Benjamin Harrison V was born on April 5, 1726, at Berkeley plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, the son of Benjamin Harrison IV and Anne Carter Harrison. Through his mother he was a grandson of Robert “King” Carter, one of the colony’s wealthiest landowners. Harrison therefore entered the highest rank of Virginia’s planter elite. His parents died in 1745 after being struck by lightning, leaving the nineteen-year-old Harrison heir to Berkeley, extensive lands, and enslaved people. He had attended the College of William and Mary but did not complete a degree, probably because inheritance forced an early assumption of estate responsibilities. Harrison married Elizabeth Bassett, daughter of Colonel William Bassett, joining another prominent family. They had numerous children, including future president William Henry Harrison. Managing Berkeley required attention to crops, shipping, debts, household staff, and a large enslaved workforce. His wealth and family name brought rapid entry into the House of Burgesses. Harrison developed a reputation for sociability, practical judgment, and defense of Virginia interests. Though less philosophically inclined than some colleagues, he understood legislative negotiation and the concerns of planters dependent upon Atlantic trade. Before signing the Declaration and serving as governor, Harrison had been shaped by extraordinary inheritance, sudden parental loss, interrupted college education, marriage, fatherhood, plantation administration, slavery, and early legislative service. His political independence rested upon vast property, yet that property depended upon human bondage. The mixture of personal warmth, conservative social standing, and resistance to parliamentary control defined the world from which his Revolutionary leadership emerged.