From Proud Heritage, Vol. 1 by DCPA, not currently in print.
Alfred Holton Harris, Jr. born 28 September, 1827, died 4 April 1900, was the son of Alfred Holton Harris, Sr. born 23 December 1790, died 22 March 1876 and Priscilla Hearn Harris born 8 November 1795, died ca. 1830, of Wilson County, Tennessee. He was born near Gladeville, Tennessee. He had brothers Oran A., James Gwinn and Houston and sisters Sally, Harriett and Priscilla Lundie and four half brothers and three half sisters, the latter children of his stepmother, Elizabeth Woodrum Harris.
Alfred was Captain on a Mississippi River steamboat running from Memphis, Tennessee to New Orleans, Louisiana when he traveled to\ the Samuel Nesbitt plantation to pick up his niece, Jane Winford, who had gone home from school for a visit with Mary Elizabeth Nesbitt. This way Alfred met his future bride. Alfred and Mary Elizabeth Nesbitt were married 17 November 1856.
After their marriage, Alfred had a mercan tile store in either Byhalia or Red Bank, Marshall County, Mississippi. They sold out there in 1860 and moved to Dallas, Texas; living near the Court House square at the time the town burned. He then moved to Ft. Worth, Texas.
When the Civil War was declared, Alfred went back to Mississippi and served in the Confederate Army under General Joseph E. Johnson and General John B. Hood. During the war, Mary and their children Mattie, Mary Charlotte, Lucy (who lived only three years), and William stayed with the Nesbitts on their cotton plantation ten miles from Holly Springs, Mississippi. The Nesbitts had a cotton gin and a good many slaves who worked on the plantation.
After the war was over and Alfred returned to his family, the Nesbitts salvaged what they could from their plantation, and together they joined the Terry family and two others who were moving to Texas. The party left Mississippi the middle of November 1866 and arrived in Dallas, Texas a few days before Christmas.
Samuel Nesbitt bought a half section of land (later a part of the Lakewood Addition) and built a house of two very large rooms and two small rooms divided by a ten foot hall. Here the Harris family lived with the Nesbitts for a year (1867), then they moved to a small log house on the Rice farm (near Skillman and Prospect). Here Bettie Harris was born. The children attended a country school but later drove to town in a buggy to attend Rock college (Live Oak and Cantegral).
At this time Alfred Harris bought a sawmill (located at Bryan and Pacific) and moved to town, living on the southwest corner of what is now Pacific and Pearl. After a while he sold the sawmill and built a planing mill across the street from their home (1873), but six years of working in the sawdust affected his health, so Alfred decided to move to Weatherford, Texas, and go in the drug business with a half brother. This venture did not prove successful, so after eleven months (1874) he returned to Dallas and again lived on the Nesbitt farm.
After five years and again because of ill health, Alfred Harris left Dallas, moving his family to West Texas near McFarland Springs and the Clay County line (1879). A man laying out a townsite about ten miles away offered Alfred a half block of land to move there, which he accepted. The townsite became Wichita Falls, and the half block of land was located at Lee and Fifth Streets. The Harris family was one of the first five families to settle in Wichita Falls.
Alfred and Mary Elizabeth broke up house keeping in 1899, and lived with their children until Alfred’s death 4 April 1900. They were with their son, Rev. William Thomas Harris in Bellevue, Texas at the time. Mary Elizabeth Harris passed away 11 July 1913 at the home of their daughter, Mary Charlotte Van Dorn in Dallas.
By Richard W. Harris, Austin
