Appendix E: Biographies

Harrison

Joseph Harrison Jr. (Philadelphia 20 September 1810 – Philadelphia 27 March 1874; see Image 226) was one of the ten children of Joseph Harrison Sr., a grocer (nr. Gloucester Point, New Jersey 25 November 1778 – Philadelphia 6 December 1858) and Mary (Crawford) Harrison (16 January 1783 – 12 April 1842). He received “what he called ‘a fair English education’” until the age of fifteen. “The desire for intellectual enrichment was instilled in him early, and he later wrote that throughout his life he ‘read every book I could get,’ adding ‘the first piece of furniture I ever bought was a bookcase’.” He was “fourteen when his father’s grocery business failed, and he was forced to begin working.”1

He was apprenticed to become a mechanic. His first two employers, between 1825 and 1830, were Frederick D. Sanno, whose company failed, and Hyde and Flint, where, before he reached the age of twenty, he “was made foreman of part of this establishment, with thirty men under him.”2 He had learned to build stationary steam engines, “but his first experience with steam railway locomotives came only in 1834–1835 when he worked for [William] Norris,”3 who had “formed the American Steam Carriage Company in Philadelphia.”4 “In 1835 [he] was engaged as a foreman by the Philadelphia firm of Philip Garrett and Andrew Eastwick and commissioned to build the firm’s first steam locomotive,”5 which he did successfully. “In 1837 he was made a partner in the firm.”6 On Garrett’s retirement in 1839, the firm “was reorganized as Eastwick and Harrison”7 (see Eastwick in this Appendix).

In character, Harrison has been described as “an impatient man, sensitive to public opinion and concerned about his image and the public’s perception of him,” “accustomed to getting his own way, and when he did not, he took his business elsewhere.” He “proved to be as gifted a businessman as he was an engineer.” He was “a supremely confident and proud man,” with “a flair for self-promotion” and “a sense of his own historical position.” These last two traits have been pointed out as “mark[ing] all of [his] professional activities,” including art collecting. His motivation has been described as having as its goal improvement, for himself and others. His art collection was not “a statement of the cultural values of his age,” but a “pictorial autobiography.” Portraits of him have been described as revealing “a robust figure, a stern and formidable presence, with a dark beard and deeply set, dark, penetrating eyes.”8

Early in 1843, through letters from Major Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21) and Pavel Petrovich Mel’nikov (see Image 247), the Russian engineer who had been in America to study locomotive building, Harrison was invited by the Russian government to come to Russia to bid for the contract to build the locomotives for the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway.9 He met en route Thomas DeKay Winans (see Image 229), who was delivering his father’s firm’s model locomotive to Russia to compete with that of an English firm. Although Winans had not been invited by the Russian government to bid for the contract to build the locomotives, Harrison, on his own initiative, invited him “to participate … in the negotiations.”10 They were awarded the contract, for some three million dollars, which they “signed on December 27, 1843 / January 8, 1844.”11 The partnership was now called Harrison, Winans and Eastwick. Andrew McCalla Eastwick (see Image 233) closed down Eastwick and Harrison in America entirely, and in 1844 followed Harrison to Russia.

With Eastwick’s arrival in Russia, Harrison’s character traits led to friction between the two men. Harrison complained that Eastwick “behaved in a ‘distasteful’, ‘intolerable’ and ‘outrageous’ manner” toward him.12 In part, “since in America [Eastwick] had been the senior partner in the firm of Eastwick and Harrison” and had “helped to launch Harrison’s career,” he “may have resented Harrison’s attitude” and his own reversed role in Russia as simply “the manager of the firm’s office.”13 “Harrison in his correspondence often projected the impression that he wished to be the leading person in the firm and certainly never underestimated his own worth and importance.”14 He later “sometimes acted in a high-handed and overbearing manner toward [William Lewis] Winans”15 (see Image 232). There were also difficulties between Harrison and R.G. Fairbanks.16 The difficulties in the relationship between Harrison and Eastwick have been taken up in detail in the biography of the Eastwick family in this Appendix. The upshot of this complicated situation is that all three partners agreed to leave the decision-making to William Lewis Winans when their six-year contract was up, and left Russia. Eastwick left in 1849 and returned to wind up the firm’s affairs in 1850, leaving there permanently for home in October of that year. Thomas DeKay Winans left Russia for the United States in September 1850. Harrison returned to the United States in December 1852, after spending “1851–52, in England and travelling on the Continent.”17

