Benjamin Harrison, VI, 1833-1901.  23rd President of the United States, 1889-1893.  Very fine condition personal check engrossed by Harrison, payable to “Self,” and boldly signed Benj^a Harrison.  Indianapolis, Indiana, November 8, 1873.

This is an outstanding example.  Harrison has drawn this $40 check, payable to himself, on Fletcher & Sharpe’s Bank of Indianapolis.  Were it not for the typical cancellation cut in the middle, we would describe this check as extra fine. Harrison’s handwriting and signature are bold.

Harrison was the great-grandson of Virginian Benjamin Harrison, V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the grandson of President William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States.  He was the fourth post-Civil War Republican president who had served as a general in the Union army, following Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield. 

Harrison studied law in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to Indianapolis, where he was admitted to the bar and entered Republican politics.  He served as the Indianapolis city attorney, secretary of the Indiana Republican Central Committee, and reporter of decisions for the Indiana Supreme Court.  He supported the victorious radical faction of the Republican Party party after the Civil War, and during the 1870s he was a  spokesman for the fiscal conservatives.

Harrison ran unsuccessfully for governor of Indiana in 1876.  Four years later the Indiana legislature elected him to the United States Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887.  As chairman of the Indiana delegation to the 1880 Republican convention, he supported the dark horse Garfield, the eventual nominee.  While in the Senate, Harrison supported pensions for Civil War veterans, statehood for the Dakota Territory, high protective tariffs, limited civil service reform, a modernized navy, and conservation of wilderness lands.  He was not reelected when the Democrats gained control of the Indiana legislature in 1886.

Harrison was nominated for president on the eighth ballot at the 1888 Republican convention in Chicago after James G. Blaine, the party’s 1884 candidate, could not win the nomination himself and gave his support to Harrison. The Democrats nominated incumbent President Grover Cleveland.  Cleveland got 90,000 more popular votes than Harrison, but Harrison won the electoral college vote 233-168.

In 1892, in an historic turnaround, Cleveland defeated Harrison, who had difficulty with Republicans as well as Democrats.  Harrison’s arbitrary actions, chilly personality, standoffish behavior, and refusal to take advice alienated even members of his own cabinet, and some powerful even opposed his renomination.  Cleveland refused to engage in an active or personal campaign when he learned of First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison’s tuberculosis, from which she died two weeks before the election.  Harrison limited himself to a few appearances in New York and New Jersey, two crucial swing states.  In the end, Cleveland beat Harrison by some 375,000 popular votes. The electoral college vote outcome was more dramatic, allowing Cleveland to win by 277-145, or nearly two to one.

Harrison retired to Indianapolis, where he remarried.  He shunned public appearances and refused to return to politics, despite talk of renominating him for president in 1896. He did, however, accept appointment by the Venezuelan government to represent it in international arbitration against Great Britain.  He died in 1901.

As noted above, this check is in very fine condition.