 3, 1858 in Indianapolis, Indiana and studied in public schools.
Mary Harrison married James Robert McKee in November 1884, a native of Madison, Indiana, whom she had met in Indianapolis. She and her family lived with her parents in the White House during his term after her father was elected president in 1888.
She became acquainted with Charles A. Coffin and joined his Thomson-Houston Electric Company while traveling regularly to Boston on business. When Coffin combined his business with that of Thomas Edison, McKee became one of the founding generations of the General Electric company in 1893. McKee rose to become a company vice-president and worked until 1913 for GE.
Mary died on October 28, 1930 at the age of 72.
Mary Dimmick Harrison
Mary Dimmick Harrison was born on April 30, 1858 in Honesdal, Pennsylvania.
She married Walter Dimmick in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on October 22, 1881. On January 14th, 1882, Mr. Dimmick died unexpectedly. Mary was Caroline Scott Harrison’s niece and took care of her aunt in Washington, DC. Mary and Benjamin Harrison interacted often and became very close after the death of her aunt in 1892.
She was known as the second wife of Benjamin Harrison, celebrated and actively supported art and theatre, believed in the advancement of women trained in industry, and ensured for the benefit of future generations the preservation of the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site.
On April 6, 1896, Mary and Benjamin got married. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, who was born on 21 February 1897. Until 1913, Mary lived at the Delaware Street home in Indianapolis. She died in New York City on January 5, 1948, and is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, in the Harrison family plot.
Elizabeth Harrison
Elizabeth was born on February 21, 1897 in Indiana.
She graduated from the School of Law of New York University in 1919 and was admitted to the Indiana and New York bars. On April 6, 1921, she married James Blaine Walker , who is the grandnephew of James G. Blaine, her father’s former cabinet member.
Their daughter, Jane Harrison Walker, married Newell Garfield, the grandson of James Rudolph Garfield, the Secretary of the Interior, and President James Garfield’s great-grandson.
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