Fairfax Harrison

Harrison was a member of the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale University. His father was Burton Harrison, private secretary to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Harrison worked for the Southern Railroad Company from 1896 to 1937. He helped secure funding to keep the company solvent during the Panic of 1907. He died three months after retiring from the railroad in February 1938.

About Fairfax Harrison in brief

Fairfax Harrison was an American lawyer, businessman, and writer. He was president of the Southern Railway from 1913 to 1938. Harrison was a member of the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale University. His father was Burton Harrison, private secretary to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Harrison’s brother Francis Burton Harrison was Governor-General of the Philippines. He died three months after retiring from the railroad in February 1938. He is buried in Mount Vernon, New York, with his wife, Constance Cary, and their three sons, Francis, Archibald, and James. Harrison is buried at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Mount Pleasant, New Jersey, with the rest of his family. He also had a daughter, Mary Harrison, who was born in New York City on March 13, 1869, and a son, James Harrison, born on March 14, 1875. Harrison died on February 16, 1937, in Mount Lebanon, New Hampshire. He had a son and a daughter-in-law, both of whom died in the early 1980s. Harrison had a brother, Francis Burton, who became Governor-general of thePhilippines from 1913 until 1921. Harrison also had an son, Archi, who went on to become a prominent lawyer in the New York area. Harrison worked for the Southern Railroad Company from 1896 to 1937. He helped secure funding to keep the company solvent during the Panic of 1907.

In 1913 he was elected president of Southern, where he instituted a number of reforms in the way the company operated. By 1916, under Harrison’s leadership, the Southern had expanded to an 8,000-mile network across 13 states, its greatest extent until the 1950s. During the Great Depression, Harrison struggled to keep Southern afloat, and by 1936 Southern was once again showing a profit. Harrison retired in 1937, intending to focus on his hobby of writing about historical subjects including the roots of the American Thoroughbred horse, but he died in February 1937, aged 63. Harrison wrote a book about his experiences, The Southern Railroad: A Memoirs of a Southerner, in which he discusses his time as president of a major U.S. railroads company. The book is published by Simon & Schuster and is available in hard copies for $35.99. For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch or see www.samaritans.org, or click here for details. In the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or  call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1 800 273 TALK (8255). In the UK, call the Samaritans on 0800 9255 or visit the National Suicide prevention Lifeline on 08457 or http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

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