Jefferson County MsArchives Biographies.....Harrison, Joseph (and Many Others) 1754 - 1823 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ms/msfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Wayne Harrison harrisonlaw1@hotmail.com January 31, 2012, 11:49 pm Source: old type written manuscript Author: James Parmenas Harrison "A Journal of The Joseph Harrison Family, of Natchez, Mississippi" (Written about 1939 by James Parmenas Harrison a grandson of JAMES Gibson HARRISON of Natchez, MS. [James Parmenas published his work in 1939, 66 years after the death of his great uncle, Nathaniel.] JAMES Gibson Harrison's family was as follows sons: ISAAC[b.1818], DAVID [b.1816], JAMES[unknown], LEVI[unknown] and JOSEPH[b.abt 1812 )[James and Levi are never mentioned again in this Journal] p1. The earliest authentic record of the Joseph Harrison Family teaches that his forbearers hailed from Harrison's Bend along the James River with the first settlers of the 'Fairfax Lands.' They located in what was later Tazwell County in Southwest Virginia. This branch of the family retained the given names of Nathaniel, James and Joseph. They had intermarried with the Taylor's and Diggs Family (no mention of the name BYRD) p2. "Joseph Harrison came to North Carolina and married into the Gibson Family. When the Gibson parents died the heirs sold the home farm1 and migrated to Natchez, Mississippi,(James located in Nashville) in 1798[from where - Tennessee or SC] as well as I can establish the date from what Uncle Nat told me (Uncle Nat being my great uncle) who died at the age of 84 when I was 21 years old." p3. The Gibson Brothers, David[1768SC-1858MS] &[Rev] Randall[1766SC-1836MS] came with Joseph Harrison. The several members acquired lands on St Catherine's Creek, where the village of Washington now stands and opposite Foster's Mound. (Foster lived in this colony and was related to the Gibson's) First; the parents of Rev. Randall Gibson came to the Natchez County, as it was then called, about 1781. In order to avoid the hostile Indians in what is now Western Georgia and Eastern Alabama, immigrants from the Carolinas travelled over land to the Holston river in East Tennessee, where they built family boats and descended the Holston and Tennessee rivers, etc. Randall Gibson was then about fifteen years old, and I have heard him relate this fact in connection with an attack made on their boat by hostile Cherokee Indians. From the family Bible of Randall Gibson I once obtained these records by the hands of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Louisa Barnes (nee Nailer) now living near Warerntown: Randall Gibson was born September 1766 and died April 3, 1836. Harriett McKinley was born June 29, 1771, at Mount Royal Forge, Maryland and died October 6, 1837: Randall Gibson and Harriett McKinley were married February 7, 1792. They died and are buried in Warren county. Randall may have had (and I think had), other brothers, but I only knew one, the venerable David Gibson, late of Jefferson county, who was near one hundred years old at the time of his death [see p5 about Grandpa Gibson]. Unless they have died lately, he has two sons still living: Randall Gibson, Jr., somewhere in Texas, and Fielding Gibson somewhere in California. Col. Isaac Harrison, a grand- nephew, I think, or otherwise related to Rev. Randall Gibson’s family, and whose wife [Sarah Frances Gibson (1825-1860)] is a daughter of Randall Gibson, Jr., now living eight miles east of Rodney, can probably put you in possession of the history of David Gibson’s family. Rev. Randall Gibson had several sisters. One [Mary Gibson] married a Harrison [Joseph Harrison, father of James Gibson, and grandfather of Isaac Foster], I think the grandfather of Col. Isaac Harrison of Texas Cavalry fame: One, Edna, married John Bullen; some of her descendants are living in the northern part of Warren county, by the name of Alexander. If there were other sisters I do not now recollect them. [Excerpts from a ]LETTER FROM REV. J. G. JONES TO McKINLEY GIBSON, ESQ., Port Gibson, Miss., May 17, 1878. p4. Joseph Harrison made his home somewhere opposite Foster's Mound. Several other Gibson families came to the Natchez District, but I only know David and Randal as brothers of Joseph Harrison's wife[Mary Gibson 1752-1792]. p5. I have a distinct personal memory of David Gibson[b. abt 1762], whom I knew as Grandpa Gibson. He died at the age 98 [see