Christopher Harrison

Christopher Harrison ( born August 29, 1775, Dorchester County, Maryland, † April 4, 1862 in Talbot County, Maryland ) was an American politician. Between 1816 and 1818, he was Deputy Governor of the State of Indiana.

Career

Christopher Harrison was born in Maryland in a rich family, who managed a large plantation with the help of slaves. He attended St. John College in Annapolis and then worked for William Patterson, the president of the Bank of Baltimore. After an affair with Patterson's daughter, he left to the 1808 Maryland. He moved to Hanover in what is now Indiana, where he lived for five years in a log cabin. In 1814 he was involved in the establishment of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank in Madison. In 1815 he moved to Salem, also in the Indiana Territory, where he sold together with a partner haberdashery. During a legislative session, he was a judge in the local Washington County. Politically, he joined the Democratic- Republican Party.

After the accession to the Union of Indiana Harrison was elected in 1816 on the side of Jonathan Jennings as Vice- Governor of the new state. This post he held between 7 December 1816 and his retirement on 17 December 1818. Yet he was Deputy Governor and Chairman of the State Senate. During this time there have been tensions between Harrison and Jennings. Harrison represented the governor during his absence, when he negotiated on behalf of the Federal Government with the local Indian tribes. When Jennings returned, Harrison insisted that the office of governor to continue to engage, because he believed that Jennings had violated the state constitution because he had accepted a federal mandate. A court ruling confirmed Jennings and Harrison stepped out of annoyance from his office. Then Ratliff Boon was elected his successor as lieutenant governor.

In 1819 Christopher Harrison ran unsuccessfully for the governorship. In 1821 he was member of a commission to lay the state capital to the new city of Indianapolis. He then went back to Salem, where he worked among other things as a portrait painter. In 1834 he returned home to Maryland, where he took over the family plantation and the local slaves released into the wild. He died on April 4, 1862. Harrison was not related to the famous Harrison family from Indiana.