John Harrison (1773-1833)

He was born and educated in Philadelphia, where he was apprenticed to a druggist, Townsend Speakman. He went to Europe for two years to learn the process of manufacturing chemicals, during which time he studied chemistry under the famous Dr Joseph Priestley F.R.S. Returning home in 1793, he went into business with Samuel Betton, establishing a wholesale and retail trade in chemicals and drugs. Having developed a process for manufacturing various acids (sulphuric, nitric etc.) he went into business on his own account. From his chemical plant in 1807, he was able to produce 500,000 pounds of sulphuric acid per year. Helped by the German chemist Eric Bollman, he added a platinum still that dramatically improved the distillation process and enabled the continuous production of acid. He was the first manufacturing chemist in the United States and today his portrait hangs in the John Harrison Laboratory of Chemistry, at the University of Pennsylvania, erected to his memory by his grandsons in 1892.

After his death, the firm of John Harrison & Sons became known as Harrison Brothers, one of the largest chemical companies in the South Philadelphia area which by the 1890s employed nearly 500-workers in its paint production operations. In 1917, it was purchased by the DuPont Company. John Harrison was a Captain in the Philadelphia Militia (1792); Member of the Schuylkill Fishing Company; Recorder of the City and County of Philadelphia (1821 to 1824); and a Member of the first board of managers of the Franklin Institute. In 1802, he married Lydia Leib of Philadelphia, sister of Brig.-General Michael Leib, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. They had 5-children who lived to adulthood.