On October 20, 1853, future United States President Benjamin Harrison married Caroline Lavinia Scott at her family’s home in Oxford, Ohio. Her father, John Witherspoon Scott, a Presbyterian minister and founder of the Oxford Female Institute, performed the ceremony. Their marriage began a partnership that would eventually take them from Ohio to the White House.
Education and the arts shaped Caroline’s early life. At the Oxford Female Institute, she studied languages, music, and drawing, developing interests she would carry into her years as first lady. Benjamin attended nearby Miami University, and the two were engaged before his graduation. After their marriage, they settled in Indianapolis in 1854.
Following Benjamin’s election as the 23rd president in 1888, the Harrisons entered the White House in 1889. Caroline used her position to promote the preservation and improvement of the executive mansion and to establish its historical china collection. In 1890, she became the first president general of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, lending the new organization the prestige of the First Lady’s office.
Their White House years ended in loss. After months of worsening illness, Caroline died of tuberculosis at the executive mansion on October 25, 1892—five days after their thirty-ninth wedding anniversary. The marriage begun in Oxford had spanned nearly four decades, ending during Benjamin’s presidency.
