El Dorado County
Biographies
WILLIAM HARRIS
Was born in Columbia county, Pennsylvania, on June 4, 1814, and is the fourth of the ten children of Jacob and Susanna (Hartman) Harris, both Pennamites. At and early day they removed to Stark county, Ohio, and from there to St. Joseph county, Indiana, near South Bend, where both of them died. After his parents’ death, William went to the Galena lead mines, where he engaged in mining until 1838, when he returned to Indiana. On March 11, 1849, he started to cross the plains for California, and arrived on Bear river about September 15, of that year, having crossed the Sierra Nevada over the Truckee route. Here he did not stay long but moved on to the North Fork of the American river, near Auburn, and thence to Murderer’s Bar, where he remained for the winter and next summer. In the fall of 1850 he sold his claim and went East by the way of Central America, spending the greater part of the winter in the latter country. Returning to California with his family in the spring of 1851, he located on the place he is still living on; he erected a log house which still stands. This ranch had been first located by Stephen Tyler, and was used as a stopping place and boarding-house. Board then was as high as $18 per week. Mr. Harris, however, went back to the mines on the Middle Fork of the American river for the next three or four years, before he settled down for good on his ranch. He was married to Phebe Baldwin, of Lebanon, Ohio, on the 24th of February, 1838, and their union has been blessed with seven children: Adelia J., now Mrs. Terry; Elizabeth E., now Mrs. Morgan, her first husband was Jos. Fairchild; Josephine, now Mrs. George Goodpastor; Harriet M., now Mrs. Daniel Heindel; Emma Z., Charles W., and Joseph E.
Historical Souvenir of El Dorado County, California with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men & Pioneers - Oakland, Cal. - Paolo Sioli, Publisher, 1883. p - 266
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler