HARRISON, Benjamin, Congress, VA (1833-1901)

Senate Years of Service: 1881-1887
Party: Republican

HARRISON, Benjamin, (great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison [1726-1791], grandson of President William Henry Harrison, son of John Scott Harrison of Ohio, and grandfather of William Henry Harrison [1896-1990]), a Senator from Indiana and 23d President of the United States; born in North Bend, Hamilton County, Ohio, August 20, 1833; graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1852; studied law in Cincinnati; moved to Indianapolis in 1854; admitted to the bar and practiced; reporter of the decisions of the supreme court of the State; served in the Union Army during the Civil War; brevetted brigadier general and mustered out in 1865; while in the field in October 1864 was reelected reporter of the State supreme court and served four years; unsuccessful Republican candidate for Governor of Indiana in 1876; appointed a member of the Mississippi River Commission in 1879; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1881, to March 3, 1887; chairman, Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard (Forty-seventh Congress), Committee on Territories (Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses); elected President of the United States in 1888; inaugurated on March 4, 1889, and served until March 3, 1893; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1892; attorney for the Republic of Venezuela in the boundary dispute between Venezuela and Great Britain in 1900; died in Indianapolis, Ind., March 13, 1901; interment in Crown Hill Cemetery.

Bibliography American National Biography ; Dictionary of American Biography ; Harrison, Benjamin. This Country of Ours . New York: Scribners, 1897; Sievers, Harry J. Benjamin Harrison . 3 vols. New York: University Publishers, 1960-1966.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present