(NEXSTAR) – Since the very first inaugural address delivered by George Washington, our nation’s chief executives have used their speeches to outline a vision for America’s future and rouse the American people to rally behind their ideals.
Only one, though, chose to keep his supporters waiting in the cold for over an hour and a half while he did so.
On March 4, 1841, William Henry Harrison delivered what is the longest inaugural address in United States history, both in terms of its word count and length of time. His speech consisted of a whopping 8,445 words — over 3,000 more than the next-longest inaugural address, from William Howard Taft — and lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes.
It might have also felt even longer for those in attendance, as Harrison was sworn in on a “bitterly cold, wet” and “blustery” day, according to accounts published by the United States Senate and the National Weather Service.
Even more audaciously, Harrison intended his address to be even longer. Daniel Webster, his secretary of state, had bragged about whittling down the speech, or at least removing numerous references to ancient Roman statesmen. (Several of these references still made it to the finished address, though.)
Of his successful efforts to edit Harrison’s references, Webster later boasted that he had killed “seventeen Roman proconsuls as dead as smelts, every one of them,” according to an account shared at the National Archives website.
Ironically, after giving what was (and still is) the longest inaugural address of any U.S. president, Harrison’s term was the shortest in U.S. history: He died just one month after assuming office, on April 4, 1841.
Some accounts of Harris’ passing — including one published by the official website of the U.S. Senate — attribute his death to an illness he developed while delivering his inaugural address, which he reportedly did without an overcoat or a hat. But other official accounts state that he only became ill weeks later, after catching a cold which developed into pneumonia. And researchers with the University of Maryland, after studying notes written by Harrison’s own doctor, had published findings in 2014 that suggested Harrison didn’t die of pneumonia at all, but rather enteric fever (typhoid or paratyphoid fever) that he contracted from the White House water supply, which may have been contaminated with sewage.
Harrison’s doctor had even written that he provided an official diagnosis of pneumonia because, in part, it “afforded a succinct and intelligible answer to the innumerable questions as to the nature of the attack” that killed the president, one of the researchers relayed to The New York Times in 2014.
“Given the character and course of his fatal illness, his untimely death is best explained by enteric fever,” wrote Jane McHugh, then a scholar in residence at the University of Maryland. “Pneumonia was a secondary diagnosis — as Harrison’s hapless doctor perhaps suspected all along.”
Long story short, Harrison’s lengthy inauguration speech likely didn’t lead to his death. But by many accounts, it also wouldn’t have killed him to keep it a little tighter, either.
