Joseph Harrison (144)

Joseph Harrison (25 November 1709–15 January 1787) was a merchant, imperial official, and scientist, and a member of the American Society, elected in 1768. Born into a well-to-do Quaker family in Yorkshire, England, he was apprenticed to a merchant before immigrating to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1739. He managed the affairs of a Newport merchant before forming a partnership with his brother Peter, also an APS member. Elected a freeman in 1745, Harrison helped draft the construction plan for Fort George and served on the Rhode Island-Massachusetts border commission. He was also a founder and director of the Redwood Library Company and produced a sextant that APS member Benjamin West used to observe the Transit of Venus from Providence. In 1760, Harrison returned from a visit to England as collector of customs at New Haven. Finding this position less remunerative than he had hoped, he voyaged to England again in 1764 to seek another post and to petition the government to make Rhode Island a royal colony. The petition was unsuccessful, but his knowledge of colonial affairs proved an asset. Though he was denied the post of surveyor of American customs, he was named assistant to the surveyor’s secretary Edmund Burke. Later that year, Harrison became collector of customs at Boston, where he was involved in an episode significant to the American Revolution. In 1768, he attempted to assert the king’s authority by making an example of one of the city’s wealthiest merchants. But when he seized a ship belonging to John Hancock on charges of smuggling, a mob rose in protest, beating Harrison and damaging his property. He returned to England in 1769, where he occasionally advised the government, continued his mercantile business, and supported the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. (PI)