My Genealogy Hound

HARRIS, FRANKLIN, merchant; P. O. Stone’s Prairie; residence, Plainville. He was born in Wythe county, Va., Sept. 12, 1823. His parents, Nathaniel D. and Margret (Bishop) Harris, were natives of the same county. They removed from there to Adams county when the subject of this sketch was seven years of age, and settled in what is now Richfield township. His father previously bought the land in 1830. They had just completed the erection of their cabin and moved into it when the “deep snow” of the winter of 1831-2 fell, so memorable in the early settlement of Illinois. They had no difficulty in procuring an abundance of meat from the wild game then so abundant, but they were compelled to pound corn for meal, and substantiate parched corn for breadstuff; seven years later they bought on Stone’s Prairie, in Payson township, and removed there, where they spent the remainder of their lives. Mr. Harris followed farming near Plainville till the fall of 1870, when he embarked in the mercantile business in the village. He married Emily L. Shaw, May 18, 1848. She was born in Oswego county, N. Y., in March, 1827, and brought up in Pike county. They have had seven children, three living: Mrs. Mary J. Robinson, Mrs. Anna Lee, and William P. Lucy E., their oldest daughter, died when fifteen years old. Mr. Harris was Postmaster for five years prior to 1877. He owns 160 acres of improved land in Payson township, worth $50 per acre.