p3 above. David died before the 1860 census] when I was about 7 or 8 years of age. He was injured by a young horse while riding. He lived with his second wife [Sarah J. Adams? Perkins Harrison Gibson. His 1st wife was Frances McKinley(1773-1818)] only one-half mile south of Home Hill Residence, and there was almost daily intercourse between the two homes. [in 1860 census, MS, Jefferson Co, Police Dist 4, pg 4 of 6, Nat'l is family 201, Sarah J. Gibson (age 75) is family 202.] p6. This second wife[Sarah J. Adams? Perkins] of David Gibson, whom as I knew as Grandpa Gibson, was married first to Mr. [Caleb] Perkins [in 1800] by whom she had several[six] children, [Maria, Joel, Charles, Caleb, Elihu, & Ruth] Caleb, Linn and Isaac. After Mr. Perkins died [in 1814], she became the second wife of Joseph Harrison by whom she had one child, a boy (Thomas) who died young [b. 1815-d.abt 1824]. After Joseph Harrison died [in 1823] she married [thirdly] David Gibson [in 1839], who had several children by his first wife was Adeline Stuart and Randal who married a sister of Adeline (both of them were daughters of the Stuart who settled on Spanish Bend near where Layette was later located. The home was named Rachel land. p7. Joseph Harrison, by his Gibson wife [Mary] had two boys, James Gibson and Nathaniel and five or six[seven] daughters who married. One daughter, Betsy [Elizabeth C.], first married Charles Perkins then a widower to Mycology. [She married second Robert McColough in 1839] Another daughter, [Mary 'Polly'] married a Canaan [Sam'l Brannan], another [Hariet Latitia] a Norris[Thos Lewis Norris], another[Rosanna] to a Anderson[Joseph Francis Henderson], and [Cynthia] to another Michael Hooter, a noted hunter and frontiersman. Still another[Sarah] married, I think) to a Bradshaw[John Wesley Bradshaw]. p8. Henderson settled on the Red River and Hooter moved to Texas (probably LA).[Can't confirm this] There was still another daughter [Marcie] who married Reuben Gibson [can't find Rueben, I have she married John Carnahan (1779PA-1867LA) on 9Oct1808 in Adams Co, MS] , and they made their home on Sicily Island (LA). [Sicily Island is in Louisiana just to the northwest of Natchez] I recall that Uncle Nat once, when I was quite small was "gone away on horseback" to see his sister[Marcie] on Sicily Island. Keep in mind that he and his sisters were children of Joseph Harrison by his Gibson Wife [Mary]. I think that Reuben Gibson was either a brother or son of Tobias Gibson, called the Father of the Methodist Church in Mississippi. [The first we know of Rev.Tobias Gibson’s family they were on Great Pee Dee river in South Carolina. The family consisted of John, Tobias, Nathaniel, Malachiah, Stephen and Rhoda. John remained in South Carolina and lived to be upwards of ninety years old. Malachiah and Nathaniel married in South Carolina and died there in middle life, but their widows and children came to this county with Stephen and Rhoda in 1802, and the following year settled in what is now Warren county.] [Tobias Gibson, born in South Carolina in 1776, began his journey into the Mississippi wilderness soon after his appointment(as a preacher), riding by horseback from South Carolina to Nashville, paddling by canoe from Nashville to Cairo, Illinois, then by flatboat down the Mississippi to Natchez and Washington. He arrived in March or April, 1799] p9. Joseph Harrison acquired land across the Mississippi River, in Louisiana, opposite the crossing now known as Quitman Landing, on a point which he named Rifle Point. He put his son James Gibson on this land with slaves and equipment to work it, and established a plantation there. p10. James Gibson Harrison was married here[15Jul1811 to Eliz Lick Norris] and busy with work when his brother Nathaniel (Uncle Nat, aged 27 in 1815) went with General Jackson to the Battle of New Orleans with "The Fensibles", a company raised at Natchez. When I would ask Uncle Nat to tell me about the battle, he had better memory of the Pretty French Girls than he had with the battle. [The battle was fought after a treaty had already been signed by the US and England.] p11. The plantation (Rifle Point) was an exposed point projecting into the river, and as there were no levees in those days, and an overflow about 1818 or 1820 swept the land, washing away all buildings and fences. The plantation was then abandoned. p12. My father, David Harrison, was born on this plantation