Presidents in Retirement: Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison has the distinction of being the only president whose predecessor and successor were the same man. (Will Joe Biden match this feat in November? Stay tuned!) When he left office, Harrison remained in Washington, DC before leaving to visit the World's Columbian Exposition (better known as the Chicago World's Fair) in June of 1893. After seeing the Expo, Harrison returned to his home in Indianapolis.
Harrison, who had rose to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General in the Civil War, was elected as a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States in 1882, and after he completed his term as President, he was elected as commander (president) of the Ohio Commandery of the Legion on May 3, 1893.
For a few months in 1894, Harrison lived in San Francisco, and there he gave law lectures at Stanford University's law school. In 1896, some of Harrison's friends in the Republican party tried to convince him to run for the presidency again, but he declined. He was pleased when his fellow Ohioan William McKinley won his party's nomination and he traveled around the nation making appearances and speeches in support of McKinley's candidacy for president.
Harrison served on the Board of Trustees of Purdue University from June of 1895 until his death. At Purdie, Harrison Hall, a dormitory, was named in his honor.
Harrison wrote a series of articles about the federal government and the presidency that were republished in 1897 as a book, This Country of Ours.
In 1896, Harrison remarried, and this caused some discord in his family. His new bride was Mary Scott Lord Dimming, the widowed niece and former secretary of his first wife Caroline, who had died during the 1892 presidential campaign. Harrison's two adult children, Russell and Mary, disapproved of the marriage and did not attend the wedding. Both were older than their new step-mother, though Mary was less than a month older. Benjamin and Mary had one child together, Elizabeth, who was born in 1897.
In 1898, Harrison served as an attorney for the Republic of Venezuela, representing the nation in its dispute with the United Kingdom over the boundary of British Guiana. An international trial was agreed upon and Harrison filed an 800-page brief in support of his cause. He traveled to Paris for the hearing, where he spent more than 25 hours in court on Venezuela's behalf. Although he lost the case, his legal arguments won him international respect.
Harrison travelled to Europe the following year in 1899, where he attended the First Peace Conference at the Hague.
Harrison was active in the Presbyterian Church. He served as an Elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis and on a special committee on creed revision at the national Presbyterian General Assembly in 1901, but he did not live long enough to cast his vote at the meeting.
Harrison died inn February 1901, He had developed what was thought to be influenza. This later proved to be pneumonia. He was treated with steam vapor inhalation and oxygen, but his condition worsened. Harrison died from pneumonia at his home in Indianapolis on March 13, 1901, at the age of 67. His last words were reported to be, "Are the doctors here? Doctor, my lungs..."
Harrison's remains are interred in Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetery next to the remains of his first wife, Caroline. After her death in 1948, Mary Dimmick Harrison, his second wife, was also buried beside him.