James Harper

Who was James Harper?

James Harper was a two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

James Harper was born of Scots-Irish stock in Castlederg, County Tyrone, Ireland. He immigrated to the United States as a youth, and settled in Philadelphia. He married Charlotte Sloan Alford, a member of the Philadelphia Quaker establishment. He engaged in the manufacture of brick and from 1820 to 1830 in the wholesale grocery trade.

Harper was elected as an National Republican to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses. His letters from Washington, some of which are preserved in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, reflect a disgust with the endemic corruption of Andrew Jackson's administration. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1836. In Congress he was a protégé of Henry Clay, and followed Clay in commissioning his portrait from the Philadelphia portrait painter John Neagle.

Upon his retirement from Congress, Harper continued in the manufacture of brick, also branching out into real estate speculation and urban development.