in 1816 (David Harrison had three sons, James1853[James Parmenas], Reeves[Dr. Leon Rivers] 1859, Perry [Percy David]1861. p13. The overflow (flood) and the death of Joseph Harrison[1823] depleted the fortunes of the family and the Morgantown Home was sold and slaves and equipment divided. The family scattered and James G. Harrison and his family, also Nathaniel Harrison bought land in Jefferson County out from Rodney on Petty Gulf as the land was first called, and they established Home Hill. p14. Uncle Nathaniel had a mechanical trend and being stocky and strong of body preferred work of that kind and when Dr. William Dunbar brought skilled mechanics to build the first cotton gin in Mississippi, he sought employment with them . He helped to get the first suitable timbers and whipsaw it into shape. [One of the earliest of the gin manufacturers was Eleazer Carver of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. While traveling in the South in 1806 he made the acquaintance of some very important planters in the Natchez area of the Mississippi River Valley, where upland cotton had been grown commercially about as early as in Georgia and South Carolina. Among these were William Dunbar, famous scientist and planter, who himself had made improvements on a gin,] p15. He literally forged the gin-saws on an anvil, and assembled them on the shaft. He built the "brush" with bristles from the necks of bore hogs to frame the stand. He made the journal "boxes" for the saw and brush shafts to turn in, of persimmon wood. He selected the straight sycamore tree from which to make the screw for compressing the cotton into bales. I remember seeing him and Gabriel L. make the press screw for the gin at Home Hill. p16. They turned the log on a home-made lathe into a long smooth cylinder 10" in diameter. Working under the gin with square and compass, he marked with a pencil the spiral threads, and with a saw, with depth gauge attached, chisel and scrap and turn out a perfect screw with 'threads' two inches wide. I saw him put it in gin to replace the old worm screw in the press, and when it was greased with tar and tallow, it worked. He worked along these lines with gin rights and carpeting[carpenters] until he was a competent gin right. p17. He and his brother[James Gibson Harrison] went to Home Hill and he built a gin with complete horsepower plant. He bought a second hand gin stand. This was the first, and for many years the only gin in that section. He ran it as a public stall gin day and night, and eventually all year around with relays of horses that they bred and raised on the farm. p18. The brothers (Nathaniel & James G.) soon rebuilt their fortune and began to buy out the lands of the small farmers who settled around them until their border fences enclosed some 2,000 acres of the most fertile hill land in the world. They were rich besides the cotton crop they owned, herds of fine horses and mules and cattle and a flock of fine Marino Sheep. Their lands were all fenced and crossed fenced into fields, pastures, meadows and lots. p19. Nathaniel prided himself on making the best cotton, ginning it better than anyone else and selling it higher. James G. Harrison loved public life. He visited towns markets, resorts and race tracks and left the cares of the plantation to his Dutch Wife [after the death of his 1st wife, James married his sister-in-law] and his quiet brother, NATHANIEL, knowing that it could not be left in better hands. p20. When James G. Harrison died [abt 1833] Nat was irked by contacts with the business world. It developed that David, the second son of James G. administered the affairs of the estate. This responsibility was bestowed upon David, as Joe [Joseph], the eldest was dissipated. David was but only a boy [abt 17-18 yrs old], but had taken up the profession of surveying land and tracing titles; drawing up deed and wills. [Where are the other two brothers, James and Levi?] p21. He found that his Uncle Nathaniel had allowed the neighbors to impose upon him gradually. They had induced him to endorse their large accounts to pay for negro slaves, and these endorsed notes were held against the estate by the bank in Rodney. This involved the interest of the entire family. The makers of the notes failed to meet payments and the bank called upon the endorsers to pay. p22. As James G. Harrison had lived rather fast there was little cash on hand. So father, David, arranged