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Two 1-page Manuscript Legal Documents Signed (as “Harrison & Fishback, Attys for Deft.” and “Porter, Harrison & Fishback, Attys for said Deft.”), Marion County, Indiana, docketing notes on verso dated Feb. 13, 1862 and Sept. 23, 1869; with a third Manuscript Legal Document of “Wallace & Harrison”, Sept. 24, 1859, apparently not in Harrison’s hand.

All three documents involve civil suits in which Harrison and his partners were counsel. In 1858, 25 year-old Benjamin Harrison opened his first law office in Indianapolis in partnership with William Wallace. When Wallace was elected County Clerk in 1860, Harrison found a new partner in William Fishback, who maintained their office while Harrison, having won his first elective office as Reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court, went off to fight in the Civil War. The second of these documents was written just four months before he went into uniform, serving as Colonel of the 70th Indiana Infantry in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. The 1862 and 1869 documents were almost certainly both written and signed by Harrison. Legal papers written by Harrison as a young lawyer have become scarce; only one has appeared at auction in the past thirty years.