Champaign County IL Archives Biographies.....Harris, Benjamin F 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Celia Snyder cgsnyder@uiuc.edu September 1999

Biography of Benjamin F HARRIS, Champaign County, Illinois

From:  "History of Champaign County, Illinois with Illustrations," 1878


BENJAMIN F. HARRIS:  Among the old residents and prominent business men of
the county none better deserve mention in this work than B. F. HARRIS of
Champaign.  He has been identified with the interests of the county for
forty years, to its development and prosperity he has contributed largely,
and now is at the head of one of the most solid and popular banking
institutions in this part of the state.  His family history in this county
runs back four generations.  His great grandfather was one of three
brothers who emigrated from England to America in the middle of the last
century; one settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania, one on the eastern
shore of Maryland, and one in Frederick county, Virginia.  From the one who
settled in Maryland, Benjamin HARRIS, the subject of this sketch is
descended.  His grandfather's name was also Benjamin HARRIS.  He was an
officer with the rank of colonel in the Revolutionary war, and did all in
his power to assist the colonists in their struggle for independence.  He
was a man of considerable wealth and means, and owned a large plantation on
the eastern shore of Maryland, which he sold about the year 1800, and
removed to Frederick county, Virginia, where he bought a farm of three or
four hundred acres, four miles north of Winchester.  William Hickman
HARRIS, the father of the subject of this biography, was born on the
eastern shore of Maryland about the year 1789; removed with his father to
Virginia in 1800; grew up to manhood in Frederick county of that state; and
in 1807 married Elizabeth PAYNE, whose grandfather was a wealthy Scotchman
of marked traits of character who settled in Virginia, and whose mother
belonged to one of the early German families of the Virginia valley.
William Hickman HARRIS and Elizabeth Harris were the parents of ten
children, of whom eight grew to maturity, married, and had families.  Of
these the second was Benjamin Franklin HARRIS, born on the 15th of
December, 1811.  His birth-place was a farm four miles north of Winchester,
in the midst of one of the best cultivated and finest parts of Old
Virginia.  After the war of 1812 (in which his father had been a soldier),
as after the late war of the rebellion, a fictitious prosperity existed
throughout the country; real estate and other property attained a value it
had never before known, and during this period his father purchased a farm
of two hundred acres, paying for it the large sum of sixty-four dollars an
acre.  But the bubble soon burst, the United States Bank bill was vetoed by
President Jackson, a financial crisis came, and the worth of the farm
declined to twelve or fourteen dollars an acre, and other values in
proportion.  One thousand dollars had been paid, and the decline of farm
products, and the cutting off of all resources by the stringency of the
times made it almost a matter of impossibility to meet the remaining
obligations.  To raise means for this purpose his father engaged in hauling
goods from Baltimore to various points in the Southern states.  Railroads
were not then in existence, and the only means by which communication was
kept up between the great cities and interior towns was by wagon train.
Mr. Harris was a boy of not large, but strong and vigorous frame, and when
fifteen took charge of one of these six-horse teams, which he drove from
Baltimore to various distant points in the south - to Abingdon, in the
extreme southern part of Virginia, to Knoxville, Tennessee, and Huntsville,
Alabama.  he made one trip to Zanesville, Ohio, before the building of the
National Railroad which afterwards became the great line of travel till
supplanted by railroads and canals.  For two years his father had a
government contract to haul arms and munitions of war from the arsenal at
Harper's Ferry over the Allegheny mountains to Pittsburg, where they were
shipped by way of the Ohio river to frontier forts; and the subject of this
sketch drove many a wagon loaded with muskets over the Allegheny mountains
in carrying out this contract.  Although these occupations deprived him of
educational advantages, his naturally quick mind and habits of observation
assisted him in acquiring a good English education.  The unfortunate
experience of his father also taught him a lesson which he has never
forgotten.  He learned to be careful in his investments, never to go beyond
his means, or to place himself in a position to be pressed by creditors.
He and his brother had the satisfaction of knowing that by their exertions
their father was saved from bankruptcy and ruin, enabled to gain a victory
over his creditors, and again establish himself on a sound financial basis.
By great effort the farm at last was paid for, and subsequently sold for
twenty-eight dollars an acre previous to the removal of the family to Ohio.