with the bank whose claims to the notes also covered the slaves bought to take the slaves and buy more land and work out the debt. Some of the debtors tried to "run" the slaves at night and cross the river, but father caught them and forcibly took the slaves and brought them back. p23. He[David] and Uncle Isaac went by skiff through Bayou Largent (now Little Teuars) and Lake Loure to the land office at Harrisonburg. They entered the land that became the Eagle Plantation (later this was known as Delta and Maryland) p24. In the fall of 1839 they equipped wagons and teams and with slaves, crossed the river at Rodney and steering with compass from a known corner on the Lee Place near the landing, they cut their road through cane and jungle on a straight line striking Van Buren Bayou at what was later the Hubbard Place. p25. 1839 was a very dry year and they found the bottom of the bayou as dry as a bone. The cane was so thick on each side that they continued their journey by driving the wagons on the dry mud in the bayou to the junction of Dry Bayou. Father knew by his notes that they were on the land they had entered at Harrisonburg. There they stopped 100 years ago. They built their first campfire in the dry, broken tops of a big tree that had fallen across the Bayou. Uncle Isaac killed a bear that walked the log into camp that night. He killed many bears afterwards and kept bear bacon hanging in the smokehouse. p26. The two brothers, David, the older, and Isaac F. (Foster) and the Uncle, Nathaniel, owned this adventure jointly, each holding one third. p27. Isaac remained with the slaves to open and work the plantation. He built a home and married Fanny[Sarah Frances Gibson(1825-1860) in 1843], a daughter of Randal Gibson and his Stuart wife. p28. This partnership continued into the late 50's (1850), when the Eagle Plantation was divided up into Delta Plantation and Maryland Plantation. [These lands were located across the river into Louisiana] Nathaniel retained a 1/3 interest in each. This 1/3 was later exchanged for David's and Isaac's interest in Home Hill Plantation. Home Hill was owned by Uncle Nathaniel at the time of his death [1873]. He willed the place to his nephew [David]. [In 1870 David and family are living with Uncle Nat. Joseph died in 1841(p30) and Isaac went back to Ft. Worth (p40)] p29. James Gibson Harrison married Elizabeth Leakey[Lick] of Pennsylvania, who bore him three sons, Joseph, David and Isaac[where are James and Levi?] and four daughters. One[Mary 'Polly' b.1815MS] married Jabish Griffin. Another[Rosanna 1813-1833] married Lou Norris[in 1830], another, Sarah[1825MS- 1880LA], married Simeon Gibson [in 1841], and Letitia[1821-1847MS] married [in 1841] Gilburn Beul[Kilburn Ambrose Buell]. p30. The eldest son, Joseph, was killed by a horse soon after the marriage. [I assume he means after the marriage of Letitia and/or Sarah in 1841?] p31. The next son, David, was twice married. First to Mary Ann Brisco, a daughter of General Parmenas Brisco, of Claiborne County, MS. She was survived by children, Emma and James Parmenas.[Mary Ann Briscoe and her brother, William Briscoe, both died in 1853. David then married William's widow, Roche Leonly - his 'Dutch wife'] p32. David's second wife[Dutch wife] was Leonly Stuart Brisco, the widow of William Briscoe, a brother of Mary Ann. There were two sons born of this second marriage, named Rivers Leon Harrison, MD [1859-1919] and Percy Harrison [1861-1893]. Rivers married [first] Katie Whitney[in 1881] who died[in 1903] leaving two boys, Percy[1888-1970] and Rivers[1890-?] and a girl Hazel, who died in girlhood. [In 1904 he married 2nd] Elizabeth Whitney, a cousin of Katie, who died, leaving one son, Whitney. [Whitney was born on 29Sep1906. His mother, Katie, died the next day. In the 1910, 1920, and 1930 census Whitney was given up for adoption to the Benjamin Knapp family.] Benjamin's wife was Hatti Pendleton Whitney. Hatti was the sister of Eliz Whitney and therefore the aunt of Whitney Stuart Harrison. By 1908 Leon Rivers had married thirdly to Bertha Terry. Bertha had a son, Howell Gates, born in 1906.] p33. Percy [1861-1893] married May De Allison[1870TX-?] of Longview, [Gregg Co,] Texas. River's son, Percy D. married Carrie Campbell, daughter of Mr. Robert Campbell of KY and Fayette, MS. Whitney married Carrie Montgomery, a descendant of Jasper K. Montgomery, once a senator representing Jefferson County. p34. The