ple. He went from Washington to his old home in Virginia for a few days, but returned in time for the Inauguration. The morning of the 4th of March, 1841, was ushered in by a salute of twenty-six guns. The day was devoted entirely to pleasure. The city of Washington was thronged with people, many of whom were from the most distant States of the Union. The procession was in keeping with the enthusiasm and interest displayed throughout the campaign. Ladies thronged the windows, and waved their handkerchiefs in token of kind feelings, while the wild huzzas of the opposite sex filled the air with a deafening noise. General Harrison was mounted on a white charger, accompanied by several personal friends, and his immediate escort were the officers and soldiers who had fought under him. Canoes and cabins, covered with appropriate mottoes, were conspicuous, and the scene was one of universal splendor.

Mrs. Harrison's health, delicate for many years, was particularly frail in February when her husband left home for Washington, and her physicians protested against her crossing the mountains at that season of the year, and urged her remaining in Ohio until the opening of spring. General Harrison was accompanied to Washington by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Jane F. Harrison, the widow of his namesake son, and her two

sons.

She was a very refined accomplished person, and exceedingly popular during her short stay as mistress of ceremonies at the White House. Besides Mrs. Jane F. Harrison, there were several ladies of the President's family residing temporarily with her until

Mrs. Harrison should come on. Mrs. Findlay, the wife of General Findlay and aged aunt of Mrs. Harrison, Miss Ramsay, a cousin, and Mrs. Lucy S. Taylor, of Richmond, Virginia, a niece of the President's, these were the occupants of the mansion the few short weeks of the President's life, for in one month from the day of his inauguration, he died. Pneumonia was the avowed cause, but it was the applicants for office who killed him. He was weak and aged, and unaccustomed to the confined life forced upon him in his new position, and the gentle kindness with which he received all who were clamoring for office, did but inspire them with renewed ardor. The whig party had been out of power many years, and the greed of the politicians snapped the tendrils of the veteran's declining years and sent him to the tomb before the glad notes of the inauguration anthem had died over the Virginia hills. President Harrison died the 4th of April, 1841, and on the 7th was laid temporarily to rest in the Congressional burying-grounds. The service was performed in the White House, by Rev. Mr. Hawley, in the presence of President Tyler, ex-Presi dent Adams, members of the cabinet, of Congress, and the foreign ministers. The procession was two miles in length, and was marshalled on its way by officers on horseback carrying white batons with black tassels. At the grounds, the liturgy of the Episcopal church was recited by Mr. Hawley. "The coffin having been placed in the receiving vault, and the mili tary salute having been fired, the procession resumed its march to the city, and by five o'clock that evening

nothing remained but empty streets, and the emblems of mourning upon the houses, and the still deeper gloom which oppressed the general mind with renewed power after all was over, and the sense of the public bereavement alone was left to fill the thoughts. The following touching lines, from the gifted pen of N. P. Willis, remarkable for their pathos and harmony, need no apology for being introduced here. The grandeur and simple beauty of the swelling poem deserve a more lasting record than transitory verses usually receive.

What soared the old eagle to die at the sun,

Lies he stiff with spread wings at the goal he has won!
Are there spirits more blest than the planet of even
Who mount to their zenith, then melt into heaven?
No waning of fire, no quenching of ray,
But rising, still rising, when passing away!
Farewell, gallant eagle! thou'rt buried in light!
God-speed unto Heaven, lost star of our night!

Death! Death in the White House! ah, never before
Trod his skeleton foot on the President's floor;
He is looked for in hovel and dreaded in hall,
The king in his closet keeps hatchments and pall,
The youth in his birth-place, the old man at home,
Make clean from the door-stone the path to the tomb;
But the lord of this mansion was cradled not here,
In a churchyard far off stands his beckoning bier:
He is here as the wave crest heaves flashing on high,
As the arrow is stopp'd by its prize in the sky—
The arrow to earth, and the foam to the shore,
Death finds them when swiftness and shankle are o'er;
But Harrison's death fills the climax of story:

He went with his old stride from glory to glory.

Lay his sword on his breast! there's no spot on its blade
In whose cankering breath his bright laurels will fade:

'Twas the first to lead on at humanity's call,

It was stay'd with sweet mercy when "glory" was all;
As calm in the council as gallant in war,

He fought for his country, and not its "hurrah!"

In the path of the hero with pity he trod,

Let him pass with his sword to the presence of God!

What more? Shall we on with his ashes? Yet stay!
He hath ruled the wide realm of a king in his day;

At his word, like a monarch's, went treasure and land,
The bright gold of thousands has passed through his hand.
Is there nothing to show of his flittering hoard?
No jewels to deck the rude hilt of his sword-
No tappings-no horses? what had he? But now,
On, on with his ashes! he left but his plough!
Brave old Cincinnatus! unwind ye his sheet:
Let him sleep as he lived,—with his purse at his feet.

Follow now as ye list: the first mourner to-day
Is the nation-whose father is taken away.
Wife, children, and neighbor may moan at his knell-
He was "lover and friend" to his country as well!
For the stars on our banner grown suddenly dim
Let us weep, in our darkness—but weep not for him.
Not for him, who, departing, leaves millions in tears ;
Not for him, who has died full of honor and years:
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky-
It is blessed to go, when so ready to die!

preparations for her What a shock this For many months an

The members of President Harrison's family immediately vacated the Executive Mansion, and the grief-stricken widow ceased the prolonged absence from home. death must have been to her! interested spectator, if not an actor, in the stirring events of the canvass and election, afterward a sharer in the triumphs of her husband, and for weeks anticipating the happy reunion in the mansion of the Presi

dents, to be rudely torn by fate from his

presence for

ever, and to see every hope lying crushed around her; would have harrowed a nature of coarsest mould. She was summoned from the busy care of forwarding some matter of interest to be told that he was dead. Dead! she could scarcely believe the evidences of her senses! Dead! or was she mistaken in what was said to her? His last letter was before her, and she had scarcely ceased reading the accounts in the papers of the magnificence of the inaugural balls.

Howsoever cruel the blow, it was borne meekly and humbly by the Christian wife and mother, and she aroused herself from the stupor in which the announcement had thrown her.

In July, the remains of the sincerely regretted President and deeply mourned husband and father were removed to their present resting place at North Bend.

Had her husband lived, Mrs. Harrison would have gone to Washington and discharged faithfully and courteously the duties of her position. But her resi dence there would not have been in accordance with her wishes or her taste.

She continued to reside at her old home, where the happiest years of her life had been spent, until the autumn of 1855, when she removed from the old homestead to the residence of her only surviving son, Hon. J. Scott Harrison, five miles below North Bend, on the Ohio River. She remained an inmate of his family until her death.

During the latter part of her life, she had many