As the twenty-third president (1889-1893) and the grandson of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president, he loved cigars and waterfowling as he was an excellent shot at snipe and ducks and a mean performer with the heavy eight- and ten-bore side by side, but mostly with a 12-gauge. He was one of only two presidents that were avid waterfowlers, as it was said that “he had a penchant for duck hunting that had no bounds.”

He hunted the entire eastern seaboard, both north and south. When he needed to get away for relaxation from the presidency, it was as a hunter of waterfowl. He was happiest when he was down on the Potomac or the Chesapeake blasting away late in the fall or in the cypress swamps of the James River wetlands. Like President Cleveland, he left Washington D.C. surreptitiously in the hope of keeping where he was going from the press. As he said, “if it is announced where I am going on a shooting trip, the consequence is that about ten thousand other sportsmen would select the same time and place for their own sport.”