In the year 1833 the family removed from Virginia to Clarke county, Ohio.
Mr. Harris there began life for himself without any money or means save a
good constitution and a mind full of energy and ambition.  He saw men
around him who had succeeded in gaining both wealth and reputation, and he
resolved that he could imitate their example.  He first endeavored to win
confidence for himself and credit, which to a strong, willing young man is
at once a fortune.  In August, 1834, he was hired by Mr. James Foley to
assist in driving three hundred cattle from Clark county, Ohio, to
Lancaster county, Pennsylvania.  These cattle were sold in Lancaster county
to Messrs. Foredice and Olery who employed him to help retail the drove
through Lancaster and Chester counties.  So much to the satisfaction of his
employers did he perform this work, that they employed him some two months
longer to assist in disposing of other cattle.  This gave him a thorough
knowledge of the business, and meantime he had made and saved some money
which, in addition to what he had previously, swelled his fortune to one
hundred and fifty dollars.  He next came to Illinois to buy cattle for
other parties, to be driven to Ohio and there fattened through the winter
for the eastern market.  After buying the cattle he concluded to invest
some money in land.  He rode fifty miles to Danville, and on the 22nd of
June, 1835, entered at $1.25 an acre, eighty acres of land now included in
Piatt county.  What is now Champaign county was then a vast plain covered
with wild prairie grass, and the settlers comprised a few families settled
in the groves of timber.  No roads or paths marked the way, and the
solitary and lonely traveler journeyed by faith and sight.  On his first
visit to the county Mr. Harris remembers that he left a settlement a short
distance east of the present town of Sidney on his way to Sadorus Grove.
Wandering out of his way he came across a small pole cabin, which was the
only sign of civilization to mark the site of Urbana, where he obtained
directions which enabled him to get at Sadorus' house at three o'clock in
the afternoon.  He had started in the morning without breakfast, had
traveled forty miles without seeing only one family, and was in a condition
to appreciate the substantial meal which the hospitality of Mr. SADORUS
permitted him to enjoy.  After entering the eighty acres of land, Mr.
Harris drove the cattle which he had purchased to Ohio.  By this time he
had gained the confidence of the business men in Ohio, especially of his
first employer, Mr. Foley.  He readily obtained a credit of three or four
thousand dollars in the spring of 1836, and coming to Illinois, bought
three hundred head of cattle.  This was his first considerable business
venture.  The cattle were grazed on the prairies through May and June, and
early in July he started with them East, driving them by way of Columbus,
Ohio; Wheeling, Virginia; Cumberland and Hagerstown, Maryland, and York,
Pennsylvania, to Lancaster, where they were sold to farmers for feeding
purposes, at a good profit to their owner.  Mr. Harris repeated this
operation for five successive years, each year driving a drove of cattle of
three hundred head, and upwards, from this county over the mountains to
Pennsylvania.  These ventures brought him a fair profit, and he had the
means to purchase, in 1841, some five hundred acres of land, of which forty
acres were improved, and on which a suitable cabin had been built in the
western part of this county.  June 22d, 1841, he was married to Miss
Elizabeth SAGE, daughter of Col. Henry SAGE, of Circle Ohio.  Mr. Harris
settled on this farm and went vigorously to work improving the lands, and
dealing in cattle and hogs.  Although at this time he had been a citizen of
the county and State five or six years, he now more fully realized the
hardships and deprivations of the county.  Now he was the head of a family,
and obliged to look after the comfort of a wife - one not accustomed to
these hardships, but who had been reared at her home in Circleville, Ohio,
in the midst of luxury, and who had left a good home, parents and friends,
to come to this new country and take up her abode in a double log cabin,
surrounded with but few neighbors, and with few facilities for enjoying the
comforts of life.  They were almost deprived of society, church, or any
thing of that character.  The comforts, and even the necessaries of life
were scarce and hard to obtain.  When the family was short of groceries, an
ox team was loaded with wheat and corn, and driven to St. Louis or Chicago,
where the wheat was sold for thirty cents a bushel, and corn in proportion.
