James Harper

James Harper (March 28, 1780March 31, 1873) was an Irish-American politician who served as a National Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district from 1833 to 1837. He owned a brick manufacturing business, a wholesale grocery trade and developed the Philadelphia neighborhood now known as Rittenhouse Square. Biography Harper was born on March 28, 1780, in Castlederg, County Tyrone in Ireland. As a youth, he immigrated to the United States with his parents, and settled in Philadelphia. He rose to prominence in commerce through the manufacture of brick and from 1820 to 1830 in the wholesale grocery trade. He married Charlotte Sloan Alford, a member of an established Pennsylvania Quaker family. He was a Freemason, and was elected to the position of Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1824. As Grand Master, he hosted fellow mason the Marquis de Lafayette during the latter's "Farewell Tour" of the United States in 1825. In 1832 Harper was elected to the United States Congress as a National Republican (Anti-Jacksonian), and represented Pennsylvania's Second Congressional District in 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 and his administration. He chose not to stand for reelection in 1836. In Congress he allied himself with Henry Clay, and followed Clay in commissioning his portrait from the Philadelphia painter John Neagle.