1840 LIBERTY SEATED S$1, NO MOTTO PR65

The election year of 1840 saw William Henry Harrison defeat the incumbent, Martin Van Buren, and become the first president to represent the Whig party. Harrison’s witty campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too” was an integral part of his victory. The slogan was a reference to two components of Harrison’s appeal, the more straightforward of which was that John Tyler was Harrison’s running mate. Tippecanoe was a reference to the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe in which Major General William Harrison’s forces were attacked by and successfully repelled a group of Shawnee warriors led by the brother of the famous leader, Tecumseh. The victory that day near Prophetstown, the capital of Tecumseh’s Confederacy, was a major blow to the Indian nation that fought alongside the British in the War of 1812. Nearly thirty years after the event, the Battle of Tippecanoe’s legacy gained the Whigs their first presidency. Could this 1840 silver dollar have been used in Harrison’s celebrated campaign? Perhaps it was present during the rally at the site of Harrison’s victory that drew a crowd of 60,000.