Harrison Phoebus

Harrison Phoebus (born Levin James Harrison Phoebus, November 1, 1840 – February 25, 1886) was an American 19th century entrepreneur and hotelier who became the leading citizen and namesake of the town of Phoebus in Elizabeth City County, near Fort Monroe, which is now part of the independent city of Hampton, Virginia.

Biography Phoebus was the son of the Reverend Lewis and Sally (née Ross) Phoebus, youngest of sixteen children; his mother was the third wife of Lewis Phoebus. A native of Somerset County, Maryland, Harrison Phoebus served in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, he became an employee of Adams Express Company, where he gained a reputation for diligence and flexibility.

In 1866, he was transferred to become the resident agent for Adams Express at Old Point Comfort in Elizabeth City County, Virginia. He has been described by author Parke S. Rouse, Jr. as a "one-man industry", serving as Old Point's representative of shipping companies, postmaster, notary public, insurance agent and U.S. commissioner. Much of his work was related to the steamships which plied the Chesapeake Bay on routes and routinely docked there.

In 1874, with financial backing from Samuel Shoemaker, a wealthy friend from Baltimore, he acquired the luxurious Hygeia Hotel.

Harrison Phoebus died suddenly of a heart ailment on February 25, 1886 at the age of 45. He was interred at the cemetery of St. John's Episcopal Church in Hampton. After Phoebus's death and the opening of the new Chamberlin in 1896 the Hygeia began to fall into disrepair. In 1902, Secretary of the Army Elihu Root signed an order authorizing the demolition of the Hygeia Hotel to make space for a planned expansion of Fort Monroe. The Army's planned addition to Fort Monroe never materialized and eventually the vast empty space was seeded in grass and made into a park.