Kentuckians, Growing Up With Chicago: Part 2

Carter H. Harrison III and his wife Sophie Grayson Preston (family reference #3331) moved from Lexington, Kentucky to Chicago in 1857 with their infant daughter Lina (33312), where the Harrisons and their Kentucky-born neighbors persevered and eventually thrived. Carter was elected mayor of Chicago five times. He was assassinated in his home by disgruntled office seeker Patrick Prendergast toward the close of the Chicago World’s Fair in October 1893.

Chicago Times, Political Environment

The mayor purchased the Chicago Times in 1891, entrusting his Illinois-born sons Carter IV (33312) and Wm. Preston (33318) to manage the newspaper. It was a financial failure, but through it Carter Jr. was drawn into wider political circles, including a friendship with Illinois native and 1896 presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan. Carter was recruited as a Democratic mayoral candidate for the upcoming 1897 election.

Century Road Club

“At the time bicycle riding was reaching the height of its popularity. I [Carter IV] pedaled my ‘bike’ on country sidepaths deep in thought, trying to figure out a means of assuring sufficient income to care for my family. One evening my younger brother came to the dinner table in a whirl of excitement. He had just completed ‘a century,’ one hundred miles of country road riding in nine consecutive hours. Nine years my junior, he [said]. ‘It’s the greatest fun imaginable and for one my age not so difficult. Of course, it would be too much for you.'”

Feeling affronted, Carter secretly arranged to attempt the feat himself. “Were I successful, hurrah! Should I fail, the silence of discretion. I chose the Waukegan run, through Evanston, Wheeling, Half-Day, Libertyville to Gurnee, then east to Waukegan, fifty-one and a half miles. Should fatigue overcome me I could always take the Northwestern [railroad] back to town.” At dinner Carter calmly mentioned to his wife and brother the towns and vistas he’d seen that day. “Preston looked up in astonishment. ‘I believe you have been fool enough to try a century!’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘and I have been young enough to make it!’ By the end of the riding season I had completed eighteen centuries.”

First Native-born Mayor

Carter’s 1897 mayoral opponents included a Republican compromise candidate and Independent alderman John Harlan, a contentious former Princeton football player. “I had a brilliant thought. Why not utilize my cycling record as an offset to the Harlan football boasting? My brother-in-law Heaton Owsley [Lina’s husband] with his twin brother Harry B., were owners of the St. Nicholas Manufacturing Company, makers of the Hibbard bicycle. I had joined the Century Road Club, [and] was was entitled to wear its badge with eighteen pendant bars. It made a brave show. I had the Owsley brothers send a brand new wheel with scorcher handle bars to the Morrison photograph gallery in West Madison Street…. The campaign lithographs were hung throughout the city. And the inscription was an inspiration: “Not the Champion Cyclist but the Cyclist’s Champion.’ “ Carter Harrison IV became the first native-born mayor of Chicago. Like his father, he too was elected to five terms, a Harrison leading the city government for more than 20 of the 36 years between 1879 and 1915.

Edith Ogden Harrison, Storyteller

Carter’s wife, the former Edith Ogden, raised two children and wrote a number of fairy tales and travel books. She was a gifted storyteller, her 1949 memoir “Strange to Say…” a charming collection of anecdotes about the influential and ordinary people she interacted with in her youth and through 60+ years of marriage. Three family examples:

“A very curious and dramatic thing happened to my brother-in-law, Preston Harrison. He was traveling in some small town in the West. After supper a young man approached Preston, asking if he were the son of Carter Harrison. “I wonder if you would be willing to shake hands with me?” ‘Certainly,’ answered Preston, but the man hesitated. ‘My name is Prendergast, and I am the brother of the man who killed your father.’ As Preston drew back horrified, he continued. ‘Mr. Harrison, when that deed was committed no member of your family felt any worse than we did.’ Preston said the earnestness of the man impressed him and he extended his hand.”

“Our oldest grandson, Cyrus E. Manierre, Jr., graduated from West Point in 1942. Our daughter’s second son, William R. Manierre II, left Yale suddenly at less than eighteen to enter the war. We had received news that both boys were missing – taken prisoner by the Germans at different places – and we believed them dead. On Christmas night Germany reported her success to the world via radio. The speaker said: ‘We are winning the war, and… a curious thing happened today. Two trainloads of prisoners were in the dining room for [a] meal. Suddenly we thought wild Indians had broken loose. One of the prisoner officers rose from his table shouting, “I see my brother at the next table,” and immediately the two young men fell into an embrace. The names of these two young men are—‘ How we thrilled as he announced those dear names. The sight of the brothers’ meeting, the German announcer continued, was so touching that the tenderhearted Germans decided not to separate them. And so the two boys were put into the same prison, and for ten months shared captivity.”

“I am a Harrison only by courtesy, but I love the clan and they have accepted me on the same terms. President Benjamin Harrison‘s daughter, Mrs. James McKee, was a beautiful girl, and after my marriage we were very intimate. Once while visiting her in New York we were lunching with some acquaintances. Mary McKee was seated at the hostess’ right, while Mrs. Gary, the wife of the head of U.S. Steel, was on the hostess’ left. Mrs. Gary said, ‘Mrs. McKee, do give me your address. I am going to call on you.’ The reply came, ‘I live at such and such a number west of the Park.’ The Park divides east and west in New York City. East is high-priced and west less expensive. Mrs. Gary said, ‘Oh, you live west of the Park. I never have known anyone on the west side.’ Quick as a flash came Mrs. McKee’s answer: ‘Well, strange to say, my ancestors were too busy making history ever to make money.’ I thought that a pretty good comeback. We have never known of a very rich Harrison, though I have never heard of a pauper either.”

From the West Side to the North Side

Kentuckians Sophie and Carter Harrison III were pioneer landowners on Chicago’s rural West Side. In the 1890s, their native-born son Carter IV and his wife Edith moved to the fashionable North Side, by 1920 retiring to the Parkway Hotel on Lincoln Park West, which they made their home base for the rest of their lives. The couple were not only witnesses but participants in the growth of Chicago, their writings a testament to that great city.

Quotes from: Harrison, Carter H., Stormy Years: The Autobiography of Carter H. Harrison, Five Times Mayor of Chicago, © 1935, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis; and Harrison, Mrs. Carter H. (Edith Ogden Harrison), Strange to Say…: Recollections of persons and events in New Orleans and Chicago © 1949, A. Kroch and Son, Chicago