Edmund Caskie Harrison Fund

If you’ve been around St. John’s very long, you may be familiar with the name, and perhaps the fund created in his memory.

Edmund Caskie Harrison, known as Jack to his family and friends, was the third child of Caskie and Margaret Sydnor Harrison. He was awarded a scholarship to Columbia University at the age of 16, graduated in 1902 and taught school for a short period before studying law at Richmond College. He moved to Charleston in 1907 and practiced law with the Price, Smith, Spilman and Clay law firm.

At the age of 35, well beyond the age of being drafted into WWI, Mr. Harrison enlisted in the Army as a private in Battery A, 313th Field Artillery, serving as the telephone lineman of the First Battalion Headquarters. On Nov. 1, 1918, during a German bombardment of the Bois-de-Rappes area, Jack was struck and killed by a shell fragment. In 1919, his brother and sister established The Edmund Caskie Harrison Fund at St. John's “for the relief of sickness and the promotion of health in individual cases of need in the City of Charleston and the County of Kanawha.”

This fund continues to be available and while overseen by trustees who are members of St. John’s, anyone in Kanawha County may apply for relief. The trustees are Chris Thompson, interim rector; Mary Fitzgerald, senior warden; Priscilla Lawson, Carter Blundon and Dwight Foley,

If you are in need, or know someone who is, please contact the church office, 304.346.0359, for information on how to apply.