Tecumseh's Revenge - The Curse of Tippecanoe: McKee Family of Pennsylvania and Their Native American Kin, #2

By Raymond C. Wilson

Eight U.S. Presidents have died in office. Of those eight, seven were elected in a year that ended in zero. The only exception was Zachary Taylor who was elected in 1848, but President Taylor died in 1850. Maybe President Ronald Reagan broke the Curse of Tippecanoe? Maybe President George W. Bush broke the curse? Maybe curses aren't real and this is all coincidental? But if Tenskwatawa "The Prophet" truly attempted to curse William Henry Harrison and have he and every Great Chief chosen every twenty years die, then it's safe to say he was successful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raymond C. Wilson
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005055158

Raymond C. Wilson

Raymond C. Wilson is a military historian, filmmaker, and amateur genealogist. During his military career as an enlisted soldier, warrant officer, and commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for twenty-one years, Wilson served in a number of interesting assignments both stateside and overseas. He had the honor of serving as Administrative Assistant to Brigadier General George S. Patton (son of famed WWII general) at the Armor School; Administrative Assistant to General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley at the Pentagon; and Military Assistant to the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon. In 1984, Wilson was nominated by the U.S. Army Adjutant General Branch to serve as a White House Fellow in Washington, D.C. While on active duty, Wilson authored numerous Army regulations as well as articles for professional journals including 1775 (Adjutant General Corps Regimental Association magazine), Program Manager (Journal of the Defense Systems Management College), and Army Trainer magazine. He also wrote, directed, and produced three training films for Army-wide distribution. He is an associate member of the Military Writers Society of America. Following his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1992, Wilson made a career change to the education field. He served as Vice President of Admissions and Development at Florida Air Academy; Vice President of Admissions and Community Relations at Oak Ridge Military Academy; Adjunct Professor of Corresponding Studies at U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; and Senior Academic Advisor at Eastern Florida State College. While working at Florida Air Academy, Wilson wrote articles for several popular publications including the Vincent Curtis Educational Register and the South Florida Parenting Magazine. At Oak Ridge Military Academy, Wilson co-wrote and co-directed two teen reality shows that appeared on national television (Nickelodeon & ABC Family Channel). As an Adjunct Professor at U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Wilson taught effective communications and military history for eighteen years. At Eastern Florida State College, Wilson wrote, directed, and produced a documentary entitled "Wounded Warriors - Their Struggle for Independence" for the Chi Nu chapter of Phi Theta Kappa. Since retiring from Eastern Florida State College, Wilson has devoted countless hours working on book manuscripts.

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Introduction

Tenskwatawa ‘The Prophet’ put a curse on U.S. presidents

According to legend, Tecumseh’s Curse (also called the Curse of Tippecanoe) was imposed by Tenskwatawa ‘The Prophet’ as a result of a 1809 dispute between his brother Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and Major General (future U.S. president) William Henry Harrison. This dispute stemmed from a treaty with a delegation of Native American leaders in which they agreed to relinquish large tracts of land to the U.S. government. Chief Tecumseh thought the deal was unfair and that Harrison’s tactics in negotiating the treaty were dishonorable.

Chief Tecumseh’s encounter with William Henry Harrison in 1809

The curse on U.S. presidents, first widely noted in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! book published in 1931, began with the death of William Henry Harrison (who died in office in 1841 after having been elected to the presidency in 1840) and continued for the next one hundred years with the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and Warren G. Harding. The only exception was Zachary Taylor because 1850 was his second year as president and he died that year. While this can be seen as exceptional, it could also be viewed as the first three deaths (President Harrison, President Taylor, President Lincoln) happening to presidencies at ten year intervals, and subsequent deaths extending to the twenty year pattern. Keep in mind that Tecumseh’s Curse is also known as the ‘Zero-Year Curse’ and the ‘Twenty-Year Curse’.

William Henry Harrison (elected in 1840 - died in 1841)

Abraham Lincoln (elected in 1860 - died in 1865)

James A. Garfield (elected in 1880 - died in 1881)

William McKinley (reelected in 1900 - died in 1901)

Warren G. Harding (elected in 1920 - died in 1923)

After the observation by Ripley in 1931 that every U.S. president elected during years ending in a zero (occurring every twenty years) following Harrison had died in office, talk of Tecumseh’s Curse resurfaced as the next cursed election year (1940) approached. A similar oddities cartoon feature, Strange as it Seems by John Hix, appeared prior to Election Day 1940, with Curse over the White House! A list running from 1840-Harrison to 1920-Harding was followed by 1940-?????? and the note that In the last 100 years every U.S. President elected at 20 year intervals has died in office! When Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected in 1940 and died in office in 1945, this dramatically increased the number of believers in Tecumseh’s Curse.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (reelected in 1940 - died in 1945)

Ed Koterba, author of a syndicated column called Assignment Washington, referred to Tecumseh’s Curse again during the Presidential Election in 1960. The winner of this election was John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected to this office. Three years later, Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963. For many of us who watched this tragic scene unfold on live television, the fact that Tecumseh’s Curse struck again became quite troubling.

John F. Kennedy (elected in 1960 - died in 1963)

As 1980 approached, Tecumseh’s Curse was sufficiently well-known and Americans wondered whether the winner of that presidential election would follow the pattern. The Library of Congress conducted a study in the summer of 1980 about the origins of the tale, and concluded that although the story has been well known for years, there are no documented sources and no published mentions of it.

The first written account to refer to the source of the curse was an article by Lloyd Shearer in a 1980 edition of Parade magazine. It was claimed that before Tenskwatawa died in 1836, ’The Prophet’ predicted William Henry Harrison would become the ‘Great White Father’ (U.S. President) in 1840. Because Major General Harrison commanded the American forces that killed his brother Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames, Tenskwatawa ‘The Prophet’ put a curse of death on ‘Old Tippecanoe’ (William Henry Harrison) and all future presidents who were elected in years that end with the digit 0.

