Jesse Burton Harrison

Jesse Burton Harrison (1805–1841) was an American anti-slavery lawyer and author.

Early life

Jesse Burton Harrison was born in 1805 in Lynchburg, Virginia. His father, Samuel Jordan Harrison (1771–1846), was a well-to-do tobacco merchant. Jesse was educated at Hampden–Sydney College and later at the Harvard Law School.

Career

Harrison delivered a series of literary addresses[1] and then, in the late 1820s, began publicly supporting anti-slavery thought. He published an appeal on behalf of the American Colonization Society in 1827. Most importantly, he wrote a response to Thomas Roderick Dew's proslavery essay, Review of the Debates in the Virginia Legislature, 1831-2.[1]

He later moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. His wife was the former Frances Anne Brand (d. 1884).

Death and legacy

Harrison died of yellow fever in 1841 in New Orleans.

He was the father of Burton Harrison, a Confederate official and lawyer, and the grandfather of Fairfax Harrison and Francis Burton Harrison.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Harrison, Jesse Burton; Harrison, Burton Norvell (1910). Fairfax Harrison, ed. Aris sonis focisque : being a memoir of an American family, the Harrisons of Skimino and particularly of Jesse Burton Harrison and Burton Norvell Harrison.
  2. ↑ "All Clever Men, Who Make Their Way: Critical Discourse in the Old South".
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