Constance Cary Harrison

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Constance Cary Harrison (April 25, 1843-November 21, 1920), was an American writer. She was also known as Constance Cary, Constance C. Harrison, and Mrs. Burton Harrison.

Constance Cary was born into an aristocratic family in Vaucluse, Virginia. She lived in Richmond, Virginia during the American Civil War and moved in the same set as Varina Davis, Mary Boykin Chesnut, and Virginia Clay-Clopton. She met and was courted by Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s private secretary, Burton Harrison (1838- 1904); they were married in 1867.

The year before, Burton Harrison had settled in New York City and she joined him there. He held various public offices and she wrote and was active in the city’s social scene. Among her other contributions to Americana, Constance Cary Harrison persuaded her friend Emma Lazarus to donate a poem to the fundraising effort to pay for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.

Constance Cary Harrison died in Washington, DC.

[edit] Works

The works of Constance Cary Harrison include:

Anglomaniacs, The - 1899
Bachelor Maid, A - 1894
Belhaven Tales; Crow’s Nest; Una; and King David - 1892
Bric-a-Brac Stories - 1885
Carlyles: A Study of the Fall of the Confederacy, The - 1905
Circle of a Century, The
Count and the Congressman, The - 1908
Daughter of the South and Shorter Stories, A - 1892
Edelweis of the Sierras; Golden-Rod, and Other Tales - 1892
Errant Wooing, An - 1895
Flower de Hundred - 1890
Golden-Rod - 1880
Good Americans
Latter-Day Sweethearts - 1906
Little Centennial Lady, A - 1876
Merry Maid of Arcady, The
Old-Fashioned Fairy Book - 1884
Princess of the Hills, A - 1901
Recollections Grave and Gay - 1911
Russian Honeymoon, A - 1883
Story of Helen of Troy, The - 1881
Sweet Bells out of Tune - 1893
Sylvia’s Husband - 1904
Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch, The
A Virginia Cousin and Bar Harbor Tales - 1895
Well-Bred Girl in Society, The
Woman's Handiwork in Modern Homes - 1881

[edit] Trivia

In September, 1861, Constance Cary and her cousins, Hettie Cary and Jennie Cary, sewed the first examples of the Confederate Battle Flag following a design created by William Porcher Miles and modified by General Joseph E. Johnston.

Noted actress Minnie Maddern Fiske appeared in the 1901 production of Harrison’s play The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch.

Constance Cary and Burton Harrison were the parents of Francis Burton Harrison (1873-1957), who served as a Governor-General of the Philippines.
In the 1880s. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison commissioned Arthur Rotch of the architectural firm, Rotch & Tilden, to build a seaside "cottage" called "Sea Urchins" at Bar Harbor, Maine. This property is now owned by the College of the Atlantic. Sea Urchins was the center of hospitality during the "Gilded Age" in Bar Harbor and she entertained many noted visitors there, including friend and neighbor, James G. Blaine.