of only two Whigs to be elected to the presidency, the other being Zachary Taylor. Just three weeks after his inauguration, Harrison fell ill and died days later. After resolution of an ambiguity in the constitution regarding succession to the powers and duties of the office, Tyler became president. At 68, Harrison was the oldest person to assume the American presidency until Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 at 69. Harrison is often omitted in historical presidential rankings due to his brief tenure, with the rankings where he is ranked placing him significantly below average. However, he is remembered for his Indian entreaties, and also his inventive election campaign tactics. Early life and education Harrison was the seventh and youngest child of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth (Bassett) Harrison, born on February 9, 1773, at Berkeley Plantation, the home of the Harrison family of Virginia on the James River in Charles City County. This was a prominent political family of English descent whose ancestors had been in Virginia since the 1630s; he became the last American president not born as an American citizen. His father was a Virginia planter, who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–1777) and who signed the Declaration of Independence. His father also served in the Virginia legislature and as the fifth governor of Virginia (1781–1784) in the years during and after the American Revolutionary War. Harrison's older brother Carter Bassett Harrison represented Virginia in the House of Representatives (1793–1799). William Henry often referred to himself as a "child of the revolution", as indeed he was, having grown up in a home just from where Washington won the war against the British in the Battle of Yorktown. Harrison was tutored at home until age 14 when he attended Hampden–Sydney College, a Presbyterian college in Virginia. He studied there for three years, receiving a classical education that included Latin, Greek, French, logic, and debate. His Episcopalian father removed him from the college, possibly for religious reasons, and after brief stays at an academy in Southampton County, Virginia, and with his elder brother Benjamin in Richmond, he went to Philadelphia in 1790. His father died in the spring of 1791, and he was placed in the care of Robert Morris, an intimate family friend in Philadelphia. He briefly studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania with Doctor Benjamin Rush and William Shippen Sr. His older brother