In the familiar 1839 presidential campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were the Whig candidates for U.S. President and Vice President, and they were nominated in Zion Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, making the city the smallest ever to host a U.S. presidential convention. Both men won and both eventually became President. The congregation of Zion Lutheran Church has been rooted to this property since its predecessor church was erected on the same site in 1814; that building burned in 1838, and the present church was completed in 1839 just in time for the convention. The congregation had split from the German Reformed congregation, which built Salem Reformed Church, now Salem United Church of Christ, around the corner on Chestnut Street in 1822. As downtown developed in the mid-19th century, the graves from the original cemetery behind the church were relocated to Harrisburg Cemetery.
