Explore the Timeline. Show Me More. DeBaptiste to look after the personal wants of the General, who obeyed the behests of his bright and intelligent servant in all matters relating to personal comfort and health. DeBaptiste would have also traveled with Harrison while campaigning. DeBaptiste used to delight in narrating incidents of the campaign of and he had a fund of anecdote [sic] from which he was wont to draw for the entertainment of his friends on festive occasions.
Despite traveling and working closely with a Black man, Whig candidate Harrison was not supportive of abolitionism or African-American rights. William Henry Harrison was born into a slave owning family in Virginia.
Senate and House of Representatives. I answer, decisively, no. Harrison is as rotten as any slaveholder, in the land, on the subject of slavery, as facts showing this to be the case are daily coming to hand.
President Harrison fell ill just a few weeks into his administration. At the time, physicians attributed his death to pneumonia caused by the cold, wet weather at Inauguration and historians largely accepted this explanation. When Harrison moved to Washington, D. While he worked in the Executive Mansion for the President of the United States, DeBaptiste became well known for another reason: his unfailing dedication to the emancipation of enslaved Americans.
Tibbets, recollected:. I received word from George DeBaptiste of Madison, Indiana, that there would be a lot of ten to leave Hunter's Bottom on Sunday night and he wished me to make arrangements to transport them on the underground road that I was acquainted with…We loaded them in, drew down the curtains and started with the cargo of human charges towards the North Star.
