Public Domain – via Wikipedia Berkeley Plantation, home of the Harrison family (two Presidents), initial construction of Georgian mansion in 1726. In Charles City County, Virginia.
Benjamin Harrison was 50 years of age when he signed the Declaration of Independence. He was a plantation owner and father of seven children from Virginia. He died at age 65 in 1791.
Born on 5 April 1726, Benjamin Harrison V lived the life guaranteed him by his wealthy parents. He was the eldest son of Benjamin Harrison IV and Ann Carter and took over the family’s extensive holdings at the age of 19, when his father and two sisters were killed in a lightning storm. Berkeley Plantation is located west of Williamsburg, Virginia, upon the James River. Although young, Harrison V built the family fortune, eventually claiming eight plantations and an extensive shipping business. “Benjamin’s great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Harrison I, first stepped on American soil on March 15, 1633. He emigrated from the Isle of Wight in England, became a tobacco planter, and was the first clerk of the Royal Council. Benjamin’s mother, Ann Carter, was the daughter of Robert “King” Carter whose family like the Harrisons was a force in Virginia and American politics. He served for many years as treasurer of the Colony and member of the King’s Council. The “King” was a wealthy and influential member of the Virginia aristocracy and owned over 300,000 acres and a thousand slaves. Ann’s great-grandfather, William Carter, a resident of Casstown, Hereford County and the Middle Temple in England, came to Virginia about 1649 and built the ancestral home Corotoman in Lancaster County, Virginia.” (The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence)
He was a classmate of Patrick Henry and of Thomas Jefferson at William and Mary College. He married his second cousin Elizabeth Bassett, the niece of Martha Washington. “Eight of the Harrisons’ children survived to adulthood. Their most famous son was William Henry Harrison, the American general in the victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe, and who was elected President of the United States in 1840. [He died after only one month in office.] Their great-grandson, Benjamin Harrison, a Civil War general, was also elected President, in 1888. Politics was a way of life for the Harrisons. As early as the 1640s, the First Family of Virginia had a reputation of arguing with British authorities over individual rights. One Harrison was imprisoned for six years for complaining about tyranny and treason.”(The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence)
At age 21, Harrison began his political career as a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He spent a quarter of a century in the Burgesses, often leading the group as Speaker. He was most outspoken against the Stamp Act and assisted in penning Virginia’s protest. Even so, he opposed Patrick Henry’s civil disobedience stance. He supported taxes for the importation of slaves. Eventually, he was elected to the First Continental Congress. He helped to write the Articles of Association. He was said to have roomed with George Washington and Peyton Randolph during those early of days of the revolution. Benjamin was grandson of “King” Carter, and therefore, cousin to Thomas Nelson and Carter Braxton, who also signed the Declaration of Independence. He often served as Chairman of the Whole.
Benjamin Harrison was highly regarded in Congress, and was frequently appointed Chairman of the Whole from March 1776 to August, 1777. He remained in Congress until 1778, when he became speaker in the Virginia legislature. He was a vocal advocate for the Bill of Rights being in place before the ratification of the U. S. Constitution.
“Benjamin Rush noted that Harrison “had strong state prejudices and was hostile to the leading men from the New England states.” But Harrison appreciated the evenhandedness of the new President, John Hancock, complimenting him as “noble, disinterested and generous to a very great degree.” On the important date of June 7, 1776 Benjamin Harrison was chosen to introduce fellow Virginian Richard Henry Lee whose resolution called for independence from England. He was selected to read Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence to the assembled delegates on July 1, and served as Chairman of the Whole during the debate over independence on July 2.” (The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence)
Harrison was well known for his sense of humor, and many tales are remarked upon. From Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnest in Signing Their Lives Away, we learn “Once the story goes, when the members needed to select a new president of Congress, some liked Hancock for the job, but Hancock pooh-poohed the notion. Six-foot-four Harrison crossed the room in a bound, physically lifted the smaller Hancock, and plopped him down in the President’s chair. ‘We shall show Mother Britain how little we care for her,” Harrison reportedly said, ‘by making a Massachusetts man our president, who she has excluded from pardon by public proclamation.’ (At this point in history, Hancock and Samuel Adams were reportedly wanted for treason by the Crown.)”
