Harrison Bros. & Co.

The Philadelphia firm of Harrison Brothers & Company was the first successful producer of sulphuric acid in the U.S. It also manufactured alum, copperas, nitric acid, wood naphtha, red and white lead, and colors.

John Harrison was born to a Quaker family in 1773. He studied for two years in England, including chemistry under Dr. Joseph Priestly. Harrison returned to Philadelphia in 1793 and established himself as a druggist and chemist. In 1806 he achieved the first commercially successful manufacture of sulphuric acid, and this proved so lucrative that he abandoned the druggist's trade to concentrate on industrial chemistry. John Harrison trained his sons, M. Lieb Harrison and Thomas Harrison as chemists and brought them into the business as Harrison & Sons. After his death in 1833 they carried on the business as Harrison & Brother, and in 1859 his grandsons John, George L. and Thomas S. Harrison were admitted as Harrison Brothers & Co. The firm in 1863 constructed a large factory at 35th Street and Gray's Ferry Road in Philadelphia and eventually had branches in Cincinnati and New York. Thomas and M. Lieb Harrison retired in 1877, and the firm was incorporated as Harrison Brothers & Company, Inc., on March 2, 1898. It was purchased by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company on January 15, 1917.