IIAKKISON, CART Kit IIKNRY. 



371 



II 



HARRISON, CARTER HENRY, Mayor of 



Chicago, liorn on an estate known as Elk Hill, 

 in Fayette County, Ky. r Feb. 15, 1825 ; assassi- 

 nated at Ins own home, in Chicago, Oct. 28, 1898. 

 He was the only son of Carter Henry Ham-<>n 

 and Caroline Kvyline Russell, daughter of Col. 

 William Russell, U. S. A. The Harrison an- 

 ce-trvin this country dates from about 1(520. 

 The family seat was in Virginia until 1800, 

 when Robert Cabell Harrison, grandfather of 



CARTER HENRY HARRISON. 



Carter H. Harrison and nephew of Benjamin Har- 

 rison, the signer of the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence, moved to Kentucky. On the maternal 

 side Carter H. Harrison traced his descent from 

 the Norman conquest through the De Russells, 

 represented in the peerage by the Dukes of Bed- 

 ford. The first of this branch of the Russell 

 family in America was William, who came to 

 Jamestown, Va., with Sir Alexander Spotswood, 

 in 1710. 



Carter H. Harrison's father died when the 

 boy was eight months old. At fifteen he began 

 preparation for college under Dr. Lewis Mar- 

 shall, brother of Chief-Justice John Marshall, 

 and entered the sophomore class at Yale in 1843, 

 being graduated in 1845. In 1855 he was gradu- 

 ated at the Transylvania University Law School, 

 was admitted to the bar, and the same year mar- 

 ried Miss Sophonisba Preston, of Henderson. 

 Ky., by whom he had ten children, four of 

 whom survive. She died in Gera, Germany, in 

 1876. In August, 1882, he married, in London. 

 Miss Marguerite E. Stearns, daughter of Marcus 

 A. Stearns, of Chicago. She died in 1887. 



Throughout his life he was fond of travel. 

 After graduation at Yale he engaged in farming 

 in Kentucky, but. traveled much in the South 

 and Southwest. In 1851 he went abroad, spend- 

 ing more than two years in Europe, visiting 

 Syria and Asia Minor in company with Bayard 

 Taylor, who was collecting material for his 



" Lands of the Saracen." In 1855, immediately 

 after his marriage, he traveled much in what 

 was then the Northwest. At this time he first 

 came to Chicago and determined to make it his 

 home, which he did in 1857. Immediately after 

 the opening of the Union Pacific Kail road he 

 traveled through the West, visiting California. 

 In 1874, and again in 1876 and 1882, he traveled 

 in Europe. In 1887 he made a trip around the 

 world, occupying sixteen months. He published 

 an account of this trip in a book entitled "A 

 Race with the Sun." "A Summer Outing" is 

 the title of another book, the result of a trip in 

 1890 to the Yellowstone National Park, the 

 Puget Sound region, and Alaska. 



His active political life did not begin till after 

 he was forty-five years of age. As a young man 

 he was a Whig and an emancipationist, and 

 when twenty-three years old was a delegate to 

 an emancipation convention held in Lexington, 

 Ky. In 1860 he became a Democrat and a sup- 

 porter of Stephen A. Douglas. In 1869 he was 

 a candidate for State Senator on the Democratic 

 ticket, but was defeated. His first public office 

 was that of county commissioner of Cook 

 County, to which he was elected immediately 

 after the great Chicago fire of 1871, on what 

 was called the " Fire-Proof " ticket. In 1872 he 

 was nominated for Congress from the Second 

 Illinois District, but was defeated. Two years 

 later he was elected, and in 1876 he was re-elected. 

 In the spring of 1879 he was elected Mavor of 

 Chicago, and again in 1881, 1883, 1885, and" 1893. 

 The canvass in several of these elections assumed 

 proportions of national interest and importance. 

 This was notably true of that of 1893. The Colum- 

 bian Exposition was to be held in Chicago dur- 

 ing the summer of that year, and the contest as 

 to who should be " World's Pair Mayor " of the 

 city attracted the attention of the whole coun- 

 try. His opponent was Samuel W. Allerton, 

 the Citizens and Republican candidate. The 

 entire press of Chicago, with the exception of 

 the " Times," which he owned, and one other 

 paper, opposed Mr. Harrison. But by a cam- 

 paign of public meetings unprecedented in the 

 li 1st ory of the city, during which he made from 

 three to ten public addresses every day for more 

 than a month preceding the election, he was 

 elected by a majority of more than 21,000. It 

 is a singular fact that one of his elections to 

 Congress and at least two of his elections as 

 mayor were obtained in spite of the unanimous 

 opposition of the press of the city. 



When he was first elected mayor, the finan- 

 cial condition and credit of the city were at 

 the lowot cM). The great fire had imposed 

 heavy burdens on the municipality for public 

 improvements, and the panic of 1S73 had pre- 

 vented to an unprecedented extent the collec- 

 tion of taxes. A decision of the Supreme Court 

 of the State had declared the entire tax levy for 

 municipal purposes for one vear invalid. An- 

 other decision had invalidated an issue of $249.- 

 000 of what were known as Hayes-Coivin cer- 

 tificates. The limit of bonded indebtedness un- 



