he worked from 1836 until 1840. Chevalier remarked, "His friends back east talk of making him President, while here we make him clerk of an inferior court." He also cultivated corn and established a distillery to produce whiskey, but closed it after he became disturbed by the effects of alcohol on its consumers. In an address to the Hamilton County Agricultural Board in 1831, he said that he had sinned in making whiskey and hoped that others would learn from his mistake and stop the production of liquors. About this time, he met abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor George DeBaptiste who lived in nearby Madison, and the two became friends. Harrison wrote at the time, "we might look forward to a day when a North American sun would not look down upon a slave." DeBaptiste became his valet, and later White House steward. Burr closes his account of Harrison by describing an event, denied by some of his friends—a reception given the general at Philadelphia, in 1836. According to Burr, "Thousands and tens of thousands crowded Chesnut street wharf upon his arrival, and greeted him with continual cheering as he landed. He stepped into the barouche but the crowd pressed forward so impetuously, that the horses became frightened and reared frequently. A rush was made to unharness the animals when the General spoke to several of them and endeavored to prevent it; but the team was soon unmanageable, and it became necessary to take them off. A rope was brought, and attached to the carriage, by which the people drew it to the Marshall House. This act was the spontaneous burst of ten thousand grateful hearts. Pennsylvanians fought under the hero, and they loved him. We speak particularly on this point, because we were eyewitnesses of all that passed." 1836 presidential campaign Harrison was the western Whig candidate for president in 1836, one of four regional Whig party candidates. The others were Daniel Webster, Hugh L. White, and Willie P. Mangum. More than one Whig candidate emerged in an effort to defeat the incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren, who was the popular Jackson-chosen Democrat. The Democrats charged that, by running several candidates, the Whigs sought to prevent a Van Buren victory in the electoral college, and force the election into the House. In any case the plan, if there was one, failed. In the end, Harrison came in second,