Buried: Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana
Twenty-third President - 1889-1893
Born: August 20, 1833, in North Bend, Ohio
Died: 4:45 p.m. on March 13, 1901, in Indianapolis, Indiana
Age at death: 67
Cause of death: Pneumonia
Final words: “Are the doctors here?”
“Doctor, …my lungs”
Admission to Crown Hill Cemetery: Free
Benjamin Harrison, grandson of ninth president William Henry Harrison, served his single term between the two terms of Grover Cleveland. In the 1888 election, Harrison actually lost to Republican Cleveland in the popular vote, but won the majority of the electoral votes. His term saw the admission of six states to the union and the addition of electric lights to the White House.
Caroline Harrison, the new president’s wife, began the tradition of displaying a White House Christmas tree as her husband’s first year in office drew to a close. After supervising major renovations to the executive mansion, she died of tuberculosis during his reelection campaign.
After losing his second bid for the presidency in 1892, Benjamin Harrison began an active second career as a lawyer, writer, and professor. He also remarried at age sixty-two to Mary Dimmick, a niece of his late wife who had worked as an assistant to the First Lady.
Benjamin Harrison’s tomb
In March of 1901 at age sixty-seven, Harrison took ill at his home in Indianapolis. A simple case of the flu turned into pneumonia. Harrison did not respond to various treatments and on March 12 lapsed in and out of a coma. His relatives and closest friends gathered by his bedside. At about 4:45 p.m. on March 13, 1901, Benjamin Harrison died.
On March 16, Harrison’s body was taken to lie in state in the rotunda of the Indiana state capitol. A small private service was performed at his home the next day. A larger funeral was held at the First Presbyterian Church where Harrison had been a member for nearly fifty years. Citizens lined up outside more than two hours before the service began. Mourners inside spilled over into the aisles, and the altar overflowed with roses, lilies, and violets. The church choir sang “Rock of Ages,” reportedly the late president’s favorite hymn—and the only one he ever tried to sing. President William McKinley was in attendance and members of Harrison’s cabinet served as honorary pallbearers.
Benjamin Harrison was buried beside his first wife, Carrie, at Crown Hill Memorial Cemetery in Indianapolis. At the graveside service, three white carnations were placed on top of the walnut casket. The casket, enclosed in a granite tomb, was lowered into the ground to the sounds of cannon fire.
Touring Benjamin Harrison’s Tomb at Crown Hill Cemetery
Crown Hill Cemetery is located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Crown Hill is also the burial site of three vice presidents: Thomas Riley Marshall, vice president to Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Andrews Hendricks, vice president to Grover Cleveland, and Charles Warren Fairbanks, vice president to Theodore Roosevelt.
Crown Hill Cemetery is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., April 1 through October 14, and from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., October 15 through March 31. The cemetery’s office is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The office is closed Sundays and holidays. There is no admission fee.
From Indianapolis International Airport: Exit the airport and go east on I-70, toward downtown Indianapolis. Stay in the left lane as it merges into I-65 North. Exit on the right onto Meridian Street and turn right. Take Meridian Street north to Thirty-fourth Street. Turn left onto Thirty-fourth Street and follow it through two stop lights. Thirty-fourth Street will dead-end at the cemetery’s large stone gate. This is the Thirty-fourth Street and Boulevard Place entrance. Follow the white line painted on the road to the president’s memorial.
From downtown Indianapolis: Crown Hill Cemetery is approximately 3.6 miles from Monument Circle where Meridian and Market Streets intersect. Take Meridian Street north to Thirty-fourth Street. Turn left onto Thirty-fourth Street and follow it through two stop lights. Thirty-fourth Street will dead-end at the cemetery’s large stone gate. This is the Thirty-fourth Street and Boulevard Place entrance.
A waiting station is located on the right at the Thirty-fourth Street and Boulevard Place entrance. There you will find cemetery maps with directions to President Harrison’s gravesite. White lines on the cemetery road also lead to Harrison’s grave.
Crown Hill Cemetery offers a two-hour tour that examines the life of Benjamin Harrison and other notables buried in the cemetery. The “Politicians” Tour is offered seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. to dusk. Admission is $5.00 for adults, $4.00 for seniors, and $3.00 for students, with a $50.00 minimum per private tour. (Visitors can schedule a private “Politicians” Tour by calling ahead.)Self-guided tours are free. One may purchase a $5.00 cemetery tour book from the main office from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.
For additional information
Crown Hill Cemetery
700 West 38th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46208
Cemetery office: (317) 925-3800
Tour information: (317) 920-2649 /
(800) 809-3366
Fax: (317) 925-8240
www.crownhillhf.org
“…‘the Harrison Horror’ led Ohio’s legislature to enact stringent laws against bodysnatchers.”
—Richard Norton Smith
Benjamin Harrison, already overshadowed by his grandfather president—if anyone can be overshadowed by a man who held office barely a month—plays second fiddle to bank robber John Dillinger at Indianapolis Crown Hill Cemetery. At that, he is luckier than some other White House occupants, not to mention his own father, an Ohio congressman named John Scott Harrison. Soon after John Harrison’s death in May 1878, his body was stolen from its grave by “resurrectionists” affiliated with the Ohio Medical College. A professor at that eminent institution did nothing to diminish public fury through his offhanded observation that graverobbing mattered little, “since it would all be the same on the day of the resurrection.”
Caroline Harrison was the president’s first wife
Harrison’s tomb at Crown Hill Cemetery
Benjamin Harrison led the charge against the college and its anatomical research practices. In an indignant public letter, the future president vividly described the sight of his father’s body “hanging by the neck, like that of a dog, in a pit of a medical college.” In time, John Scott Harrison was quietly reburied, the perpetrators tried and punished, and popular outrage over “the Harrison Horror” led Ohio’s legislature to enact stringent laws against bodysnatchers.
—RNS