Harrison family of Virginia

Sarah Embra Harrison of Danville, Virginia launched a decades-long church ministry, the "Pass-It-On Club", in the midst of the Roaring Twenties.

President Lincoln was credited with measures to eliminate slavery in the nation; with abolition following the Civil War, the Harrisons eventually abandoned the institution.

Several genealogists indicate the first Harrisons were Viking warriors of Norse origin, and that they arrived in northeast England with Cnut the Great; others say they are of Celtic descent.

[9][10][11][12] Author J. Houston Harrison references the tradition, supported by other writers, that Benjamin had four brothers: Thomas, who also ended up in the south, Richard and Nathaniel who were in the north, and Edward who remained in England.

[16] McConathy's work also allows the brothers could have been the sons of Thomas Harrison, Lord of Gobion's Manor (1568–1625), and wife Elizabeth Bernard (1569–1643) of St. Giles, Nottinghamshire, England.

[24] At age 51, with young daughter Hannah in hand, he was struck by lightning as he shut an upstairs window during a storm on July 12, 1745; both were killed.

[25] Benjamin Harrison V (1726–1791) followed his father by serving in the House of Burgesses, and then became known in the family as "the Signer" of the Declaration of Independence, from his representation of Virginia in the First and Second Continental Congresses.

[9] Harrison was a rather corpulent and boisterous man; Delegate John Adams referred to him variously as the Congress' "Falstaff", and as "obscene", "profane", and "impious".

[29] The house, which was later disassembled and rebuilt in Richmond, remained in the Harrison family for over 230 years, when it was given to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and served as the home for the sitting Director until 2013.

[30] The "Signer's" son Benjamin Harrison VI (1755–1799) was for a time a successful businessman and also served in the Virginia House of Delegates.

[38] In 1920, Sarah created the "Pass-It-On Club" in Danville, Va., as a ministry to facilitate Sunday church attendance by out-of-town salesmen.

[39] The doldrums of these men, stuck for a day in a strange town, came to her attention one Sunday as she entered a hotel lobby for a ladies group lunch.

[40] Harrison promised the men future arrangements for travel to church, and registered them as the first members of the official "Pass It On Club."

After seven years, in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, based on her roll of club members, The American Magazine declared in a 1927 headline that, "Sarah Harrison Has Taken 4000 Traveling Men to Church".

Sarah's older brother, Isaac Carrington Harrison (1870–1949), was a physician in Danville, and served as chairman of the Virginia Board of Medical Examiners.

He led a parish at Elizabeth River at age 21, and was appointed by Governor William Berkeley as an acting chaplain of the Jamestown Colony.

But no record is found at the Herald's College showing a pedigree and succeeding coat of arms for the General's family, as in the case of the Reverend.

Isaiah Harrison is definitively shown at Oyster Bay on Long Island in 1687—this is the very same area from which his father Thomas had departed on his return to England forty years earlier.

[43] There are records in Dublin which show Thomas' consistent and distinct spelling of Harrison with the double "s", not otherwise found in Ireland or England.

They moved to Sussex County, Delaware in 1721, where Isaiah acquired the Maiden Plantation near the town of Lewes, and daughter Abigail married Alexander Herring (1708–1780).

[48] The Harrison family moved to the Valley of Virginia in 1737 via Alexandria, and camped in the Luray area while waiting for their land grants to be finalized.

[49][50] Isaiah's son Daniel made the family's first Virginia land acquisition in 1739 in Rockingham County, and he and brother Thomas founded the towns of Dayton and Harrisonburg respectively.

Lincoln succeeded in obtaining an acquittal after arguing with the judge, to the point of risking contempt, but ultimately convincing him to admit the testimony and confession as a dying declaration.

[58] Among their descendants were physicians and educators, including Benjamin's son, Peachy Harrison (1777–1848), the great-uncle and namesake of Lincoln's aforementioned client; in addition to his medical practice he was county sheriff and served as well at the House of Delegates, the Virginia Senate, and the state's Constitutional Convention.

[61][k] At the request of the Virginia governor, in 1895 she represented the commonwealth's female workers at the Board of Women's convention at the International Exposition in Atlanta.

Biographer Clifford Dowdey states "...among the worst aspects is the presumption that the men in the Harrison family, most likely the younger, unmarried ones, and the overseers, made night trips to the slaves' quarters for carnal purposes.

But Dowdey further portrays the Harrisons' incongruity, saying the slaves "...were respected as families, and there developed a sense of duty about indoctrinating them in Christianity, though there was a diversity of opinion about baptizing children who were property.

Benjamin Harrison V in 1772 joined a Virginia House of Burgesses committee, including Thomas Jefferson, which submitted a petition to King George, requesting that he abolish the slave trade.

[66] Future President Benjamin Harrison had already begun his political career in Indiana and joined the fledgling Republican party in 1856, then being built in opposition to slavery.

[70] Abraham Lincoln similarly joined that party, and made effective efforts to end slavery by his Emancipation Proclamation, the victory of his Union army in the Civil War, and his promotion of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.