Notes for John Hamilton HARRIS

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Notes for John Hamilton HARRIS

John Hamilton Harris is one of the early pioneer settlers of the township of Mendota He came from Wayne County Ohio in 1854 settling on the open prairie on the ridge two and a half miles north of the present limits of the city of Mendota where he
opened up and improved a farm upon which he resided until the spring of 1803 when he purchased a residence and removed into the city where he has resided ever since retaining his farm however until three years ago when he sold it to the present
occupant Edward Gillett Esq Mr Harris is of English and Scotch extraction His great grandfather James Harris was a native f Somersetshire England born in the city of Bristol about the year 1700 emigrated to this country between the years 1725 and 1730
and settled in Essex County in the colony of New Jersey where he resided the balance of his life dying in Elizabethtown a short time previous to the commencement of the Revolutionary war He was a laboring mechanic but is said to have been a man of
considerable force of character for one in his humble condition in life of strong religions and political convictions firmly established in the politico religious doctrine of Fulmer of the divine right of kings of the duty of passive obedience and of
the great sin of rebellion against either civil or ecclesiastical authority He left six sons and one daughter The oldest three sons removed to North Carolina before the commencement of the struggle where they have a numerous posterity now residing the
youngest three Thomas George and John after having in the Revolutionary army during nearly the whole period of war and during the Jersey campaigns under the immediate command of Washington one of them George being a member his body guard removed in
1787 to Washington County Penn where they all died during the second decade of the century each leaving eleven children John Harris the of the six sons of James Harris and grandfather of subject of this sketch was born in Elizabethtown NJ July 1 1746
and July 20 1777 married Mary Hamilton who was Scotch descent and a distant relative of Gavin Hamilton Mecklin the friend and patron of Robert Burns Her emigrated from Lanarkshire in Scotland to the province of Ulster in Ireland about the Cromwellian
period and from thence to County NJ about the same time that James Harris emigrated from Somersetshire England She is said to have been woman of uncommon natural endowments of remarkably physical proportions of rare beauty and of masculine mind energy
She died in 1801 and her husband in 1816 They both exemplary members of the Presbyterian church Harris the oldest son of John Harris and Mary Hamilton father of the subject of this sketch was born in Essex County Aug 21 1780 and in 1787 removed with
his parents to Washington County Penn wherein March 1804 he married Clark a native of Morris County NJ who was born May 1 1783 and in August 1809 they removed with their three children the youngest but six weeks old to the then wilderness of Stark
County Ohio settling in the unbroken forest near the of the present city of Massillon He died in 1863 in the eighty third year of his age his wife having preceded him eight years He was a man of many marked characteristics of remarkably fine physique
and of great energy both physical and menta1 Without any early education excepting what he acquired by attending a few terms of winter school in log school houses on the frontier taught by pedagogues almost as illiterate as their pupils he succeeded by
extensive reading and observation aided by an acute intellect and retentive memory in attaining a degree of mental and literary culture rarely reached by persons laboring u nder similar in early life His life was also a decided financial success John
Hamilton Harris the oldest son of Stephen Harris was born in Amesville Township Washington Co Penn Aug 19 1807 and when in his second year removed with his parents to the New Purchase in Ohio where for a few years his only play fellows outside of his
father's family were Delaware and Wyaudot pappooses His father's cabin being situated near the Sandusky trail the trail leading from the Wyaudot towns on the Sandusky to the Delaware towns on the Muskingum they received during the summer season almost
daily visits from those children of the forest Upon reaching his sixth year and the settlement being still too sparse to support a school his father sent him back to his grandfather's in Pennsylvania where he attended school something over a year
acquiring the first rudimentary learning From this time until his seventeenth year he assisted his father in clearing up and cultivating his farm attending the schools of the neighborhood during the winter months At this period having concluded to seek
some other pursuit in life than that of clearing up the forest and plowing among the stumps he left the farm and after spending some time at an academy in Canton Ohio and acquiring a knowledge of some of the higher English branches than those taught in
the country schools and a smattering of the classics he received the appointment of a cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point In this institution he spent one year acquiring some further knowledge of mathematics a smattering of the
French language and a thorough drilling in infantry tactics When he resigned his cadetship he returned to Ohio entered him self as law student in the office of his uncle the late Judge John Harris of Canton and May 12 1829 was licensed as an attorney
and councillor at law and solicitor in chancery He first opened an office in Millersburgh Holmes County where he remained two years and then removed to Wooster in Wayne County where forming a partnership with his late preceptor Judge Harris of Canton
pursued a successful practice until he left the State in 1854 Jan 15 1833 he married Miss Harriet Fogle a daughter of Dr William Fogle of Canton She is still living but in very infirm health They have had five children of whom the youngest Mary
Hamilton wife of CA Harbaugh a merchant of Mendota alone survives Their oldest daughter Elenora Browning married the Rev H Sturgeon a Presbyterian minister of East Palestine Ohio who upon the breaking out of the Rebellion joined the Union army as a
Captain of Infantry She died Nov 9 1863 while on a visit to her father in Mendota and while her husband was acting as Provost Marshal of Knoxville Tenn The second daughter Adeline Lauretta died Dec 6 1863 in the twenty second year of her age and the
other two died in childhood Dnring his residence in Wooster Mr Harris received repeated expression of the confidence of the people occupying during the larger portion of the time some municipal township or county office He served ten years as Master
Commissioner in Chancery two terms as Director of the County Infirmary one term as County Auditor an office the functions of which are very similar to those of county clerk in this Statej he also represented the county one term in the State Senate He
was an active worker in the ranks of the Democracy up to the time when that party united with the slave power in its attempt to force slavery into the Western Territories when he joined the great Republican phalanx and in which he has trained ever
since He has represented the township of Men dota several years in the County Board of Supervisors and has served as a Justice of the Peace most of the time since he came into the county keeping an office in the city while residing on his farm He
declined a re election four years ago since which time he has retired from all active business employing his time in his garden and with his books He was formerly a Knight Templar in the Masonic order and an Odd Fellow but is not now in affiliation
with either order His religious association is with the Methodist Episcopal church of which he has been a member over forty five years Fifty five years ago he signed the Washing tonian temperance pledge and has lived a strictly temperate life ever
since not even using tobacco in any form and now when about entering his seventy ninth year is as sound and hale as be was at forty excepting a slight weakness in one of his limbs caused by a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism over twenty years
ago. [History of La Salle County, Illinois: together with sketches of its cities ...pp. 704-06]
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