Harrison family of Virginia

The Harrison family is a prominent political family in U.S. history. Most famously, this family produced numerous Governors of Virginia (serving during both the Colonial era and after independence), as well as two U.S. Presidents: William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison.

The family has a longer recorded heritage in politics, however. Their earliest notable ancestor is the thirteenth century Baron Robert II de Holland, also an ancestor to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Winston Churchill. Some genealogists speculate that the Harrisons were Viking warriors of Norse origin, and that they arrived in England with Canute the Great. Other sources say that they are of Norman, Irish and Scottish descent.

Among the First Families of Virginia, they came to the Colony of Virginia in 1630 when Benjamin Harrison (the first of many to bear that name) left England for the Americas.

His son, Benjamin Harrison Jr., fathered Benjamin Harrison III, who fathered Colonel Benjamin Harrison IV in 1693. His son is known in modern times as Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Governor of Virginia. For the next two centuries the Harrisons would play some role in American political history.