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Like his two colleagues, Harrison became very rich. “By 1846, only three years into the project, [he] was sending $5,000 to Philadelphia every month … to his father-in-law, … to purchase undeveloped real estate in Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey.”18

While living in Russia, Harrison also became interested in art. The first reference to what was to become a life-long passion, and lead to his patronage of art and his desire to build a museum for Philadelphia to house his art collection, appears in Anna Whistler’s diaries. She refers to the fact that she, Whistler, and Debo (see Images 17–19, 21) met the Harrisons at the exhibit of Aivazovskii’s paintings at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in March 1847 (see 178–182).19

Harrison’s art collection possibly began in St. Petersburg.20 “The catalogues of his collection include Winter Travelling in Russia and Russian Wolf Hunt by Cornelius Krieghoff (1815–1872); Winter Travelling in Russia (in a Kibitka) and Summer Travelling in Russia (in a Telega), a pair of pictures by Nikolai Egorovich Sverchkov (1817–1898); View of the City of Baku, on the Caspian Sea by Paul von Franken (1818–1884); and works by unidentified artists: A Russian Courier; two Russian religious pictures; two portraits of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, son of Nicholas I; a portrait of another Grand Duke; a portrait of Tsar Alexander II; a portrait of Nicholas I after Krüger; a bust of Nicholas I; two engraved portraits of Catherine the Great; an engraved portrait of Alexander of Russia; an engraved portrait of Nicholas I; an engraved portrait of “Empress of Russia”; two lithographs of the Imperial Russian Guard; a photograph of Count Kleinmikhel’; and two photographs of a Russian scene.21

As an avid reader, Harrison could now, with the income he was earning, afford to support this other passion of his. His letters and bills from the Russian period show that he purchased many books on a variety of subjects, including art, literature, biography, history, travel, voyages, explorations, and memoirs.22

From 1850, when the family left Russia, through 1852, they traveled throughout Europe. Then the children were “enrolled in school in London,” and the parents “toured the Continent, studying art and developing an interest in forming an art collection,” the “first major acquisitions [of which] were made in London at this time.”23 The entire family was in Paris in 1851 “during the uprising that resulted in the accession of Louis Napoleon as Emperor Napoleon III.”24 Harrison was acquainted with the American ethnographer and painter, George Catlin (1796–1872), who “had helped him acquire Benjamin West’s … William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (1772)” for his Philadelphia mansion.25 Catlin had tried unsuccessfully to sell his entire collection to the United States, but his proposal was rejected by Congress. In 1852, when it was about to be dispersed through sale in England, Harrison “offered to pay off [Catlin’s] debts in return for taking over his original collection of oil paintings and artifacts as security.”26 He paid $20,00027 and “shipped the greater part of Catlin’s Indian Gallery to … Philadelphia where it was placed in dead storage on the grounds of his boiler works … Catlin never did redeem it, but after both his and Harrison’s death, the great collection was given to the Smithsonian Institution by [Sarah (Poulterer) Harrison; see Image 227].”28 In the spring of 1852, the Harrisons returned to Philadelphia. One of the buyers of the Meade Collection of paintings by Spanish Masters, sold in Philadelphia in 1853, “was apparently Joseph Harrison.”29 In August 1854, Harrison was elected a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.30 In October 1854, he bought art works at the auction of Charles Wilson Peale’s Museum. In April 1855, he accepted election to the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a position he held for the next fifteen years. In 1855, he also tried unsuccessfully to rescue “the moribund Philadelphia Art Union” financially. In 1864, he “organized the mammoth art exhibition” of the Great Central Fair, a national war relief effort “organized by the United States Sanitary Commission, … predecessor to the American Red Cross, [which] provided hospital care for wounded Union soldiers.” During the fair, he also opened his own home “for public viewing.”

Like Eastwick and Winans, on returning to the United States in the early 1850s, Harrison set about building a mansion. By 1855, he had found the property he wanted in Rittenhouse Square. He “purchased almost an entire block on the east side of [the Square] … an undeveloped, low-lying lot that was often flooded,” but in which he could see possibilities, having lived in St. Petersburg, Paris, and London. Samuel Sloan (1815–1894), who had designed the Eastwick residence, was chosen as architect. The three-story Italianate (so called by Sloan) mansion was completed in 1857 and was “popularly and romantically thought to have been inspired by a St. Petersburg palace.” However, the primary influence on it was described by an architect as English, because, while living in London, Harrison could have observed “city residences facing squares.” It was clear that the house was built not for seclusion but for entertainment. Its “most distinctive features … were the flanking wings,” of which the “north wing housed Harrison’s library [and] the south, the art gallery.” When Harrison died, “it was remarked that ‘The galleries of painting and sculpture in this house are the best to be found in any private house in the country’.”31 He also had Sloan design and build him a three-story country estate modeled after the Russian dacha, which he called Riversdale. It “was located ten miles north of Philadelphia on the Delaware River in Bucks County”; however, Harrison “spent little time there, and … sold [it] in the 1860s.”32

