Mary Dimmick Harrison

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Mary Dimmick Harrison (April 30, 1858 – January 5, 1948) was the second wife of the 23rd United States president Benjamin Harrison. She was 25 years younger than Harrison, and was the niece of his first wife.

Mary Scott Lord was born in 1858, in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Russell Farnham Lord, chief engineer of the Delaware and Hudson Canal (later known as the Delaware and Hudson Railway), and his wife Elizabeth Mayhew Scott.

On October 22, 1881, she married Walter Erskine Dimmick (July 4, 1856 - January 14, 1882), a son of the attorney-general of Pennsylvania. He died shortly thereafter, leaving her a widow at 23.

During the presidency of Benjamin Harrison, she was a frequent guest at the White House, and lived there for a time with Harrison and his first wife (her aunt), Caroline Lavinia Scott, who died in 1892.

Mrs. Dimmick married the former president on April 6, 1896 at St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City.

They travelled widely: to Venezuela, where Harrison played a role in settling a boundary dispute, and to the First Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899. They had one daughter, Elizabeth Harrison, born on February 21, 1897. Benjamin Harrison died in 1901 after 5 years of marriage.

Mrs. Harrison died in New York City and was buried in Indianapolis, Indiana in Crown Hill Cemetery.