PAGenWeb McKean County, Pennsylvania
McKean County PA Genealogy
Harris Family
The Harrises
by Louella A. Harris
Bradford, PA 1931
Though we all know that many strands are woven together to make the individual we are, though each one of us can unravel four definite strands that are twined together in our personality, yet all the descendents of Delpha Harris have a distinct Harris fixation. In the case of the daughters of Delos Harris, the fact that they know less of their ancestry in this line than in the other three does not change the conditions.
We know how marked the Moore physical features are; but the Harris characteristics are more plainly seen, even to the fourth generations, especially in the men. There are apparently many different lines of Harrises in the United States today, including Jews and Negroes (who probably assumed the name at some time); but our particular line is very definite as seen in the men. There is the broad, full forehead, with the cowlicks extending far above each temple, early baldness beginning att the top of the head; blue eyes far apart; erect square shoulders; about medium height when standing but above the medium when seated. It is the type seenin Bishop Harris, U.S. Commissioner William T. Harris, and others who have been prominent in education. The present Commissioner od Education in Louisiana could easily pass for one of our cousins.
Our branch of the Harrises seems to have been inclined to clannishness, and we all, that is all the descendents of Delpha Harris, have a strong sense of relationship. Grandpa Delpha Harris cultivated this as long as he lived, by his yearly "Grandchildren's parties". He had twenty-nine grandchildren, and there have been twenty-six in attendance. People stopping by the roadside to watch us as we sat at the outdoors tables, used to say that we all looked so much alike that it would be impossible to pick out families. One man asked one of the uncles how he knew when he got his own children.
According to The Genealogy of Northern Pennsylvania, we are descended from a James Harris of unknown parentage, who was born around 1640. The date of his coming to America is also unknown; but he married Sarah Dennison in Boston in 1666, and died in New London, Connecticut in 1715. In each of the next four generations there was an Asa. Of the the fourth Asa, the genealogy says that he was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1762. After that he was apparently lost to the records. None of his children are named except William Asa and of him only the following statement occurs: "The presumption is that he went to New York with others of the family".
A letter in the possession of Paul Howe of Beaver, Pennsylvania, would seem to account for the break in the records, and also to change entirelythis presumption of that author.
In 1817, this fourth Asa seems to have been living in Nelson, New Hanpshire. At least he did if he is the father of Rebecca Harris, and as her name does not appear in any of the other families, she apparently belonged to the lost family. At the same time, Rebecca Harris's aunt, Hannah Harris Ingalls, who was a daughter of the third Asa, and therefore a sister of the fourth Asa, was living in Redman, New Hampshire. The letter referred to is dated February 25, 1817 and is from Hannah Ingals to her niece Rebecca Harris; and the subject is the prospect of Rebecca's parents moving to western New York.
The fifth Asa, William Asa, was born in Connecticut in 1783, and is said by the Genealogy to be the son of the fourth Asa. As Asa IV was at this time twenty-one, and Asa III was only forty-six, it seems more reasonable that he was the son of Asa III and brother to Asa IV. He came to New York early in the nineteenth century. His name is on a list of early settlers of Farmersville, Cattaraugus County, New York in 1823. He married his cousin Marjory Harris, presumably a daughter of that lost Asa.
They were the parents of Delpha Harris, our grandfather, who according to the records, was born somewhere in Connecticut in 1808. In 1833, the year of my father's birth, they were living in Carroll, now Kiantone, New York; and Marjory Harris writes to Mrs. Rebecca Harris of Farmersville, that "Delpha has as clever a woman as the world affords".
A comparison of dates would make it appear that it was Asa III who was a man of mature age at the time of the Revolutionary War, and who therefore must have been the _ _ _ _ ancestor. He had brass molds for making six sizes of bullets, in which he said he was "making pills for the Whigs". These molds must have been brought with the family to western New York, as father distinctly remembered to have seen them.
The children of William Asa and Marjory Harris mostly moved to Wisconsin and we know very little of them. Sarah Shaw, a daughter of Aunt Rebecca, I think, made a long visit to her relatives on the Tuna about 1880. Eliza Jones, another daughter of a Harris, lived for many years with her Uncle Delpha. Pearley, as his mother writes his name, Parley as he was called, must have come to the Tuna about the same time his brother Delpha did. He married Elizabeth Farr, who was I believe, his second wife. He was a good deal of an invalid, or thought he was, in his later years, and did little work. My most distinct recollection of him is seeing him lying on the floor of his half-log cabin near the creek at Tuna, and swatting flies with something that looked like a butter ladle.
