In the year 1726, the American colonies were teetering on the edge of change—not revolution, not yet, but a slow and steady churn beneath the calm surface of British control. Economically, the colonies were firmly bound to Britain’s mercantilist system. Tobacco, rice, and indigo flowed across the Atlantic in one direction, while British goods, taxes, and regulatory burdens came barreling back in the other. Socially, the colonies were defined by rigid class and racial hierarchies, with an elite planter aristocracy dominating the southern colonies. Politically, these aristocrats increasingly bristled under growing British interference. The seeds of revolution had not yet sprouted, but they were in the ground, waiting.
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In this climate, in a place already steeped in privilege and power, Benjamin Harrison V was born on April 5, 1726, at the family estate of Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia. He was born into one of Virginia’s most powerful dynasties. His great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Harrison I, arrived from England in the 1630s, became a tobacco planter, and served as clerk of the Virginia Council. His descendants followed suit—planters, sheriffs, justices, and legislators. By the time of Benjamin V’s birth, the Harrison family had become one of the cornerstones of Virginia’s ruling class.
His father, Benjamin Harrison IV, was a wealthy landowner and legislator who built the imposing Berkeley mansion in 1726 using bricks fired on-site. His mother, Anne Carter, was the daughter of the immensely wealthy Robert “King” Carter, a man who served as treasurer of the colony and owned more than 300,000 acres of land and approximately 1,000 enslaved people. Power, wealth, and public service were the Harrisons’ inheritance—and their obligation.
Benjamin Harrison V received his early education at the College of William & Mary, where he likely encountered other future luminaries like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. But his time at college was cut short by tragedy. In 1745, lightning struck the Berkeley house, killing his father and two sisters. At just nineteen years old, Benjamin inherited the bulk of the family’s estate—including Berkeley Plantation, other properties on both sides of the James River, fisheries, mills, and scores of enslaved people.
The young Harrison returned home to manage this vast operation. He quickly established himself not only as a successful planter but also as a rising political figure. In 1748, he married Elizabeth Bassett, the daughter of Colonel William Bassett of New Kent County and the niece of Martha Washington. Together, they would have eight children who survived into adulthood, among them William Henry Harrison, future general and ninth President of the United States.
Benjamin Harrison’s political career began in earnest in 1749, when he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, the legislative body that had governed the colony since 1619. He served there, with interruptions, for more than twenty-five years. His early political acts included participation in protests against the king’s land tax policies and opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765. While Harrison did not support Patrick Henry’s calls for civil disobedience, he firmly believed in colonial rights and worked to limit British overreach.
In 1772, Harrison joined Jefferson and others in petitioning King George III to end the transatlantic slave trade. While he was a lifelong slaveholder, he believed the continued importation of enslaved Africans was morally and socially corrosive. The King, however, rejected the petition out of hand.
By 1774, tensions with Britain had reached a boiling point. When the royal governor dissolved the House of Burgesses, Harrison was elected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He was re-elected in 1775 to the Second Continental Congress, where he would play a leading role. Edmund Randolph, a fellow Virginian, called him “a favorite of the day,” praising his temper, integrity, and experience.
In Congress, Harrison became Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, overseeing crucial debates. He was instrumental in facilitating the discussions that led to the Declaration of Independence. On July 1, 1776, he read Jefferson’s draft aloud to the assembled delegates. On July 2, he chaired the final debate. And on August 2, he signed the document.
As the signers gathered to put ink to parchment, Harrison turned to the diminutive Elbridge Gerry and quipped, “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.” His wit, like his courage, was part of what steadied that fearful moment.
Harrison continued to serve in Congress throughout the Revolutionary War. He was appointed to the Board of War and the Secret Committee on Foreign Affairs, and he worked closely with General Washington to manage the army’s supply needs. At home in Virginia, he served as a militia lieutenant and magistrate.
In 1781, Harrison was elected Governor of Virginia. His governorship came at a difficult time. The state’s treasury was empty, its infrastructure wrecked by war, and British troops had recently raided up the James River under the command of Benedict Arnold. The attack had left Berkeley Plantation partially burned and its contents—including family portraits—destroyed. Yet Harrison led the state through these lean years and was reelected twice, serving until 1784.
After leaving the governorship, Harrison returned to the Virginia House of Delegates and was elected Speaker in 1785. He played a key role in the 1788 Virginia Ratification Convention for the new U.S. Constitution. While he ultimately voted for ratification, he strongly argued for the addition of a bill of rights—something that was eventually secured thanks to men like him.
Despite his lifelong alliance with George Washington, Harrison broke with him over the Constitution. He worried that the new federal government would trample state and individual rights. His instincts, rooted in a deep skepticism of unchecked power, remained unchanged from the days when he had opposed British tyranny.
In April 1791, shortly after his sixty-fifth birthday, Harrison died at Berkeley. The cause was likely complications from gout, which had plagued him in his later years. His wife Elizabeth died the following year, and they are buried beside each other at their beloved plantation.
Though his name does not echo as loudly as Washington, Jefferson, or Madison, Benjamin Harrison V was essential to the birth of the United States. His signature on the Declaration is more than a flourish of ink—it is a commitment, a risk, a declaration of principle. And his legacy is not limited to parchment.
He helped forge the new republic not with lofty philosophy but with pragmatic governance, relentless service, and an unshakable belief in liberty. His descendants—William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison—would carry that torch forward into the White House, ensuring the Harrison name a permanent place in the American story.
Berkeley Plantation still stands, a silent witness to centuries of history. It was there that one of America’s first Thanksgivings was held in 1619. It was there that generations of Harrisons lived, led, and died. And it was from there that Benjamin Harrison V walked into the storm of revolution and emerged as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
His legacy is not in statues or soundbites, but in substance. He was a Virginian first, an American always, and a man who gave his life to the cause of liberty. If you have never heard of him, that is only because history tends to favor the flash over the flame. But make no mistake: Benjamin Harrison V helped light the fire.
DAVE DOES HISTORY 
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