A William Henry Harrison button … It’s not a coin or a token, but

johnmilton · Apr 10, 2019

William Henry Harrison is best remembered for winning the Battle of Tippecanoe and the shortest presidency in the history of the United States. Harrison also holds a couple of other records. He gave the longest inaugural address in history, and his supporters issued the most political tokens prior to the Civil War.

Andrew Jackson was a very polarizing figure. His supporters adored him and supported his three presidential runs fervently. His many enemies did more than dislike him; they reviled him. Those who opposed Jackson compared him to a king whose stubbornness lead them to depictive him as a jack ass, which was also a bad pun on his name. Here is one of the most common Hard Times tokens which shows Jackson in that mode.

Jackson chose to step down after two terms as president, and his protégé, Martin Van Buren, ran to succeed him in 1836. Van Buren won the election. In his inaugural address, Van Buren stated that “he would be following in the steps of his illustrious predecessor.” Naturally the anti-Jackson party, which was now calling themselves the Whigs after the British party, Which had opposed the absolute power of the king, cast him in a similar light.

Almost as soon as Van Buren took office, the country was hit by the worst economic depression of the 19th century, the Panic of 1837. Given the limited powers of the Federal Government at the time, Van Buren could do little to combat the hard times, and given his philosophy toward government, he really didn’t think that he should do very much.

As the 1840 presidential election approached, the Whigs saw a great opportunity, but how could they cash in on it? The answer was to find a military hero like Jackson and puff up his resume. Not only that, why not make him look like a common man who lived in a log cabin, worked a farm for a living and enjoyed hard cider as his drink of choice. The log cabin and hard cider campaign was born!

The truth was Harrison actually lived in a mansion and was quite well off financially. He really enjoyed fine wine, not hard cider, and actually was almost as far from a struggling dirt farmer as one could get. Still the Whigs issued thousands of tokens that looked like this.

Recently I spotted this clothing button that was issued during the 1840 Harrison campaign. It carries the image a bit further with a cannon in front of the log cabin and a raccoon skin hung up on the cabin wall. It also includes the words, “Tippecanoe Club.” Despite the fact that the Whig’s most famous slogan was “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” it never appears on any of his campaign medalets. In fact “Tippecanoe” rarely appears on them too. So I became the high bidder for this piece in a political items auction. It is listed in the reference book by Sullivan as WHH 1840-109.