The fifth son, born August 29, 1741, and also named Thomas, is the one from whom John Harrison was descended. This Thomas Harrison applied to Carlisle Monthly Meeting for a certificate of removal, and in the "Minutes entered at our Monthly Meeting at Carlisle the 20th of 5th Mo. 1763 a Certificate was given at this meeting on behalf of Thomas Harrison directed to Friends in Philadelphia."
Thomas Harrison, then a young man of 22, apparently went to America shortly after the date of this certificate and, introduced to the Society of Friends in Philadelphia by that somewhat formidable document, promptly married the young woman who in later years was to become one of the most celebrated Quaker preachers of her day. The records of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends show that "on Sixth Mo. 21, 1764, Thomas Harrison of Philadelphia, son of Thomas, deceased, of Thurston Field, Cumberland County, Great Britain, was married at the Philadelphia Meeting to Sarah Richards, daughter of Rowland Richards, deceased, of Chester County."
Besides the notoriety of his famous preacher wife, Thomas Harrison was known as an ardent worker for the abolition of slavery and a respected citizen. His sixth son with Sarah Richards was John Harrison, the subject of this biography.
The Evening Bulletin
Thursday, Nov. 8, 1923
Obituary
A PennsylvanianSarah (Richards) Harrison, Quaker preacher and early abolutionist; born in Delaware Co., PA, about 1748; died in Philadelphia, December 20, 1812.
The Daughter of Rowland RIchards, she settled iN Philadelphia after her marriage to Thomas Harrison. During the revolution she began to preach in Quaker meetings and was acknolwedged as a minister of the Society in 1781. Five years later she attenced teh yearsly meeting of Friends in Virginia and later was liberated by her monthly meetings to attend meetings of Friends in the Southern States. In 1787 she visited the North Carolina yearly meetings and brought the question of Slavery to the fore, the restult being the appointment of a committee to visit slave holders in an attempt to ameliorate the conditions of the blacks. She returned to Philadelphia in 1788, and four years later began a tour of England and the Continent, during which she was seized and held prisoner for a few days by the French who suspected her to be a British spy. She was the mother of John Harrison, the founder of Philadelphia's chemical industery.