Benjamin Harrison V (April 5, 1726 – April 24, 1791) was an American planter, merchant, and politician who was a Founding Father of the United States. He served as a delegate to the United States Continental Congress, and was a signer of the Continental Association and the Declaration of Independence. He also served as Virginia's governor (1781–1784), affirming a tradition of public service in the Harrison family.
Benjamin was born at the family homestead, Berkeley Plantation, where in 1619 there was established one of the first annual observances of a day of Thanksgiving. It is also the location where the Army bugle call of "Taps" was written and first played in 1862. Benjamin served an aggregate of three decades in the Virginia House of Burgesses, alternately representing Surry County and Charles City County. He was among the early patriots to formally protest measures that King George III and the British Parliament imposed upon the American colonies, leading to the American Revolution. Although a slaveholder, Harrison joined a 1772 petition to the king, requesting that he abolish the slave trade.
As a delegate to the Continental Congress and chair of its Committee of the Whole, Harrison attended and presided over the final debate of the Declaration of Independence. He was one of its signers in 1776. The Declaration included a foundational philosophy of the United States: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Harrison was elected as Virginia's fifth governor; his administration was marked by its futile struggle with a state treasury decimated by the Revolutionary War. He later returned to the Virginia House for two final terms. In rare disagreement with his traditional ally George Washington, Harrison in 1788 cast one of his last votes, opposing ratification of the nation's Constitution for its lack of a bill of rights. He left two descendants who became United States presidents—son William Henry Harrison and great-grandson Benjamin Harrison.
Harrison was born April 5, 1726, in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the eldest son and 3rd oldest of ten children of Benjamin Harrison IV (1693–1745) and Anne Carter (1702–1743); Anne was a daughter of Robert Carter I. Benjamin Harrison I (1594–1648) arrived in the colonies around 1630 and by 1633 began a family tradition of public service when he was recorded as clerk of the Virginia Governor's Council.
Benjamin Harrison II (1645–1712) and Benjamin Harrison III (1673–1710) followed this example, serving as delegates in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Benjamin IV and his wife Anne built the family's manor house at Berkeley Plantation; he served as a justice of the peace and represented Charles City County in the Virginia House of Burgesses. (Biographer Clifford Dowdey notes that the family did not employ the roman numeral suffixes, which historians have assigned for clarity.)
Benjamin V, was described in his youth as "tall and powerfully built", with "features that were clearly defined, with a well-shaped mouth above a strong pointed chin." He spent a year or two at the College of William & Mary. His brother Carter Henry (1736–1793) became a leader in Cumberland County. Brother Nathaniel (1742–1782) was elected to the House of Burgesses, then to the Virginia Senate. Brother Henry (1736–1772) fought in the French and Indian War and later established Hunting Quarter Plantation in Sussex County, brother Charles (1740–1793) became a brigadier general in the Continental Army.
Harrison's father, at age 51 and with a child in hand, was struck by lightning as he shut an upstairs window during a storm on July 12, 1745; he and his daughter Hannah were killed. Benjamin V inherited the bulk of his father's estate, including Berkeley and several surrounding plantations, as well as thousands of acres extending to Surry County and the falls of the James River. Also among his holdings was a fishery on the river and a grist mill in Henrico County. He also assumed ownership and responsibility for the manor house's equipment, stock, and numerous enslaved people. His siblings inherited another six plantations, possessions, and enslaved people, as the father chose to depart from the tradition of leaving the entire estate to the eldest son.
Harrison and his ancestors enslaved as many as 80 to 100 people. Harrison's father was adamant about not breaking up slave families in the distribution of his estate. As with all planters, the Harrisons sustained enslaved people on their plantations. Nevertheless, the enslaved people's status was involuntary, and according to Dowdey, "among the worst aspects of their slaveholding is the assumption 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." Benjamin Harrison V owned mulattoes, though no record has been revealed as to their parentage. Dowdey portrays the Harrisons' further incongruity, saying the enslaved people in some ways "were respected as families, and there developed a sense of duty about indoctrinating them in Christianity, though other slaveholders had reservations about baptizing children who were considered property."
In 1748, Harrison married Elizabeth Bassett (1730–1792) of New Kent County; she was the daughter of Colonel William Bassett (1709–1744) and Elizabeth Churchill (1709–1779), daughter of burgess William Churchill (1649–1710). Harrison and his wife had eight children during their 43-year marriage. Among them was eldest daughter Lucy Bassett (1749–1809), who married Peyton Randolph (1738–1784). Another daughter, Anne Bassett (1753–1821), married David Coupland (1749–1822). The eldest son was Benjamin Harrison VI (1755–1799), a briefly successful merchant who served in the Virginia House of Delegates but who died a self-indulgent, troubled, young widower. Another was Carter Bassett Harrison (c. 1756–1808), who served in the Virginia House of Delegates and the U.S. House of Representatives. The other children were Elizabeth Harrison (1751–1791), who married physician William Rickman (c. 1731–1783) and Sarah Harrison (1770–1812), who married John Minge (1771–1829).
The youngest child was General William Henry Harrison (1773–1841), who became a congressional delegate for the Northwest Territory and also was governor of the Indiana Territory. In the 1840 United States presidential election, William Henry defeated incumbent Martin Van Buren but fell ill and died just one month into his presidency. Vice President John Tyler, a fellow Virginian and Berkeley neighbor succeeded him. William Henry's grandson, Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901), was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Benjamin served in the U.S. Senate and was elected president in 1888 after defeating incumbent Grover Cleveland.
According to one researcher, in 1749, Harrison first took his father's path in being elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, initially for Surry County, and notes that Harrison was not of legal age to assume his burgesses seat until 1752. Either he or a relative succeeded the deceased Edward Broadnax as Charles City County's representative in the House of Burgesses in 1748 and won each election at least until 1769. Researchers agree that this man and William Acrill continually won re-election and represented Charles City County in the House of Burgesses from 1769 until Virginia's last colonial governor ended that assembly in 1776. Then Charles City County voters elected Harrison and Acrill to the first two Revolutionary Conventions, and Acrill with this man and his son Benjamin Harrison VI as alternates to the third and fourth convention, and Acrill with Samuel Harwood and this man as alternates to the fifth convention. Harrison, Acrill and Samuel Harwood then jointly represented Charles City County in the new Virginia House of Delegates at its inaugural session, then Acrill and Harrison, then John Tyler joined Harrison as Charles City County's other legislator beginning in 1778 until 1781. When fellow legislators elected Harrison Virginia's governor, he was replaced as delegate by William Green Munford. At the end of his gubernatorial term (he was ineligible for re-election), Harrison was briefly elected from Surry County across the James River, where he moved and which he represented for a term alongside his son Carter Bassett Harrison, and fellow delegates also elected him as their Speaker. Harrison then returned to Charles City County, and voters elected him as one of their representatives until his death (he died before taking his seat in the fall 1791 session).