Running for reelection in 1980, President Jimmy Carter was asked about the curse at a campaign stop in Dayton on 2 October 1980 while taking questions from the crowd. Carter replied, I’m not afraid. If I knew it was going to happen, I would go ahead and be President and do the best I could till the last day I could.

Ronald Reagan (elected in 1980 - shot in 1981 and died in 2004)

Ronald Reagan, who won the presidential election over Jimmy Carter in 1980, was severely wounded in an assassination attempt in 1981 after serving for only 69 days in office. President Reagan, then 70-years-old, suffered more complications after he was shot than his doctors revealed at the time. It has been noted that Reagan's wound was, at the outset, much more life-threatening than that of Garfield or McKinley. Five days after the shooting, President Reagan began coughing up bright red, fresh blood in what his chief surgeon, Dr. Benjamin Aaron, remembered as an ominous series of events. Recovering from being shot, Reagan became disoriented in the intensive care unit. In retrospect, this was probably a sign of Reagan's slipping mentation according to Dr. John Sotos. It was during Reagan’s first term in office that he began displaying early signs of Alzheimer’s disease that eventually contributed to his death in 2004. Dr. Visar Berisha and Dr. Julie Liss (professors of speech and hearing science at Arizona State University) found that during his two terms in office, subtle changes in Reagan’s speaking patterns linked to the onset of dementia were apparent years before doctors diagnosed his Alzheimer’s disease in 1994. Dr. Berisha stated that the injury, surgery and anesthesia from the assassination attempt made on him [President Reagan] in 1981 could account for the language changes they [Dr. Berisha and Dr. Liss] found when analyzing Reagan’s speeches. Their findings were published in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. In an interview in 2022, renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht expressed his medical opinion that the trauma of Reagan’s gunshot wound in 1981 triggered the onset of his long battle with Alzheimer’s disease that eventually took his life in 2004. Armed with these important findings, it is logical to conclude that President Reagan may not have broken Tecumseh’s Curse as previously reported by the press -- but that he died from a prolonged medical condition, linked to complications from the 1981 gunshot wound, which lasted years beyond his two terms in office. Note: President Reagan’s Press Secretary James Brady’s death in 2014 was ruled a homicide by a medical examiner. Brady’s death was directly linked to a gunshot wound he received from John Hinckley, Jr. during the assassination attempt on Reagan thirty-three years earlier in 1981.

A case can be made that it was actually George W. Bush, elected in 2000, who finally broke Tecumseh’s Curse. President Bush survived his two terms in office, despite two failed assassination attempts -- one in 2001 and one in 2005.

George W. Bush (elected in 2000 - survived assassination attempts in 2001 and 2005)

Joe Biden, elected in 2020, is the most recent president to have been elected in a year ending in zero. He won a controversial election over the incumbent President Donald J. Trump.

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (elected 2020 - still serving)

Since 78-year-old Biden is the oldest president in United States history, it has been suggested that he may also fall victim to Tecumseh’s Curse.

Something to Consider

Presidents who have died in office

Eight presidents have died in office. Of those eight, seven were elected in a year that ended in zero. The only exception was Zachary Taylor who was elected in 1848, but President Taylor died in 1850. Maybe President Ronald Reagan broke the Curse of Tippecanoe? Maybe President George W. Bush broke the curse? Maybe curses aren’t real and this is all coincidental? But if Tenskwatawa ‘The Prophet’ truly attempted to curse William Henry Harrison and have he and every Great Chief chosen every twenty years die, then it’s safe to say he was successful. So what will be the fate of President Joe Biden? Only time will tell.

Tecumseh (Shawnee Chief)

Portrait of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh (Artist: Benson John Lossing)

The Shooting Star

Tecumseh began life in the Shawnee village of Piqua, Ohio on 9 March 1768 as a great meteor flashed and burned its way across the heavens. This event accounts for his name: ‘The Shooting Star’. Tecumseh grew to be a famous warrior and dynamic orator. These skills, paired with his belief that the white man would never rest until all American Indians were dispossessed, made him a powerful and influential force.

Tecumseh’s Alliance

Tecumseh conceived of an alliance of all remaining native people, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, from the prairies of the Midwest to the swamplands of Florida. All Indian people would set aside their ancestral rivalries and unite into a single movement to defend their culture, their homelands, and their very lives.

Providing spiritual impetus for Tecumseh's movement was the teaching of his younger brother Tenskwatawa ‘The Prophet’. In 1808, the Shawnee brothers established a new capital called Prophetstown on the banks of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers, while Tecumseh traveled extensively in an effort to build his alliance.

Tecumseh’s Comet

Great Comet of 1811, also known as Tecumseh’s Comet (drawing by William Henry Smyth)

In the summer of 1811, Tecumseh traveled south to meet with the Creek, Chickasaw, and Choctaw people. The Shawnee leader had promised a sign of his power, and as he arrived in Alabama a huge comet appeared, brightening the skies and fading after his departure. Then, shortly after he left for Prophetstown, a series of violent earthquakes arched out of their epicenter in southeastern Missouri to destroy lives and property throughout the Midwest and South. In the minds of the Creek and many others, Tecumseh had made good on his promises. Historical reference: The bright and long-lasting appearance of the Great Comet of 1811 (also known as Tecumseh’s Comet) seems to have had a profound effect on the non-astronomers of the time. Like other bright comets of the past, it was associated with – perhaps even said to have predicted – some of the major historical events that occurred then, such as the series of New Madrid earthquakes that occurred in what is now Missouri in the U.S. during late 1811 and early 1812, as well as wars such as