Benjamin Harrison Invites His Secretary of War to His Wedding to His 2nd Wife, Mary Lord Harrison
She was the youthful niece of his first wife.
Less than two weeks before his 1892 re-election bid, on October 25, Benjamin Harrison lost his wife Caroline to tuberculosis. It was a crushing blow to him and to his children, and kept him with his family during the campaign’s final days. His daughter Mary took on the duties of First Lady until...
Less than two weeks before his 1892 re-election bid, on October 25, Benjamin Harrison lost his wife Caroline to tuberculosis. It was a crushing blow to him and to his children, and kept him with his family during the campaign’s final days. His daughter Mary took on the duties of First Lady until Grover Cleveland was inaugurated in March 1893. Then Harrison resumed his private life in Indianapolis, and in time sought to find a wife with whom he would live the rest of his life.
In 1896, he re-married. This wedding was not without controversy. Mary Scott Lord Dimmick was Caroline Harrison’s niece, herself a widow and only 23 years old when her first husband died. She was 32 at the time of her re-marriage to the former President, younger than both of Harrison’s adult children, one of whom had been his de facto First Lady. His children did not attend the wedding ceremony.
Harrison kept the wedding private and intimate, and wanted little fanfare. In fact, he kept the time secret to avoid crowds. He did, however, invite his former cabinet. Harrison’s Vice President, Levi P. Morton, and several former cabinet members were among the just three dozen guests; former Navy Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy was best man. Without a honeymoon, the couple settled in Indianapolis.
Letter signed, on his personal letterhead, Indianapolis, March 24, 1896, to Senator Redfield Proctor, his Secretary of War, inviting him to the wedding. “As you already know, Mrs. Dimmick and I are to be married at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Fifth Ave. New York on the afternoon of April 6th. The hour is five thirty but I wish you to keep that in confidence, as we do not care to have the newspapers informed. It has been our purpose to have a very quiet wedding, but I have thought it pleasant if the members of my Cabinet could be present. We will be glad, therefore, to have yourself and Mrs. Proctor attend the ceremony. There will be no reception nor other function following the ceremony, as we expect to go directly to the train.” A real rarity, this is the first signed invitation to a presidential wedding that we have ever had.
In 1878, Redfield Proctor was nominated by the Republicans and elected Governor of Vermont. He remained active in state politics after stepping down as governor and a was delegate-at-large to the Republican National Conventions in 1884 and 1888. In the latter year he was chairman of the Vermont delegation, and seconded the presidential nomination of Benjamin Harrison. In 1888 the Vermont legislature unanimously recommended him for a cabinet position, and in March 1889, Harrison chose Proctor to be his Secretary of War.
Presented in custom cloth case. A most personal and touching Harrison autographed letter.
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