Benjamin Harrison VI was an American merchant, planter and revolutionary.
Background
He was the son of Founding Father Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Harrison VI was born at Berkeley Plantation, the ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia, in 1755. His mother, Elizabeth Basset (13 December 1730 – 1792), was a descendant of Captain William Bassett II, who was an officer in the King"s Army, during the English Civil War.
When Harrison VI became a young adult, his father lost a considerable amount of property, supposedly due to his lack of mercantile skills, and sent his son away to the Philadelphia-based firm Willing and Morris, where he earned an exceptional mercantile education, and befriended Robert Morris and Thomas Willing, the firm"s owners.
Career
He was the great-uncle of President Benjamin Harrison. His family, the Harrison family of Virginia, was one of the First Families of Virginia, and were among the most wealthy and prosperous people in the state. Benjamin Harrison VI"s father was Benjamin Harrison V, a wealthy planter and slave owner, who would later become one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.
Their friendships would continue to hold strong throughout their lives.
After his education concluded, Harrison traveled to Europe, and began building mercantile connections, as well as his fortune. However, the American Revolutionary War prompted him to return home to Virginia, as he strongly wanted to aid his father and the Patriot cause.
During the war, he became the Deputy Paymaster General of the Continental Army, helping finance and pay the Continental Army during the Southern theater. After the war, Harrison settled in Richmond and established himself as a successful merchant, and soon thereafter amassed a large amount of wealth.
He gave Morris a sizable portion of his fortune to aid him, and the latter was forever grateful.
In 1799, after years of hard work and success, Benjamin Harrison VI died in Charles City, Virginia, at the age of 44. Benjamin Harrison VI married two times. First, Harrison married a woman named Anna Mercer (1769-1787), and in 1776, broke relations with her and remarried to Susannah Randolph (1752-1781), a daughter of Richard Randolph II, who was a slave trader and the son of Richard Randolph of Curles.
However, one interesting fact about him was that when John Trumbull was painting his massive portrait of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he had no portrait of signer Benjamin Harrison V to work with.
Membership
From 1774 to 1775, he was a member of the Charles City County Committee, as well as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.