William Henry Harrison arrived in Washington to huge crowds and a snowstorm on February 9, his sixty-eighth birthday. His trip had begun in Cincinnati, where he spent a night in a hotel that was surrounded by noisy celebrants who kept the whole traveling party awake. He insisted on walking through the muddy streets to his riverboat, where he addressed the crowd from the deck, recalling with some emotion that when he had first docked at that spot he was a young soldier and the shore was covered with “dense and dark forest.”
“Perhaps this is the last time I may have the pleasure of speaking to you on earth or seeing you,” he told his neighbors presciently. “I bid you farewell. If forever, fare thee well.” Anna, who had said that she wished “that my husband's friends had left him . . . happy and contented in retirement,” stayed behind in Ohio, organizing the family affairs and recovering from her illness and bereavement. She was planning to arrive in Washington in the spring. Meanwhile Harrison's niece Jane Findlay and his son's widow Mrs. William Harrison were prepared to serve as White House hostesses.
The boat docked for receptions along the Ohio River, where Harrison shook hands, occasionally resting his weary right hand by switching to the left. In between there were crowds along the bank, waving and hoping to see the hero of the moment, who seldom disappointed. The steamer docked in Pittsburgh, where the huge crowd made it difficult for Harrison to make his way to the hotel, which would again be surrounded all night by well-wishers who managed to keep all the inhabitants awake. He then began the land trip to Washington, where the residents of every village and town on the route turned out to cheer him on. Harrison's days were a series of jolting rides that required incessant waving, interspersed by receptions, handshaking, dinners, toasts, and meeting with a constant stream of visitors. When he reached Washington he was greeted by bad weather and “a rolling sea of umbrellas,” according to the Log Cabin. There was, of course, a log cabin ball, lit by 1,800 candles.
The National Hotel, where Harrison stayed, was so crowded the dining room had to be turned into a dormitory, while a shed was erected in the backyard to accommodate endless banquets, with hundreds of guests and toasts. The overcrowded hotel, the diarist Philip Hone wrote, was one long line of “cold galleries, never ceasing ringing of bells, negligent servants, small pillows and scanty supply of water.” Harrison presumably got bigger pillows and more liquids, but he was also perpetually assaulted by guests and petitioners and requests.
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