Background
Henry Baldwin Harrison was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, the son of Ammi and Polly (Barney) Harrison.
Henry Baldwin Harrison was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, the son of Ammi and Polly (Barney) Harrison.
Henry prepared for college at the Lancasterian School there under John E. Lovell, its founder, and by private study with George A. Thacher, at that time a student in the Yale Divinity School. He entered Yale in 1842 and graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1846. After leaving college he studied law in the Yale Law School and in a New Haven law office.
Henry Harrison was admitted to the bar in 1848 and began to practise in New Haven with Lucius G. Peck. Although he later was known especially as a corporation lawyer, he attracted attention in 1855 by his successful defense of a client charged with murder, on the then unusual plea of insanity.
In 1854 Harrison was elected to the state Senate on the Whig ticket. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on corporations and a member of committees appointed to consider a revision of the statutes and to compile laws regarding education. He introduced the personal-liberty bill which was passed by this session of the General Assembly of Connecticut to nullify in the state the Fugitive-Slave Law passed by Congress. He was the Republican candidate for lieutenantgovernor in 1856, but was defeated.
In 1865 Harrison was elected to the lower house of the Connecticut legislature as a representative of New Haven, and in this session was chairman of the committees on railroads and on federal relations. He advocated an amendment to the state constitution which would give the negro the ballot. He was again elected to represent New Haven in the legislature of 1873, and served as chairman of the committee on a constitutional convention - the bill for which was defeated - and as a member of the judiciary committee. In 1874 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the governorship. Representing New Haven in the lower house of the state legislature for the third time in 1884, he was chosen speaker of the House.
In 1884 Harrison was again a candidate for governor. No candidate received a majority of the popular vote, though the Democrats had a plurality. In the joint convention of the legislature made necessary by this situation Harrison was elected, 164 to 91. He served for two years, beginning January 7, 1885. His death occurred in his eighty-first year at his home in New Haven.
Active in politics, Henry was successively a Whig, a Free-Soiler, and a Republican.
Harrison was married in 1856 to Mary Elizabeth Osborne, daughter of Thomas Burr Osborne. From this marriage there were no children.