HistoricSiteMarkers
Colonial AmericaAmerican Revolution

Harriton

Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Built 1704 by Rowland Ellis; named by Richard Harrison, next owner. His son-in-law, Charles Thomson, Secretary of Continental Congress, lived here 1774 until his death in 1824.

Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

The Story

This early Georgian house went up in 1704, when the Welsh Quaker settlements of the Philadelphia countryside were barely a generation old, and later took its name from owner Richard Harrison. Its most consequential resident arrived in 1774: Charles Thomson, who would serve as Secretary of the Continental Congress through the entire Revolution, keeping the young nation's official records. He lived out his long retirement here until 1824, a founding-era figure quietly farming outside Philadelphia.

Why it matters

As the home of the man who kept the minutes of American independence, the house links a rural Pennsylvania farmstead directly to the paperwork of nationhood itself.

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Related people

  • · Rowland Ellis
  • · Richard Harrison
  • · Charles Thomson

Related events

  • · Continental Congress

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