Joseph L. Harris, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Joseph L. Harris
JOSEPH L. HARRIS was born in Oxford County, Canada, November 3, 1835. He is the youngest of five children born to Gilbert and Berenice (Cook) Harris. His father was a native of New York, and his mother of Vermont. His great-grand emigrated from Wales to Nova Scotia. In 1839, Gilbert Harris located in Porter County, on the farm on which our subject now lives. He was an ordained minister of the Baptist Church, and the first who preached in Union Township; he died in September, 1847. On December 23, 1872, Joseph L. Harris married Mary B. Barker, of Oxford County, Canada, by whom he has had seven children - Virgil V., Hattie V., Milo N., Bradford E., Ole J., Jesse A. and Georgie A. Mr. Harris received an excellent education, having spent three years at Franklin College, in this State, failing health compelling him to withdraw. He is a member of the Phi Delta Theta Society. He is an intelligent man and enterprising citizen, a stanch temperance champion, and an earnest Sunday school worker, both he and Mrs. Harris being members of the Baptist Church. In politics, he is a Republican. The first house erected on Twenty-Mile Prairie is still standing on his farm, and is carefully preserved as a relic.
Source: Goodspeed, Weston A., and Charles Blanchard. 1882. Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana: Historical and Biographical, Illustrated. Chicago, Illinois: F. A. Battey & Company. 771 p.
Page(s) in Source: 342
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook