I don’t know what to make of this tidbit that John Steele Gordon pulled up, but it’s interesting. It also makes my great-great-ever-so-great-granddaddy look like a pretty conniving politician, which isn’t an image I’d ever associated with him before.
When William Henry Harrison ran for president in 1840, his supporters put out one of the earliest pieces of American political ephemera, a handkerchief printed with scenes of his life. It featured, of course, the Battle of Tippecanoe, but it also showed his supposed birthplace: a small log cabin with smoke curling out of the chimney. Just plain folks was Ol’ Tippecanoe.There was only one problem. William Henry Harrison, in fact, was born at Berkeley Plantation, one of Virginia’s grandest 18th-century houses, on the James River. It was the home of his father, Benjamin Harrison, who was governor of Virginia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The lawn at Berkeley was capacious enough for the Army of the Potomac to camp there during the Civil War.The Whig campaign of 1840 accused Harrison’s main opponent, President Martin Van Buren, of being an aristocrat, eating off gold spoons in “the Palace.” But Van Buren’s father had been only a simple farmer and part-time tavern keeper.It was all exceedingly fake. It also worked: Harrison clobbered Van Buren in the election.