Difference between revisions of "Georg Harrison"
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On August 29, 1851, Harrison was a delegate at the Cowlitz Convention that drafted a petition to US Congress to create a new territory north of the Columbia River. | On August 29, 1851, Harrison was a delegate at the Cowlitz Convention that drafted a petition to US Congress to create a new territory north of the Columbia River. | ||
By September 11th, 1851, Harrison had | By September 11th, 1851, Harrison had installed a carpentry shop and gunsmith adjacent to his home in partnership with Stefan Schneider. Wishing to facilitate positive relations with the local Salish people, most of the items worked were weapons traded to the local Salish peoples. Though more sophisticated firearms were growing more steadily available, wood was a resource in surplus and Harrison faced criticism from other settlers for arming the potentially hostile Indians, the gesture was received generally received positively by the Duwamish and Suquamish, particularly their Chief, Seattle. This would be the beginning of Harrison's and Seattle's friendly relationship, Harrison formerly converting the latter to Lutheranism. This would also be the start point of Harrison's hobby of wood-carving. | ||
Revision as of 19:56, 14 September 2022
Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Harrison (March 29, 1826 - September 2, 1892) was an American pioneer, politician, businessman, the acknowledged leader of the pioneering Harrison Group, one of the primary founders of Seattle, Washington, and later the city's wealthiest citizen during his lifetime. Seattle's former Harrison Hill was named after him; it was flattened in a series of regrading projects and its former site is now known as the Harrison Regrade. The city's Ferdinand Way is also named after him.
Missouri, Iowa, and the way west
Harrison was born in St. Charles, Missouri into a family of Protestant German-English settlers. Harrison had two older brothers, Karl and Martin, and 4 younger siblings: Manfred, Sigmund, Marlene, and Ilma. Harrison resided in St. Charles for the first six years of his life until his family and numbers of other German residents moved northwards. Harrison's family in addition to numerous other Germans from St. Charles settled in Pella, Iowa. The name "Pella" is a reference to Pella of the Decapolis, where the Christians of Jerusalem had found refuge during the Roman–Jewish war of 70; the name was selected in reference to the encroaching populations of Catholic Irish and German immigrants throughout Missouri.
His father, Diederick Harrison (1799-1858) was a former employee for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in St. Louis, Missouri and served alongside "Ashley's Hundred" during the Arikara War. Returning home from the war, he alongside his family settled in St. Charles where he participated in the state general assembly, elected as a Whig. Diederick's service in the Arikara War as part of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and service in the general assembly would be the root inspiration for Harrison's pioneerism, militarism and political future. During his time in St. Charles, Harrison's father taught him of gunsmithing and later in Pella, Iowa, he learned of carpentry, civil engineering, and logging. In 1848, he married Adelheid Van der Berg and together they had five children: Edith Annelien Harrison, Miriam Diana Weber Harrison, Wilhelm Oskar Harrison, Ludwig Johannes Harrison, and Elisabeth Gretchen Harrison.
His mother, Griselda Sauber, was a novelist, short-story writer, and poet of German-Jewish descent from Cincinnati, Ohio. After marrying Diederick, converted to Protestantism.
Both him and his father having had ambition of travelling westward since 1845, Diederick and Georg assembled the Harrison Group and left Iowa in May 12 1850 and arrived in Portland on September 22 1850. In November, Diederick booked passage on the schooner Burgundy and the group sailed on to the Puget Sound, arriving at Olympic Point at the northernmost extent of Elliot Bay on November 16, 1850. When the terrain of Olympic Point proved unsuitable for long-term settlement, the Harrison Group moved further inland before settling at the southernmost parts of Lake Haahchu, which are now the grounds of Pioneer Square, the original center of gravity for the city of Seattle before it would move southward towards Federal Yard and Bakersville.
Though the initial settlement of the Harrison Group struggled with disease, a second and third wave of settlers, mostly people related to the original group who were unfit for travel for varying reasons, replenished the population of the Haahchu settlement.
Career
On February 26, 1851, Harrison and others filed land claims. Though Harrison and his father were more interested in logging within the region, Harrison's oldest brother Karl and second youngest brother Sigmund established themselves as selling cargo on commission for ship captains.
On August 29, 1851, Harrison was a delegate at the Cowlitz Convention that drafted a petition to US Congress to create a new territory north of the Columbia River.
By September 11th, 1851, Harrison had installed a carpentry shop and gunsmith adjacent to his home in partnership with Stefan Schneider. Wishing to facilitate positive relations with the local Salish people, most of the items worked were weapons traded to the local Salish peoples. Though more sophisticated firearms were growing more steadily available, wood was a resource in surplus and Harrison faced criticism from other settlers for arming the potentially hostile Indians, the gesture was received generally received positively by the Duwamish and Suquamish, particularly their Chief, Seattle. This would be the beginning of Harrison's and Seattle's friendly relationship, Harrison formerly converting the latter to Lutheranism. This would also be the start point of Harrison's hobby of wood-carving.