It required twenty days to make this trip, and on returning home some
thirty or forty settlers - some of them living at a distance of fifteen
miles - would be waiting for their share of the goods, which were all
quickly divided and given out, except what the family kept for their own
use.  Although a long way distant from parents and friends, with no
telegraph or railroads to keep up quick communication, it requiring two
weeks to hear from Ohio, yet in the midst of these circumstances Mr. and
Mrs. Harris were prosperous and happy.  In 1842 an itinerant Methodist
minister, by name of MOZIER, held a two-days' meeting at the house of one
of the neighbors, four miles distant, and there organized a society of
seven members, himself and his wife being included in this small band.
Some three or four years afterward a Sabbath-school was organized, and held
in his cabin, as was also the preaching, this arrangement being continued
until a small house was built for church and school purposes. These facts
are sufficient to indicate the discomforts which the first settlers were
obliged to undergo.  His sound judgment and careful method of transacting
business enabled him to prosper, and every year an additional quantity was
added to his landed estate, until his farm comprised five thousand acres.
He raised from five hundred to a thousand acres of corn annually, which,
with more than double that amount which he purchased, he fed to cattle and
hogs, which he sold during the spring months - March and April.  In 1859 he
sold from his farm one hundred head of fat cattle, whose average weight
each was 2,373 pounds, supposed to be the best and heaviest lot of one
hundred cattle ever raised in the United States by any one man in one lot.
This farm of five thousand acres is situated ten miles west of Champaign,
along the Sangamon timber, is all improved and well set in blue grass,
clover and timothy, and will annually furnish grass for eight hundred or a
thousand head of cattle.  He continued to carry on the farm personally till
1863, when he moved to the city of Champaign.  Desiring some reliable place
to keep deposits and do business, some eight or ten leading business men of
the county organized a national bank, with six hundred and fifty shares of
one hundred dollars each.  This bank began business in 1863, with John H.
THOMAS as president, and J. S. WRIGHT as cashier.  At the end of the year,
on the resignation of Mr. Thomas, Mr. Harris was elected president, and has
held that responsible position to the present time.  Henry SPEARS and T. B.
SWEET were successive cashiers till 1873, when H. H. HARRIS, son of the
subject of this biography, was elected cashier - an office which he still
fills with great ability, and to the complete satisfaction of the business
community.  The careful and successful manner in which the bank has been
conducted has made it a popular institution.  It is now, and has been, the
only bank of issue in this county.  Its annual dividends have been ten per
cent, and it has accumulated beside a surplus greater than the amount of
capital.  During the panic of 1873, when bank after bank suspended payment,
and strong commercial firms, one after another, tottered and fell, the
First National Bank of Champaign met all demands which were made upon it,
and came through victorious, without a jar to its credit, which is still
good through the length and breadth of the land.  The death of his first
wife occurred in October, 1845.  His second marriage was in 1846, to Mary
J. HEATH, the daughter of David HEATH, formerly of Ross county, Ohio, who
moved to Piatt county, Illinois, about 1845.  Mr. Harris has only three
children living.  The oldest child, Henry Hickman HARRIS, has made an
excellent reputation as a business man, as cashier of the First National
Bank.  His oldest daughter, Rachel J., is the wife of David Andrew
PHILLIPS, one of the largest farmers in the county.  His youngest daughter,
Mary Ida, is still at home.  Mr. Harris, in his politics, was formerly a
member of the old Whig party, and cast his first vote for President for
Henry Clay.  He became a Republican on the formation of that party.  For
one term he held the office of justice of the peace in Mahomet township,
and for a number of years was one of the three judges who formerly
administered the county affairs.  On the adoption of township organization,
he was chosen supervisor of Mahomet township - a position he held till his
removal to the city of Champaign in 1863.  Since 1842 he has been a member
of the Methodist church.  He is a man whose life has been eminently
successful, but whose success has been achieved by energy, perseverance,
and shrewd business qualities.  In his youth he was disciplined in a hard
school, but it taught him habits of self-reliance which have been of
service to him in every subsequent step in life.  He is known for his sound
and careful judgment as a business man; for an enterprise which has made
him willing to undertake any venture which promised a successful
termination, while his business transactions have been conducted with such
a regard for fairness, honesty and integrity, that not a stain rests on his
reputation.


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