The oldest recording of a president is the voice of Benjamin Harrison.

Science & Industry

S ome presidential voices are instantly recognizable, such as John F. Kennedy's distinctive New England accent or Ronald Reagan's folksy tone. But we'll never definitively know what presidents such as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln sounded like, since there are no audio recordings of their voices. The oldest existing recording of a U.S. president is the voice of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd commander in chief. Harrison served from 1889 to 1893, and the audio recording dates to around his first year in office.

Harrison's voice was captured on a wax cylinder phonograph, a recording device developed by Thomas Edison in the late 1880s. It captures him recounting the first Pan-American Congress, a diplomatic event attended by leaders from several countries in the Americas. The recording features Harrison saying, "As president of the United States, I was present at the first Pan-American Congress in Washington, D.C. I believe that with God's help, our two countries shall continue to live side-by-side in peace and prosperity. Benjamin Harrison." Since Harrison, the voice of every U.S. president has been recorded on tape, with the exception of his direct successor, Grover Cleveland.

It's worth noting that while Harrison's voice is the oldest surviving audio recording of a U.S. president, it likely wasn't the first. On April 18, 1878, Thomas Edison visited President Rutherford B. Hayes at the White House and brought along his phonograph to demonstrate how the device worked. It's believed that Edison recorded Hayes' voice in the process, though any evidence of this recording has since been lost.

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By the Numbers

Territories that became states during Harrison's presidency

Presidents to sport a full beard (Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison)

Did you know?

The Harrisons are the only grandfather and grandson pair to serve as president.

Though his tenure was brief, William Henry Harrison served as U.S. president for 31 days in 1841. Nearly 50 years later, his grandson Benjamin was sworn in for the same position, making them the only grandparent and grandchild pair to serve as commander in chief. Their surname wasn't the only thing the two men had in common; their supporters also deployed similar tactics on the campaign trail. During the lead-up to the 1840 presidential election, proponents of William Henry Harrison's campaign created a 10-foot-tall ball adorned with slogans that they rolled from town to town in an effort to drum up support — the origin of the phrase "keep the ball rolling." When Benjamin Harrison ran for the presidency in 1888, his supporters created a replica of the original ball made for his grandfather, and rolled it an estimated 5,000 miles around the U.S.

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