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Last updated on Wednesday, November 19, 2008
(STATEHOUSE) - Indiana’s statehouse is now home to a bronze bust of the state’s only favorite-son president. Benjamin Harrison’s great-great-grandson Kim Morsman, of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, joined Governor Daniels in unveiling the sculpture on the second floor of the statehouse.
The second, third, and fourth floors of the statehouse feature busts of several governors and a handful of other Indiana notables, including Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton.
But the only presidents represented were Abraham Lincoln, who spent his boyhood in Spencer County, and George Washington, who has no connection to the state. Legislators ordered the state last year to commission and display the Harrison bust. It replaces the Washington sculpture.
Harrison was the nation's 23rd president, unseating Grover Cleveland in 1888 despite losing the popular vote. Cleveland won both the popular and electoral vote over Harrison in 1892 to reclaim the oval office.
Laporte sculptor Richard Peglow designed the bust, which was cast at the Sincerus Bronze Art Center in Indianapolis. An accompanying plaque notes Harrison's service as president, a U.S. senator from Indiana, and a general in the Civil War, adding that he was "a lawyer of distinction" and "a citizen faithful to every obligation."
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