Carter Henry
Harrison IV (1860-1953)
Life and Times
of Carter Harrison
By Milancie
Hill Adams
Carter Harrison IV was born
23rd of April 1860. He was the third child of Carter Harrison III and Sophonisa
Grayson Preston.
His childhood home was 231
Ashland Boulevard Chicago, Illinois. His father was a lucrative land owner and
real estate agent who served as Mayor for four terms. His father was
assassinated at the beginning of his fifth term during the Chicago World's
Fair.
From Carter Harrison's
autobiography, The Stormy Years, we are given the two following glimpses into
Carter's childhood. First, Carter states that he attended a school located on
the westside of Sheldon Street between Randolph and Lake Streets from 1868 to
1873, run by a Mr. John A Bell, a Scottish minister. He states "It was a strange
kind of school in which the master, Scotch trained, never had a rattan father
than twelve inches from his right hand. A great believer in corporal punishment,
no morning was complete unless the rattan was wrapped around at least one
youngster's legs. We probably needed all we got and more. ... If any of the
thirty-odd boys, other than Dr. Antonio Lagorio of Pastuer Institute fame, his
cousin, the two Owsleys, Harry and Heaton, and myself, came to good end, he
failed to advertise it. Among the boys, about the best behaved, the most
studious were the two Lagorios." Secondly, another place in his book he speaks
of dinner his father and John hosted given in the parlor of Carter's home which
the boys were not even allowed to festivities of although they could hear the
lusty singing of Good Old Yale, Drink Her Down!, Excelsior and other classics.
"It was a small but joyous gathering of the Chicago Yale Club given to song,
horseplay and wassail; there was a huge punchbowl into which my father had
poured pitcher after pitcher of Bourbon whisky drawn from the barel in his
cellar."
In 1873 when his Mother was
pregnant with her tenth child the family physician advised they should go aboard
to Europe. They returned home in 1876. Carter described himself as a very
bashful youth, whose German was better than his English and who "would walk
blocks in a roundabout course to avoid meeting a bevy of
girls".
Against his father's earnest
counsel He attended St. Ignatisus and completed a degree in Philosophy. Then he
attended Yale. Through out his adulthood as in his childhood his closest friends
were the twins Heaton and Harry Owsley.
He married December 14, 1887
Edith Ogden daughter of Robert N. Ogden. Edith was born 16 Nov 1862.
The following from Edith's
autobiography tells of their meeting and first
years.
"A Bride in Chicago - I
often shudder when I think how nearly I missed being Mrs. Carter Harrison. My
introduction to the Harrison family came about through Lina, my future
sister-in-law. While visting New Orleans she was attracted to me by my vivacity
and love of gaiety, dancing , music, and all those things that enter into the
life of a Southern girl. After her return to Chicago, Lina expatiated upon a
subject of a Southern girl's life, illustrating her account of me as an example.
He brother Carter, then a sedate, serious and studious young graduate of the law
school at Yale University was not at all interested. When it was announced that
I was coming North to pay his sister a visit, he quietly arranged a fishing trip
and left on the day when I was expected. But young girls in that Victorian era,
especially Southern girls were never permitted to travel alone. The chaperon
with whom I was to make the trip was delayed for ten days so that on the very
day when he returned from his fishing trip I presented myself at the Harrison
mansion. But, adhering steadfastly to his resolution, he refused to meet
me, until one day I came across him by accident in the
hall.
Some was his indifference
melted at once and presently our engagement was announced. I could not have a
church wedding because my bridegroom was not a catholic. We were married at home
by the Bishop of Louisiana. About two hundred friends were present, but because
it was a comparatively small affair, I had only one bridesmaid, Mary Slaughter
of Chicago, my cousin. There were no groomsmen, and my brother, Oswald Ogden,
then about sixteen stood beside Miss Slaughter, for my husband. Miss Slaughter
later married Wentworth Field a member of the Marshall Field family. Eleven
months after our marriage our first son was born, a beautiful boy, but I was
desparately ill and the baby only lived for five days. This was our first sorrow
and I am afraid I did bear it well. I was young - that is my only excise. Months
later a letter from my mother told me that my grief was unnatural adn that I
must exercise self control. I can still remember one sentence of her letter
which I could not understand and resented " If God gives you a long life you
will live to find out that life is never easy for any of us, and to know that
the death of your beautiful baby was only a smile from Heaven." But two years
later when our second son, Carter was born we felt we had been
blessed.
