My Genealogy Hound

HON. JOSIAH HARRIS, Jr., lawyer and statesman and at present member of the Kentucky State legislature from McCracken County, was born on November 14, 1839, in Columbia, Adair Co., Ky., to Josiah Harris, Sr., and Sallie W. Harris, nee King, the latter a sister of the late lieutenant-governor of Kentucky, Hon. John Q. A. King. In his boyhood days, Mr. Harris attended the Columbia College in his native town and later attended college at Danville, Ky. At the age of nineteen, he began the study of the law, which he prosecuted in the law school of Louisville, Ky., and was admitted to the practice in 1860. He first established a practice in the city of Louisville, where he remained however but a short time, coming thence to Paducah, where he at once acquired a handsome practice, and where he has constantly grown in public favor. He is a fine judge of law, of quick perception and an able and bold advocate, and stands deservedly in the front rank of criminal lawyers in his State, and an orator of high rank and place. In 1861, he was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney of the city courts of Paducah; was once a candidate for the State senate, and twice for the lower house of the legislature, to which office he was elected in August, 1883, and of which he is the present incumbent. During the last Assembly, Mr. Harris served in some of the most important committees, including the committee on State prisons, county and city courts, and the committee on criminal laws, of which he was chairman. He is prominent in legal, political and social circles in his State. He was married in 1861, in Paducah, to Miss Cora Enders, who died in 1877, leaving a daughter, Miss Hallie Harris. June 5, 1882, he contracted a second marriage, this time to Miss Mattie Dunn, of Smithland, Ky. Charitable and liberal in his views upon all public matters, Mr. Harris is connected with the Presbyterian denomination of Christians, and member of the A. F. & A. M.