She never entered the White House during her tenure as first lady, remaining the only presidential wife to never visit the capital during her husband's presidency.

Her short tenure as first lady, her absence from the White House, and the destruction of her personal papers in a fire have caused her to be overlooked by historians, and her life has been the subject of relatively little scholarly analysis.

To ensure his daughter's safety, he assumed the guise of a British soldier and transported her to Long Island via horseback.

One rumor suggested that John carried two bags: one with Anna, and one with turnips that he showed to any soldiers who questioned him, claiming that he was delivering them to the British commander.

[1]: 54 As a child, Anna first attended Clinton Academy in East Hampton and then the private school of Isabella Graham in New York City.

She reunited with her father in 1794 at the age of 19 when she moved to the Northwest Territory to live with him in the town that he had established there: North Bend, Ohio.

[1]: 54 Symmes met William Henry Harrison during a visit to Lexington, Kentucky, to see her sister Maria.

[5] In 1798, William resigned from the army, purchased land in North Bend, and built a log cabin for their home.

[6] After William was elected to the House of Representatives in 1799, the family moved to Philadelphia, which was the capital of the United States at the time.

[2]: 102  After four years in Vincennes, William built Grouseland, a brick house for the Harrisons that also served as a popular location for the territory's social events.

[2]: 103  Attacks on families by Native American soldiers sometimes occurred in the region, and the children were regularly forced to hide inside the home, which was built to be readily defensible.

[7] She felt lonely in Vincennes because of the distance from her extended family;[1]: 55  the opportunity to meet visiting national figures provided little consolation.

[2]: 104  William had retired a war hero, attracting numerous guests to their home,[1]: 55  including their church congregation, who were invited to dinner after services each Sunday morning.

[2]: 104–105 Anna spent much of the 1810s and 1820s alone, as William had a successful political career that took him to the United States Congress, the Ohio Senate, and the diplomatic mission to Colombia.

[3] In anticipation of her new position, she worried that she would be poorly received in Washington society and would be unable to fulfill the traditional responsibilities of a first lady.

[5] William was inaugurated as president in 1841, but Anna did not accompany him to Washington; she was feeling unwell, and the journey would involve harsh weather.

[2]: 107  Though Harrison did not like her husband's successor, President John Tyler, she lobbied him to give political appointments to members of her family, leveraging her status as a former first lady.

Harrison was granted a pension by the federal government in June 1841,[6] which she spent paying her late husband's debts.

[2]: 107 Harrison was the first woman widowed while first lady, and was followed by a long series of wives of presidents unwilling or unable to carry out the duties associated with the role.

[6] One historian, Paul Boller, compared Harrison to Rachel Jackson: as both were wives of men that were often away on military and political duties, both wished for their husbands to retire from public life, and both used their Presbyterianism to cope with these struggles.

[2]: 100 In the 1982 Siena College Research Institute survey asking historians to assess American first ladies; Harrison was included.