Pearley had four children. The youngest, Bert, died of black diphtheria. There was no quarantine of course, and almost everyone on the creekl visited the house either before or afte his death. Strange to say, no epidemic resulted. Leila was nearest to my age, but I never knew her well. When she married a _____ _____, she dropped out of the Harris clan, and her early death kept us from knowing her children. Ellen was the mother of an illegitimate daughter (Ada). She went to Meadville in Jamestown and brought up her daughter to be a reputable member of society. Worster Harris had a family, none of whom are any discredit to the name; but unfortunately we do not know them.
Grandfather Delpha Harris and his wife Anna Moore Harris had five children. Emma, being a baby, came from Frewsberg, New York in the spring of 1843. They came by horse and ox team, and lived for a short time in the Marilla Zeliff house on the east road above where the present cross road is. Then they located in Harrisburg Run, but after a few years returned to Tuna where they built first a log house, then a small one of timber, and later a substantial frame house much as it stands today. Whatever farming grandpa did was on a small scale. He was a shoemaker, noted far and wide for his skill.
I find it difficult to summarize his character apart from what has already been said. He was a great lover of cats, and always had two or three immense ones. "Colonel" was said to be eighteen years old, and was becoming cross to the grandchildren. One day when we inquired for him, we were told that grandpa gave him a piece of meat,and he died. Like most fathers of his generation, he had been rather severe with his older children; May and Cort were allowed to romp at will; and it broke his heart to see one of his grandchildren punished.
I have no recollections of his having much to say around home. I know that we children always felt welcome anywhere around the home, the barn or in his little shoemaker's shop. The stores of nuts in the loft, especially oft he butternuts fromthe big tree by the pump, but also of the hickory nuts fromthe trees down on the "bayous" were always at our disposal. But when he visited our home on High Street, he talked freely and well, and showed a keen intelligence and wide interests. I am sure now that my father was his favorite child, and that he was as fond of my mother as of his own daughters. I did not at all realize that I was a favorite until the time of his death. I was at Normal School in Geneseo and had not intended to come home for Thanksgiving. My father sent for me, saying that grandpa was failing and wanted to see me. When he held me close, and cried over me, I began to feel that I had meant much to him. He died just before my Christmas vacation. He had come to our home one day before his long illness, and asked father to go with him to pick out a lot in the cemetery, and get one for himself at the same time so that the two would be adjoining. This was done, bgut my father paid most, or all, for both of them, and eventually they were made into onelot, and have become almost a family burial plot.
Grandfather Harris had been a Whig from his early manhood; but when the Republican party was organized, and for many years, voted the straight ticket. I well remember him sitting at our table some time in the late seventies or early eighties, and saying "Well, I scratched my ticket today for the first time in my life."
Grandfather Delpha Harris's house was a refuge for anyone who needed a home. Besides Eliza Jones, to whom I have already referred, Will Howe had his home there the greater part of his life. Young men like Sid (?) and Lou (?) Sager got their start in life there. Aunt May with her family was there months at a time. And Cort and his family really had no other home. Though somewhat overshadowed by the more brilliant traits of his wife, Anna Moore Harris, there must have been in Delpha Harris a strong, firm, reliable source of strength that never failed.
Louella O. Harris 1931
Note by author.
There is still something wrong about this genealogy. If William Asa was the son of Asa IV, as given by the Genealogy of Northern Pennsylvania, and Marjory Harris was the daughter of Asa III, she would be his aunt, not his cousin. And if they were of the New Hampshire line, would not Delpha Harris have been born in New Hampshire, and not "somewhere in Connecticut"? Who was Marjory Harris? This is a question for someone to answer.
Transcribed by Cindy Kittle (clkittle@frontiernet.net).
Transcriber's notes:
This is a transcription of a copy of a handwritten document in my possesion. The handwriting is generally very good, but I still had some moments of difficulty deciphering. There are several places where I left blanks because I really could not decipher - and I think it might have been a crucial word or name. I think Cort is Ferdinand Cortez (sp) son of Delpha, brother to Delos Harris and May (Rebecca Mary) Harris.
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