Thomas Harrison, D. D., was the former Chaplain to Gov. Berkeley at Jamestown, Virginia, and a native of Kingston-Upon-Hull, Yorkshire, England, who died an Independent or Congregational Minister of the gospel in Dublin, Ireland in 1682.

Rev. Thomas Harrison was an intimate of the Cromwell family and previously Chaplain of the early Jamestown Colony of Virginia during Governor Berkeley's first term in 1645-1652. He arrived in Virginia before 1640 and qualified as the minister of the Elizabeth River Parish. (Henings Statutes At Large, Vol. I, p. 242.) The same year the Sewalls Point Church agreed to pay him 100 lbs. sterling annually as long as he occupied the pulpit. He used his influence against the Puritans, who were numerous on the South side of the James, but following the second Indian massacre, April 18, .1644, turned Puritan himself, and in 1648, after refusing to read the Book of Common Prayer, or Adminster the Sacrements, abondoned his ministrial office. (Institutional History of Virginia in The Seventeenth Century - by Philip A. Bruce, Vol. I, pp. 132-149 & 166; Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, by Lyon H. Tyler, Vol. I, p. 253.)

In 1648/49, Rev. Harrison removed to New England where he married his first wife, Dorothy Symonds (Baptized November 9, 1619), daughter of Samuel Symonds of Ipswich (1595-1678), Deputy Governor of Massachusetts, 1638 and a native of Great Zeldham, Essex County, England. (Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury, Mass. - by D. W. Hoyt, p. 598; and The Pioneers of Mass., by C. H. Pope, p. 445.)

His second settlement m Dublin was in 1672, or shortly thereafter, by which time he had been disassociated from the state church eight or nine years. He obtained his license as an Independent Clergyman following the King's lifting of the operation of the Code. With the rise of the Catholic clement under James II, there was little hope for any former followers of Cromwell, or his children. Having been so closely allied with the Cromwell party, his fortunes were doubtless depleted by the time Isaiah came to America.

Rev. Thomas Harrison died in 1682, in Dublin, Ireland - "Amidst general mourning. " "He was a complete gentleman", says Calamy, "much courted for his conversation. " He was the author of several works, among them "Old Jacobs Account Cast Up."