From 1860 to 1863, the Harrisons and their youngest children were again living in Europe, where they traveled widely and Harrison “devoted himself to the appreciation of art.” He had become frustrated with the business world of Philadelphia, which suspected his motives in preparing a plan “for a single, centralized rail terminal.” He wished also to “escape the ravages of the Civil War,” fearing “for the safety of his property.” After the Battle of Gettysburg, they returned home, but Harrison also had “a new business venture” in mind: the design of “a safe steam boiler that would not explode.” He had tried out his idea in Manchester, England, and his design had “won the highest award at the 1862 London International Exhibition for its originality and merit.” “In 1863 … he funded the Harrison Boiler Works at the location on Gray’s Ferry Road next to the US Arsenal which had been the site of (the former) Eastwick and Harrison locomotive works.” “Since at least 1857, [he] had been among the city’s few millionaires.” “By 1864, he was one of only twelve Philadelphians with annual incomes over one hundred thousand dollars.” The steam boiler he had designed made him even richer. His achievement resulted also in his election to membership in the American Philosophical Society on 15 July 1864.33 “In 1867, he was appointed to the fine arts selection committee of American art to be exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle.”34 In 1869, Harrison was confirmed in the Episcopalian Church.35

“Harrison’s greatest efforts as a patron were consumed by his relationship with … the long-established, tradition-laden Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the then fledgling Fairmount Park Commission, from which would eventually emerge the Philadelphia Museum of Art … [to both of which] he … [gave] time, energy, ideas – and money.” As a result of controversy over the new site for the Academy, Harrison resigned from its board in 1870. In that same year, he was “appointed one of the ten original commissioners of Fairmont Park.” Because of complications with this project as well, in his will he “left his entire collection to his wife.” He died on 27 March 1874 (of kidney disease). Sarah (Poulterer) Harrison, in two bequests to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (in 1878 and 1912), gave it “some of the most magnificent paintings in its collection.” Ultimately, however, the capital needed for her financial bequests caused the collection to have to be sold and dispersed. Joseph Harrison Jr.’s wish for his intact collection to be left to a free Philadelphia public museum was not realized.36

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Joseph Harrison Jr. married on 15 December 1836 Sarah Poulterer (b. Portsmouth, Hampshire 21 September 1817; bap. Portsea, Hampshire 30 November 1817; d. 21 July 1906; see Image 227). She was the daughter of Stephen Poulterer, an auctioneer (c. 1788 – buried Philadelphia 21 January 1867) and Sarah (Rapson) Poulterer (b. England 1785 or 1786), who were married on 3 March 1817 at Alverstoke, Hampshire, England. Her parents emigrated to America in 1819. Her siblings were: William (b. 7 March 1814; bap. Portsea, Hampshire, England 22 May 1814; d. 11 December 1877); Ann (b. 1816); Jane (born England c. 1823); Stephen (b. Pennsylvania c. 1825); Edwin F. (Philadelphia 3 December 1829 – Philadelphia 17 October 1911); Thomas (27 June 1832 – 10 August 1890).

