Carter Bassett Harrison

Carter Bassett Harrison (c. 1756 – April 18, 1808) was an attorney, planter, and politician from the U.S. state of Virginia who served three terms in the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party representing Virginia. He was born around 1756 at Berkeley Plantation, also known as Harrison’s Landing, in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the second surviving son of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth Bassett Harrison, both of whom were members of the First Families of Virginia. His father, a prominent planter and politician, signed the Declaration of Independence, served in the Continental Congress, became speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Charles City County, and later served as governor of Virginia at the close of the American Revolutionary War. Through his mother, Harrison was the grandson of Colonel William Bassett and Elizabeth Churchill, and a great-grandson of burgess William Churchill (1649–1710), all of whom were influential colonial planters who exercised political and social power and operated large plantations worked by enslaved labor. His given names honored his paternal grandmother’s father, Robert “King” Carter I, one of the wealthiest and most powerful Virginians of the early eighteenth century.

Harrison grew up in a large and politically connected family. He was the middle of three sons and had four sisters, three of them older. His elder brother, Benjamin Harrison VI (1755–1799), trained as a merchant in Philadelphia with the firm of Willing and Morris, traveled in Europe, and returned to serve as Deputy Paymaster of the Continental Army; he later, like Carter, served in the Virginia House of Delegates, though family accounts describe him as troubled and self-indulgent after the death of his wife. Their youngest brother, William Henry Harrison (1773–1841), born shortly before the Revolutionary War, became one of the most distinguished members of the family, serving as congressional delegate for the Northwest Territory, governor of the Indiana Territory, and ultimately President of the United States, though he died about a month after taking office in 1841. Among Carter Bassett Harrison’s sisters, Lucy Bassett Harrison (1749–1809) married Peyton Randolph Jr., son and namesake of the prominent Virginia statesman and founding father Peyton Randolph (1738–1784). Because of the family’s financial difficulties after the Revolutionary War, his other sisters married outside the traditional circle of the First Families of Virginia: Elizabeth Harrison (1751–1791) married physician William Rickman (c. 1731–1783); Anne Bassett Harrison (1753–1821) married David Coupland (1749–1822); and Sarah Harrison (1770–1812) married John Minge (1770–1829). His extended kin network included several other influential officeholders, including his uncle Carter Henry Harrison I (1736–1793), who served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Cumberland County, and later descendants who became prominent politicians, including mayors of Chicago. His own grandnephew, Benjamin Harrison, would become the 23rd President of the United States.

In keeping with his family’s status, Harrison received a private education suitable to the Virginia gentry. He later attended the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, one of the principal institutions of higher learning in colonial and early national America. Like many young men of his generation and class, he interrupted his formal studies to join the American army during the Revolutionary War. After the conflict ended, he read law, was admitted to the Virginia bar, and established himself as an attorney. He combined his legal practice with the management of plantation property, continuing the family’s longstanding involvement in agriculture along the James River. One surviving letter from his legal work documents his representation of William Short, a prominent Virginian who had served as Thomas Jefferson’s private secretary and as a diplomat.

Harrison’s political career developed within this environment of legal practice and plantation management. He continued his family’s tradition of public service by entering state politics and representing Surry County in the Virginia House of Delegates. He first won election to the House of Delegates in 1784, serving alongside veteran legislator John Allen. He was subsequently re-elected and, in a notable instance of family collaboration, served in the House of Delegates at the same time as his father, Benjamin Harrison V, before both were replaced by John Allen and Lemuel Cocke. While Allen continued to represent Surry County for several years alongside various colleagues, Harrison turned his attention to national politics. In 1792 he successfully ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

As a member of the Republican Party representing Virginia, Harrison served in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Congresses, holding office from March 4, 1793, to March 3, 1799. His service in Congress occurred during a formative period in the early republic, when the new federal government was still defining its powers and institutions and partisan divisions between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were taking shape. As a Republican, he participated in the legislative process during debates over issues such as federal fiscal policy, the scope of executive authority, and the nation’s response to European conflicts. In these three terms, he represented the interests of his Virginia constituents while contributing to the development of the young nation’s political system. After leaving Congress in 1799, he returned to Virginia and resumed his legal and agricultural pursuits.

Harrison later re-entered state politics and again served in the Virginia House of Delegates. By 1800 he had moved from Surry County to Prince George County, settling at “Maycox,” a plantation along the James River. In 1805 he was elected to the House of Delegates from Prince George County, this time serving alongside his brother Benjamin Harrison and his nephew Benjamin Harrison Jr. The three Harrisons were re-elected and continued to represent Prince George County until 1808, when they were succeeded by Charles Gee and Allen Temple. Through these terms in the House of Delegates, Harrison remained engaged in state governance and maintained the Harrison family’s longstanding influence in Virginia politics.

Harrison’s personal life reflected his ties to other leading Virginia families. In 1787, in Surry County, he married Mary Howell Allen, daughter of William Allen of “Claremont,” another prominent James River plantation. The couple resided in Surry County and had three children: two sons, William Allen Harrison and Benjamin Carter Harrison, and a daughter, Anna Carter Harrison, who later married into the Adams family and was known as Anna Carter (Harrison) Adams. After Mary Howell Allen Harrison’s death, Harrison remarried. His second wife was Jane Byrd, daughter of Colonel William Byrd II of Westover Plantation, one of the most notable estates on the James River. There were no children from this second marriage. Through these alliances, Harrison was connected not only to the Harrison and Bassett families but also to the Allen and Byrd families, further intertwining him with Virginia’s political and planter elite.

Carter Bassett Harrison died in Prince George County, Virginia, on April 18, 1808, while still an active figure in state politics. He was survived by his widow, Jane Byrd Harrison, who died around 1813. Although the exact location of his grave has been lost, contemporary accounts and family tradition suggest that he was probably buried at his plantation, “Maycox,” in Prince George County. His life and career illustrate the role of Virginia’s interconnected planter families in shaping both state and national politics in the Revolutionary and early national periods, and his lineage extended into the highest office of the United States through his grandnephew, President Benjamin Harrison.