Harbison lived and worked in Union County, Pennsylvania until 1886 when he moved to North Carolina.
[2] While visiting Highlands, NC on this excursion, he apparently impressed the residents with his knowledge so much that they later asked him to return as a school principal.
Charles Lawrence Boynton and Harbison collected in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico and also in the U.S. Pacific region.
[3] From 1905 to 1926 Harbison worked a field botanist (collecting southern woody plants)[1] for Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum under the directorship of Charles Sprague Sargent.
[1] On 6 August 1896 in Macon County, North Carolina he married Jessamine "Jessie" Margrit Cobb (1868–1954).