“On August 2, while preparing to sign the Declaration of Independence, Harrison famously quipped to Elbridge Gerry who had taken his place at the table to sign: ‘I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes and be with the Angels, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.'” (The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence) [Note that Gerry was not in Philadelphia On August 2, 1776, when this supposedly took place, but it is a wonderful story, nonetheless.]
In Congress Harrison solicited financial and other assistance from other countries as a member of the Secret Correspondence Committee. He also worked closely with General Washington as part of the Marine and War and Ordinances Committees in planning the American army. During the war he also took care of matters at home by serving as a lieutenant in the county militia, and took the job of chief magistrate as well.
After the war, Harrison remained active in Virginia politics. Soon after his 65th birthday he suffered from a severe case of gout, and on April 24, the disease took his life. He is buried at his beloved Berkeley Plantation. Because of Harrison’s 240-pound, six foot four stature, he was often referred to as the “Falstaff of Congress.”
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“The miniature at left is the only surviving life portrait of Harrison. It was apparently survived only because one of Harrison’s family carried it it with them when they fled their house at Berkeley Plantation just before the traitor Benedict Arnold and his men landed their boats at next door Westover in January, 1781.
“The Redcoats proceeded to pillage from Berkeley to Richmond. While at Berkeley, Arnold’s men built a bonfire of all the Harrison family portraits and took rifle practice using his cows. They were repaid on October 19th, when the British Army surrendered at nearby Yorktown, effectively ending the Revolutionary War.” (The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence)
“He served in the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1777, where he worked on the committees that supervised supplies of ammunition and military stores for the Army. During the war, the British burned and wrecked Morrisania. Lewis would spend many years after the war rebuilding his estate. Morris then served in the New York Legislature from 1777 to 1790. He was also a Major General of the New York State Militia during the Revolutionary War. In 1787, Lewis’s brother, Gouverneur Morris wrote much of the final draft of the US Constitution. Lewis attended the convention in Poughkeepsie, NY, to determine if New York would accept the Constitution. Thanks largely to Lewis Morris’s efforts, a narrow vote of 30 in favor to 27 opposed, was achieved, bringing New York into the union as the 11th state.” (
After three years at William and Mary, Jefferson decided to read law under Wythe, one of the preeminent lawyers of the American colonies. There were no law schools at this time; instead aspiring attorneys “read law” under the supervision of an established lawyer before being examined by the bar. Wythe guided Jefferson through an extraordinarily rigorous five-year course of study (more than double the typical duration); by the time Jefferson won admission to the Virginia bar in 1767, he was already one of the most learned lawyers in America. Jefferson said of Wythe, “No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe.” 
Jefferson was tall and thin, but athletic in build. He had red hair and was known to be shy. He was said to be no “public” speaker, but his ability to compose written works was exemplary. He was a diplomat and an architect. He invented the first swivel chair. Beside designing Monticello, he also designed his own tomb. He played the violin. He cultivated tomatoes in a time when others thought them to be poisonous. He also planted extensive vineyards when many thought the American soil would not tolerate the vines. He enjoyed the study of archaeology and developed a better lock and key system. Jefferson was a student of climates and was constantly making measurements and recording the data. He invented a portal writing desk (which he used to draft the Declaration of Independence).
Thomas Jefferson was one of the earliest and most fervent supporters of the cause of American independence from Great Britain. He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1768 and joined its radical bloc, led by Patrick Henry and George Washington. In 1774, Jefferson penned his first major political work, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” which established his reputation as one of the most eloquent advocates of the American cause. A year later, in 1775, Jefferson attended the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army and appointed Jefferson’s fellow Virginian, George Washington, as its commander-in-chief. However, the Congress’s most significant work fell to Jefferson himself.
These prices were not incremental. To purchase a promotion, an officer only had to pay the difference in price between his existing rank and the desired rank. [Goldsmith, Jeremy (May 2007), “A gentleman and an officer – Army commissions”, Family Tree Magazine, 23 (7), pp. 10–13.]
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