The first year of our
married life was passed in the old family home on Ashland Avenue at Jackson
Boulevard. There my husband's sister, Lina, welcomed me - she had married Heaton
Owsley (Carter's best friend since early childhood) some four months before our
wedding - and we lived in the family mansion until the elder Harrison's return.
He was making a trip around the worked with his son Preston (Lina's and Carter's
brother). And the world accused both Lina and Carter of taking advantage of his
absence to marry. As he was fully aware of their intentions before he left,
however, these comments did not worry either of them. After his return, we both
took separate homes, Our home was just behind his on Marshfield Avenue, We saw
him daily but it was a regular rule that we all dined with him every
Sunday."
Carter followed his father's
footsteps and pursued both politics and real estate.
 As his father was an avid horseman he was a
bicyclist and was a member of the Century Road Club which
had awarded him 18
pendant bars each engraved with the date of a particular run. Carter Harrison
Jr. used the bicycle as his campaign gimmick to help him win election in 1897.
'Not the Champion Cyclist, but the Cyclist's champion. "Shortly after the
nominations I had the Owsley brothers send a brand new wheel with the scorcher
handlebars of the schorchiest type to the Morrison photograph gallery. I then
betook myself to the gallery with my riding togs to be photographed head on,
body bent double over the scorcher bars, an attitude that always gave a fiendish
expression even to the mildest of faces. What with the rakish cap, the old grey
sweater and the string of eighteen pendant bars, I looked a professional a
picture which I knew would carry weight with the vast army of Chicago
wheelmen."
Carter served five terms as
mayor of Chicago.
Harrison
Family Photos
Children:
1. infant death
2. Carter
Henry Harrison V b. 28 June 1891
3. Edith Ogden Harrison
II b. 21 Jan 1896
Carter Harrison Jr terms as
Mayor of Chicago
*************************************
Democrat
Elected:
1st term: April 6, 1897
Defeated Nathaniel C. Sears (Republican), John Glambock (Socialist Labor), John
Maynard Harlan (Independent Republican) & Washington Hesing (Independent
Democrat)
2nd term: April 4, 1899
Defeated Zina R. Carter (Republican) & John P. Altgeld (Municipal Ownership)
3rd term: April 6, 1901
Defeated Elbridge Hanecy (Republican), Avery E. Hoyt (Prohibition), Gus Hoyt
(Socialist Democrat), John R. Pepin (Socialist Labor), Thomas Rhodes (Sin. Tax)
& John Collins (Socialist)
4th term: April 7, 1903
Defeated Graeme Stewart (Republican), Charles L. Breckon (Socialist), Daniel L.
Cruice (Ind. Labor), Thomas L. Haines (Prohibition) & Henry Sale
(Socialist-Labor)
5th term: February 28, 1911
(primary) Defeated Edward F. Dunne & Andrew J. Graham
April 4, 1911 (general)
Defeated Charles Merriam (Republican), William A. Brubaker (Prohibition), A.
Prince (Socialist Labor) & W. E. Rodriguez (Socialist)
Terms of office:
-
1st term:
1897-1899
-
2nd term:
1899-1901
-
3rd term:
1901-1903
-
4th term:
1903-1905
-
5th term:
1911-1915
Birth: April 23, 1860
Death: December 25, 1953
Sources: Assorted notes of
Edna B Owsley (Heaton's daughter), Edith Ogden family letters excerts to her
cousin, The Stormy Years (autobiography of
Carter Harrison Jr.), and Ronnie Bodine (President of Owsley Historical
Society), The Owsley's an Illinois Family a Birthday Book.
The Book of Chicagoans:
A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of Chicago
Compiled by John W. Leonard
Published by Marquis, 1905
Original from Harvard University
Digitized Sep 13, 2006
Who's who in Finance and Banking
Compiled by John William Leonard
Published by Who's Who in Finance Inc., 1922
Original from the New York Public Library
Digitized Jun 19, 2007
Other Resources : http://www.newberry.org/collections/FindingAids/harrison/Harrisonpr.html
Owsley
Tidepool
Copyright © Milancie Hill Adams 2005
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