Georg Harrison

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 Harrison and his father had long-standing ambition of settling westward. Diederick and Georg, both not seeing a promising future any longer in Pella assembled the Harrison Group and left Iowa in May 12 1850. The only members of the Harrison family which did not travel westward were Karl, who pursued politics in Chicago, and Griselda, who wished to stay in Pella. The group, accompanied by other pioneers from the greater midwestern U.S, embarked from Kansas City 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 soon would move southward towards Federal Yard and Bakersville (what is currently downtown Seattle today).

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.

Land Claim & Early Career

Harrison (and his wife's) land claim—664 acres (2.69 km²)—was only slightly above the average amount of land for just a married couple. The land claim ran from what is now Westlake Center towards the western border of Madrona. It's northern boundary was E Expansion Street and its southern boundary Hanseatic Boulevard and E Cherry Street.

On February 26, 1851, Harrison and others filed land claims. Harrison's land claim was Though Harrison and his father were more interested in logging within the region, Harrison's second oldest brother Martin and second youngest brother Sigmund established themselves as selling cargo on commission for ship captains. Taking note of the joint-like structure of the Seattle isthmus, Harrison proposed to name the settlement Kniegelenk, German for "knee joint".

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 having employed the help of local Indians and local pastor Stefan Schneider, 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 created were weapons for trade with 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 generally received with positivity by the Duwamish and Suquamish, particularly their Chief; Seattle. This would be the beginning of Harrison's and Seattle's friendly relationship and cooperation in both preventing and diffusing tense situations between American settlers and local Indians. This relationship would lead to Seattle's baptism in the Lutheran Church. Harrison's carpentry shop would also be the start point of his hobby of wood-carving. Though the carpentry building was primarily used to create trading items for the Indians, it also functioned in general service to the public.

Arrival of the Denny Party and Establishment of New York Alki

In March of 1852, Arthur Denny, having had explored the Puget Sound region alongside other members of the Denny Party for a new site to settle upon, had unknowingly encroached onto Diederick's land claim of Kniegelenk. Meeting, Diederick, their encounter escalated into an armed confrontation; Diederick threatening Denny to leave at gun point. The confrontation only de-escalated after Travis Newton, a local storeowner, arrived to the scene. Still suspicious of Denny, Diederick accompanied by Newton marched Denny north towards Lake Haachu, the site of the only courthouse within the region. Though Denny was not put on trial for any criminal violation, Georg, Leon Müller, and Sascha Frink, the only men at the courthouse at the time, all agreed that Denny should be escorted back to his original settlement. Bitter over Denny's lack of punishment [and believing that Denny was simply a bandit] and Sascha, who had general uninterest in the scenario, left Georg and Leon to take Denny back to Alki Point. Though both Georg and Leon were accommodating to Denny's grievances, they were also steadfast in taking him back to diffuse any potential future conflict. Arriving at the Alki Point settlement by the end of the day, Harrison and Müller both saw the decaying state of it in thanks to the recent winter. Believing that migrating settlers would ignite cultural conflict and worsen the consequences of that same day's encounter, Harrison offered to trade crop and timber to the settlement in agreement to not step onto the land of the Kniegelenk settlement. Kniegelenk wasn't in the position to trade significant amounts of timber, most of it mutually reserved for commerce, but the settlement did have a minor excess of crop.