- Duralde
- Cutts Richard
- Nye, from New-Orleans
- Leavitt Joshua
- Mary E. E. Cutts
- Lay George W.
Inauguration
William Henry Harrison P.U.S.
The inauguration of William Henry
Harrison as President of the United States was celebrated
with demonstrations of popular feeling, unexampled since that of
Washington in 1789. and
at the same time with so much order and tranquility, that not the
slightest symptom of conflicting passions occurred to disturb the
enjoyments of the day. Many thousands of the people from the adjoining
and considerable numbers from distant States had come to witness the
ceremony: the procession consisting of a mixed military and civil
cavalcade and platoons of volunteer Militia companies—tippecanoe clubs,
students of colleges and school boys, with about half a dozen veterans
who had fought under the hero in the war of 1800, with sundry aukward
and ungainly painted banners and log cabins, without any carriages or
showy dresses was characteristic of the democracy of our institutions,
while the perfect order with which the whole scene was performed and the
absence of all pageantry was highly creditable to them— The numbers were
not comparable to those of the military assemblage at Baltimore upon the
reception of La Fayette in 1824. nor
was there any thing now of the pride pomp and circumstance of that day.
The coup d’oeil of this day was showy-shabby— The procession passed
before the windows of my house— General Harrison was on a mean looking
white horse in the centre of seven others, in a plain frock coat or
surtout, undistinguishable from any of those before, behind, or around
him. He proceeded thus to the Capitol; where from the top of the flight
of steps at the Eastern front, he read his inaugural address, occupying
about an hour in the delivery; and before pronouncing the last paragraph
of which the Oath of Office was administered to him by Chief Justice Taney— The
procession then returned to the Presidents house, and he retired to his
chamber, while an immense crowd of people filled for an hour or more all
the lower rooms of the house. I saw the procession pass from my chamber
windows— Mr
Leavitt was with me, and we were reading the opinions of
the judges Davies and William Johnson, in the case of the
Antelope.— Mr Leavitt departed by the Cars
for New-York this afternoon— Richard
Cutts had been here this morning, with Messrs.
Duralde, Nye, and another from New-Orleans. After dinner I walked
up the Pennsylvania avenue to Mrs Peyton’s, and visited
Charles Ogle, who since
Christmas day when he had engaged to dine with me, but was seized with a
hemorrhage of the lungs, has been confined to his chamber,
irrecoverable— I met there John W.
Allen of Ohio. Elizabeth C.
Adams went with Miss
Cutts to the inauguration Ball, at the old theatre in
Louisiana avenue.