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ATTLEBORO - The two presidential campaign buttons Joseph MacDougald donated to the Attleboro Area Industrial Museum turned out to be good luck for the candidate they represented.

But hopefully whoever wins the 2008 presidential contest will live longer than the politician who became America's ninth president.

Wrentham resident and button collector MacDougald found two brass buttons embossed with an image of a log cabin while sorting items in his collection recently in his Florida summer home.

MacDougald, who no longer remembers how he acquired the conversation pieces, said the buttons represent the candidacy of William Henry Harrison who was elected in 1840.

The buttons, made by W. and R. Robinson in Attleboro, are among the oldest presidential campaign souvenirs known. Unfortunately, the artifacts of that long-gone presidential election did not lead to a long and successful presidency.

Harrison died only a month into his presidency of septicemia aggravated by pneumonia.

"Old Tippecanoe," as Harrison was called, got his nickname from the Battle of Tippecanoe in which he led Army troops against American Indians.

The slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" helped elect Harrison's Vice President John Tyler, who succeeded him after his death.

Unlike modern-day campaign buttons, 19th century buttons were virtually an article of clothing - meant to be sewn to a garment.

Of the two buttons donated by MacDougald, one is approximately an inch in diameter, and apparently was made to be worn on a shirt or coat.

A second button embossed with the same design is about three-eights of an inch in diameter, apparently indended as an epaulet button, MacDougald said.

MacDougald, who began collecting buttons about 20 years ago, previously donated a number of them manufactured in Attleboro to the museum.

He collected many of the buttons by swapping with other collectors and at the former Norton flea market.

Despite his relatively short tenure, Harrison cut a large figure as a military man and general. After defeating the forces of Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, Harrison led troops against the British in the War of 1812. He later served in Congress as a delegate from the Northwest Territory.

Eventually, he was appointed the first governor of Indiana Territory, then consisting of what would become Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and the eastern portion of Minnesota.

Harrison, a Whig, lost his first campaign for president in 1836, but returned to defeat the incumbent Democrat Martin VanBuren in 1840.

The log cabin symbol appearing on Harrison's buttons was an unlikely response to a put-down by Democrats hoping to brand him as a yokel.

Political opponents attempted to tag old Tippecanoe as a rustic who would rather "sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider" than tend seriously to the business of the country.

Their strategy backfired when Harrison and his running mate adopted the log cabin and hard cider symbols, using them not only on buttons but posters and bottles of hard cider shaped like log cabins.