Harper rose to prominence in commerce through the manufacture of
brick and, from 1820 to 1830, in the wholesale grocery trade. 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 de Lafayette's
visit to the United States in 1825.
U.S. Congressman In 1832, Harper was elected to the
United States Congress as a
National Republican (Anti-Jacksonian), and represented
Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district in the
Twenty-third and
Twenty-fourth Congresses. Letters he sent from Washington, D.C., some of which have been preserved by the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, reflect a disgust with what Harper saw as an endemic of corruption by
Andrew Jackson and
his administration. In Congress, he allied himself with
Henry Clay, and followed Clay in commissioning his portrait from the Philadelphia painter
John Neagle. Harper chose not to stand for reelection in
1836.
Rittenhouse Square Following his retirement from Congress, Harper continued in the manufacture of brick, and branched out into real estate speculation and urban development. He bought the north side of
Philadelphia's then undeveloped
Rittenhouse Square and built a fine house for himself at 1811
Walnut Street around 1840. His mansion set a patrician residential tone for the square and he sold off the remaining lots at profit. The front part of his house, sold after his death to the Social Art Club, an exclusive men's club that renamed itself the
Rittenhouse Club, still stands behind the 1901 façade that the club added. In Philadelphia, Harper was a member of the Board of Guardians of the Poor and of the Board of Prison Inspectors. and a delegate to
the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, often called the
Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851. ==Personal life==