Harrison, Waples and Allied Families

Book excerpt: Thomas Harrison, Jr. (1741-1815) was a son of Thomas Harrison and Hannah Benson of Thurstonfield, Cumberland County, England; all were Quakers. Thomas, Jr. immigrated in 1763 to Philadelphia, where he married Sarah Richards of Chester County at the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. Both Thomas, Jr. and his wife were active speakers and leaders against slavery, to aid the sick and homeless, and Thomas Jr. was on the city's "orphan committee." Both traveled in these benevolent activities, and Sarah was granted a special audience by George III while on a trip to England. George Leib Harrison (1811- 1885), a grandson of Thomas Jr. and Sarah, married Sarah Ann Waples (d.1850) in 1841, and in 1856 married Letitia Henry Mitchell. Descendants and relatives lived in Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and elsewhere. Includes genealogical data about various lines of ancestors in England, some to the mid-1300s; many of these ancestral lines were part of the English nobility.