The Harrisons had two children at the time of their going to Russia: William Henry (Philadelphia 23 December 1837 – 10 March 1886) and Annie (Philadelphia 25 December 1839 – Lower Merion, PA 5 January 1915). Once Harrison and Winans signed the contract with the Russian government, Sarah Harrison set about obtaining a passport. She was issued a U.S. passport (no. 1886) in Washington, DC, on 22 March 1844, which was sent to Andrew McCalla Eastwick. She was described as “Age 26, Stature 5o/4, Forehead Medium, Eyes Dark Hazel, Nose Grecian, Mouth Full, Chin Round, Hair Dark Brown, Complexion Dark, Face Oval.”37 She, Henry, and Annie journeyed to England under the care of Andrew McCalla Eastwick, who, in London, entrusted them to Joseph Harrison Jr.38 Once in Russia, they lived in a house at the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works, where they occupied the second floor, and Andrew McCalla Eastwick and his eldest son, Edward Peers (see Image 235), occupied the first floor (see 239–240). In Russia, three more children were born: Alicia McNeill (Alexandrofsky 31 August / 12 September 1845 – Lower Merion, PA 24 September 1913), named for Anna Whistler’s half-sister, Alicia Margaret Caroline McNeill, who was then in St. Petersburg; Marie Olga (born 5/17 September 1847; bap. 1/13 December 1847; d. Lower Merion, PA 22 February 1912), named for the surviving daughters of Nicholas I (see Images 420–423); and Theodore Leland (b. 27 August / 8 September 1849; bap. 12/24 December 1849; d. Radnor, Rosemont, PA 5 December 1933), named for the deceased husband of Joseph Harrison Jr’s sister, Maria Isabella (Harrison) Leland (1825 – 17 July 1905), who was then visiting the Harrisons.39 The last Harrison child, born in Philadelphia, was Clara Elizabeth (1 April 1855 – Bryn Mawr, PA 27 January 1940), who became Mrs. Theodore Durant upon marriage.

The Harrison children who figure prominently in Anna Whistler’s diaries are William Henry (called Henry), Annie, and Alicia McNeill. Henry was seven years old when he came to Russia. He attended Monsieur Jourdan’s School along with James and Willie in the fall of 1846.

Henry seemed normal in the diaries, but was apparently increasingly unstable mentally as he grew older. An inkling of difficulties was given by Andrew McCalla Eastwick, who wrote to his son, Edward Peers, in Germany in 1847 that “Henry does not improve much. He is as great a calf as ever. I understand they are going to get a governor for him.”40 The Whistler’s former governess became Henry’s governess in early 1848.41 In early September 1848, Henry was reported to be boarding at Mr. Hirst’s school while his parents were spending six weeks in Germany.42 Andrew McCalla Eastwick’s response to this news was: “I trust it will be to his advantage.”43

Henry continued to be a problem. Anna Whistler described him thus in 1858: “Henry went to St P after his Xmas at home, no doubt in French a word would describe him. I hope he may not disappoint this fresh effort of his fathers to induce him to become useful to the firm in Russia. I never met with any youth as lacking in refinement of taste, his prospect of fortune must have blighted him.”44

On 22 April 1859, Henry married Mary Rebecca Orne (c. 1840 – 12 October 1894), daughter of James H. and Sally B. Orne of Philadelphia. His wife’s father was a carpet dealer. They had a son, William Henry Harrison Jr. (12 January 1860 – 2 November 1932).45 James McNeill Whistler painted a portrait of Henry in 1859 (whereabouts unknown), as did artist and poet Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872) (whereabouts unknown).46

“In the 1860s, Harrison left … William Henry in charge of [Riversdale] and attendant farms. Henry … was mentally unstable, spent irresponsibly, and, being ‘under the thumb’ of the ‘bad’ family into which he had married, was ‘not man enough to assert his independence’ (Harrison to Charles E. Lex, August 16, 1862, Letterbook VI). Riversdale became so associated with Henry’s illness and his in-laws’ greed that Harrison considered it an annoyance and ordered it sold so that Henry’s wife’s family could not use the property. In the spring of 1863, Henry and his wife joined the Harrisons in Europe, but the trip did not have the desired effect upon his mental health, and in December 1863 Henry was committed to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane … Harrison provided generously in his will for both Henry and his son, William Henry Jr.”47

Annie Harrison was five years old when she came to Russia in 1844. In 1846, 1847, and 1848, she suffered epileptic fits.48 She married on 14 October 1858 in Philadelphia Lewellyn Fite Barry (1826–1914).49

Alicia McNeill Harrison was Anna Whistler’s goddaughter. She was left with her godmother when Joseph and Sarah (Poulterer) Harrison took a six-week trip in Western Europe in 1846. Her married name was Mrs. William F. Eisenbrey.

