Diederick Harrison

Diederick Friedrich Harrison (November 11, 1792 - June 12, 1858) was an American mountain man, trapper, Army scout, frontiersman, land speculator, pioneer, politician, entrepreneur, businessman, one of the primary founders of Seattle, Washington, patriarch of the Harrison family, and later one of the city's wealthiest citizens. He was from the Heinrich family of London, England, now anglicized Hanseatic Germans who had been in North America since the early colonial period.

Harrison was part of the second generation of American mountain men and pathfinders who followed the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804 and at the age of 16 began participating in numerous early expeditions into the western interior as well as working as a wilderness guide for European-Americans settling westward. Employed by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, he fought amongst "Ashley's Hundred" in the Arikara War. Struggling to balance his burgeoning family with his mountain man lifestyle, he ceased his association with the Fur Company and settled down in St. Charles, Missouri with his pregnant wife Griselda Harrison née Sauber.