his wife Anne built the family's manor house at Berkeley Plantation; he served as a justice of the peace and represented Charles City County in the Virginia House of Burgesses. (Biographer Clifford Dowdey notes that the family did not employ the roman numeral suffixes, which historians have assigned.) Benjamin V, in his youth, was "tall and powerfully built," with "features that were clearly defined, and a well-shaped mouth above a strong pointed chin." He spent a year or two at the College of William & Mary. His brother Carter Henry became a leader in Cumberland County. Brother Nathaniel was elected to the House of Burgesses, then to the Virginia Senate. Brother Henry fought in the French and Indian War and brother Charles became a brigadier general in the Continental Army. Inheritance and slaveholding Harrison's father, at age 51 and with a child in hand, was struck by lightning as he shut an upstairs window during a storm on July 12, 1745; he and his daughter Hannah were killed. Benjamin V inherited the bulk of his father's estate, including Berkeley and several surrounding plantations, as well as thousands of acres extending to Surry County and the falls of the James River. Also among his holdings was a fishery on the river and a grist mill in Henrico County. He also assumed ownership and responsibility for the manor house's equipment, stock, and numerous enslaved people. His siblings inherited another six plantations, possessions, and enslaved people, as the father chose to depart from the tradition of leaving the entire estate to the eldest son. Harrison and his ancestors enslaved as many as 80 to 100 people. Harrison's father was adamant about not breaking up slave families in the distribution of his estate. As with all planters, the Harrisons sustained enslaved people on their plantations. Nevertheless, the enslaved people’s status was typically involuntary, and according to Dowdey, "among the worst aspects of their slaveholding is the assumption that the men in the Harrison family, most likely the younger, unmarried ones, and the overseers, made night trips to the slaves' quarters for carnal purposes." Benjamin Harrison V owned mulattoes, though no record has been revealed as to their parentage. Dowdey portrays the Harrisons' further incongruity, saying the enslaved people in some ways "were respected as families, and there developed a sense of duty about indoctrinating them in Christianity, though other slaveholders had reservations about baptizing