For Marie Olga, nothing is recorded by Anna Whistler. She married Thadeus Norris Jr., of the Norris family of (former) locomotive designers.50

Joseph Harrison’s youngest sister, Maria Isabella (Harrison) Leland (Philadelphia 1825 – Buffalo, NY 1905), also appears in the diaries. At one point, Anna Whistler refers to her as “Aunty Maria.” She married in October 1846 Theodore Leland. Her husband suffered from ill health and shortly after their marriage was sent alone to New Orleans to be restored, but the sixty-day sea voyage resulted in his death ten days after arriving in New Orleans. Mrs. Leland arrived in Russia on Sunday, 3/15 August 1847. She acted as godmother to Joseph and Sarah (Poulterer) Harrison’s daughter Maria Olga, born on 5/7 September 1847 and baptized on 1/13 December 1847. In 1853, she married, as her second husband, Nathan Roberts Suplee. She outlived him and died in Buffalo, New York, on 17 July 1905.51

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The Harrisons and the Whistlers were close friends while in Russia. James and Willie Whistler (see Images 24–30) and William Henry Harrison visited back and forth between St. Petersburg and the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works (see 223–225). The night Whistler died, Willie was staying overnight with “Henry.” The three boys attended Monsieur Jourdan’s school in the fall of 1846. Harrison was deeply attached to Major Whistler. When the latter died, Harrison was the only other person present besides Anna Whistler, until the moment when he, too, had to leave the deathbed chamber to husband and wife alone.52 Harrison wrote to his father, his father-in-law, his sister Elizabeth, George William Whistler, and Captain William H. Swift, that he had lost the best friend he had ever had outside his own family and “one whom [he] looked to for advice in all things,” and that Whistler had been loved by everyone.53 He commissioned a death mask (whereabouts unknown).54 When Anna Whistler gave up their apartment, she and Willie moved to the Mirrielees home (see Images 268–269) for a week and then on 7 May to the Harrisons, until she and Willie departed St. Petersburg with the Eastwicks.55 Harrison was “entrusted … with all the arrangements that are needed in this melancholy matter.”56 He undertook “all the expenses and toil of boxing those articles of furniture valuable from fond associations of home here –.”57 His tie to Whistler prompted him to make an extremely generous offer (not accepted by Anna Whistler) of ten thousand dollars to help young George William Whistler (see Images 12–13) establish himself.58

Harrison also reacted very positively to Anna Whistler. Writing to his family in Philadelphia after her departure for America in 1849, he said: “You will find her a very good and pious woman. – without any form or ceremony …”59 “very kind in her manners, and one whom you will like from the first moment of seeing her … You may recollect that we left Alicia with Mrs. Whistler, when I went to England to bring Sarah home in 1846 … their house seemed like home for all of us.”60

Nevertheless, even in Russia the two families’ lifestyles differed according to their income. In comparison to Anna Whistler, who gave her sons a modest birthday party, the Harrisons gave their children a lavish one. Henry and Annie, who were born on the 23rd and 25th December, respectively, celebrated a joint birthday on December 24th. The party in 1847 was described by Andrew McCalla Eastwick: “There is to be a big time upstairs today celebrating Henry and Annie’s birthdays. All our little ones, as well as some 30 or 40 more big and little, I understand are invited to take dinner and cut capers in the afternoon and evening.”61 Once back in the United States, the two families continued to meet and Anna Whistler’s letters show that she often visited the Harrisons during the 1850s, and corresponded with them when she lived in England. But although they remained lifelong friends, Anna Whistler was ambivalent because of her feelings about wealth. She felt about the Harrisons, as she did about the Winanses, that although she was “always … hospitably entertained” in their homes, those homes were “the center of luxury and indulgence.” She had always preferred “a friendship formed in my youth, matured and cemented by religion,” and went on preferring relationships “cemented by religion” the rest of her life.62

One homely incident she recounted of a visit of Willie’s to the Harrisons by invitation gave a comical picture of the Harrison parents and Annie, and a continuing gloomy image of Henry: “Annie is yet very strange, she escaped from the drawing room (after dinner) by one door as Willie and her father entered another and did not return to do the civilities for her mama, who was on the invalid list. Mr. H said ‘As we have no grounds to stroll in – in town – & as I smoke no segars [sic: cigars] so have none to offer – we will talk[’], but soon he began to nap, one of his children awakened him to receive Willie’s parting compliments. I have not heard of Henry Harrison’s return, but he will be no advantage, for he is so eccentric.”63 But although she continued to visit the Harrisons’ city and country homes, she confessed that she felt the invitations she received were segregating: “I seldom meet any of the family, the distance is too far for me to walk to Ritten house Square often & they have such a rich, fashionable circle now of course they do not invite me.”64

She and Willie attended the weddings of Annie Harrison and of Joseph Eastwick in October 1858.65 In 1868, she wrote to Harrison from London asking his help in getting copies of Willie’s medical diplomas so that he could practice medicine without taking recertification examinations. Harrison had done so, even before she asked, but to no avail.66 Harrison wrote her a letter of condolence when George William Whistler died.67

Notes