That’s my son Garrett standing at the base of the monument to the Battle of Tippecanoe. He carefully studied all four panels on this obelisk.
For those of you who haven’t brushed up on your Indiana history lately, in 1811 Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, who was better known as The Prophet, had formed a confederacy of tribes who resisted white settlement. The group’s headquarters were at Prophetstown, where the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers come together just north of Lafayette, Indiana.
The situation was tense with leaders of the nascent Indiana Territory, and there was occasional violence between Native Americans and the settlers. Governor William Henry Harrison organized a militia of about 1,000 and marched to Prophetstown on November 6 to deal with the problem once and for all.
Tecumseh wanted peaceful solutions, at least until the coalition was stronger, but he was away recruiting allies when Harrison’s militia arrived. Tenskwatawa sent some men with a white flag to meet them and request a meeting with Harrison, ostensibly to try to work things out without violence. Harrison agreed, but arranged his men in a defensive position just in case. Sure enough, early the next morning Tenskwatawa sent warriors to attack. A vicious two-hour battle ensued, but Harrison’s men emerged victorious.
The remaining men of the attacking force spurned Tenskwatawa’s leadership and abandoned Prophetstown. Harrison’s men marched in and burned the place to the ground.
Harrison ran for President in 1840 and won, the first of only two Hoosiers ever to be elected to that office. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” it was a rallying cry for Harrison’s campaign — John Tyler was Harrison’s running mate.
Shortly after being sworn in as President, Harrison contracted pneumonia and died of it. He remains our nation’s shortest-tenured President at just one month in office.
Today, the site of the Battle of Tippecanoe is a National Historic Landmark. Prophetstown State Park is adjacent; the small town of Battle Ground lies at its north entrance.
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