Mrs. Harrison was not with her husband at his death, and never became
an inmate of the White House. For that reason there hangs on its walls
no portrait of her, among those of the various ladies of the mansion.
She was the daughter of John Cleves Symmes, a scion of the Colonial
aristocracy. She loved better than the excitement of social life in
Washington the domestic peace of her North Bend home and the society
of her thirteen children, growing up in usefulness and honor. In her
youth she had been a great belle, and she remained a beautiful
woman even in her declining years. She was educated in that first
fashionable school for young women in America founded by Isabella
Graham in the city of New York. A sister, Polly Symmes, was also a
famous beauty. They went together to share their father's fortunes
in the unsettled West, and both found their fates in the hand of the
Miamis. Polly married Peyton Short, who became a millionaire.
Mrs. Harrison had been detained by illness from going with her husband
to witness the proudest event of his life, his inauguration; and she
had purposed following him to Washington later in the spring, when the
weather should be more favorable for the long, wearisome journey by
stage-coach. But, alas! before the spring fully opened, instead of
following him to Washington she was following his body to its silent,
stone-walled tomb, overlooking the wide sweep of the Ohio southward.
This noble woman lived to be eighty-nine and to see her grandson,
Benjamin Harrison, now ex-President, a general in the Union army.
She retained to the last much of her beauty and that sweetness of
disposition which has endeared her memory to those of her blood who
knew her best. She sleeps by the side of her husband in the old vault
at North Bend.
The Cincinnati statue of General Harrison is the work of L.T. Rebisso,
who made the statue of General McPherson which stands in one of the
circular parks in Washington, and the equestrian statue of General
Grant for the city of Chicago. Its cost, which, exclusive of the
pedestal, is twenty-seven thousand dollars, is paid by the city.
Mr. Rebisso has given a portrayal of Harrison unlike any of the more
familiar pictures. These usually present a decrepit old man, from
whose eye have vanished that fire of youth and flash of soul which
made Harrison a leader of men. The Rebisso statue, as will be seen by
the reproduction of it given herewith, presents a soldier in the full
flower of vigorous manhood. And this conception is no mere ideal of
fancy, but is taken from a portrait painted in 1812, which now hangs
in the house of a grandchild of General Harrison near the old North
Bend homestead.
[Illustration: THE SILENT WITNESS.]