Another First Lady's LI Upbringing

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

Anna Symmes Harrison, the wife of President William Henry Harrison, was not born on Long Island but her roots were here.

In a Long Island Historical Journal story published in 1993, Natalie Naylor has written that Anna's parents, Anna Tuthill and John Symmes, were from Mattituck. Their oldest daughter, Maria, was born in Mattituck in 1762. After that, the family moved to a farm near Morristown, N.J., where Anna was born in 1775.

Anna's father brought her to Southold to live with her grandparents during the chaos of the Revolution. She attended Clinton Academy, a private school in East Hampton. She later moved with her father to what was then called the Northwest Territory -- Indiana and Ohio -- where she met Harrison, who was later elected president of the United States.

Harrison died of pneumonia a month after his inauguration. His successor was John Tyler, who took Julia Gardiner as his second wife. There is no record that Anna Harrison ever came back to Mattituck.