first Randal Gibson, to whom I referred was a brother-in-law of Joseph Harrison. I am a little dubious of this relationship, while I know that this was true of David Gibson, I assume there was such relationship with Randal because I heard my father speak of a disagreement on division of property that estranged the families. [see p2. above about division of estate] p35. When the Territorial Government was moved out from under the old Spanish Influence in [abt 1799] the [capital] city of Natchez [was moved] to Washington, six miles east. Randal Gibson sold his land to the government and bought sugar interests in South Louisiana and moved his family to Nashville, TN. His son, Randal, Jr, came to Louisiana after college and commanded Louisiana Troops and was promoted to rank of General[in 1864] by Mr. Davis. p36. After the Carpetbaggers were driven out, he was selected to the U. S. Senate and became very prominent in national affairs. U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, Civil War Confederate Brigadier General. A native of Woodford County, Kentucky, he graduated from Yale College in 1853 and completed his law studies at the Law Department of the University of Louisiana in 1855. He worked on his father's large sugar plantation in Louisiana until he became an aide to Governor Thomas O. Moore when Louisiana seceded from the Union. When the Civil War began, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became a Captain with the 1st Louisiana Artillery. A few months later, he was commissioned as a Colonel and assigned to the 13th Louisiana Infantry, and led the regiment at the Battle of Shiloh. He served in the Kentucky Campaign and at the Battle of Chickamauga and was promoted to Brigadier General on January 11, 1864. He commanded a brigade during the Atlanta Campaign before he was assigned to the defense of Mobile, Alabama. After the war, he was admitted to the bar and practiced as an attorney in New Orleans. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to Congress in 1872. Elected as a Democrat to represent Louisiana's 1st District in the United States House of Representatives, he served from 1875 to 1883. He was reelected three times and did not seek renomination for a fifth term. He chose instead to run for the office of the United States Senate and was elected in 1882, reelected in 1889, and served until his death in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1892. He was also a regent of the Smithsonian Institution and the first president of the board of administrators at Tulane University (his alma mater, formally the University of Louisiana). Gibson Hall, the Tulane University Administration Building, is named for him. (bio by: Kevin Guy) p37. Isaac Harrison, son of James G. married Fanny Gibson[Sarah Francis Gibson (1825-aft1860)], daughter of David Gibson, son of Randal and his Stuart wife [Eliz H. Stuart (1803-1840)]. They had two sons, Nathaniel[1853MS] and Stuart [1859LA] and two daughters, Anna and Linda, who died in childhood. p38. At the beginning of the Civil War, Isaac was made Captain of the Tensas Parish Calvary, the body of young aristocrats, that was Co. A in Wirt Adams Creek Cavalry Regiment. This company was raised in Mississippi and became a part of the Army of Tennessee. This company was shot to pieces when it lead the charge and took the battle of Six Guns at Denmark Lane and routing the infantry Reserve support. After this fight, President Davis commissioned him as a Colonel to return to Louisiana and recruit a regiment to serve in the Trans-Mississippi Department under General Kirby Smith, and later commanding a brigade he was given the title of Brig General. He refugeed his family and slaves at Waco, Texas during the war. After the war was over, he failed to find satisfaction in working free Negroes, so he sold Delta Plantation to a New Orleans party and moved his family and home to Spanish Honduras where he took contracts to build railroads in Belies in British Honduras. p39. Settlement affairs of these contracts required his going to see the financiers who were promoting road. This took him to London, England[in abt 1872]. After this settlement, he brought his family to New Orleans and made a home on Esplanade Street for several years[1872-1874], until father's last illness, when they came to Home Hill and remained there after Father's[David] death in April, 1874, and until Sister's[Emma] death in 1875. [Uncle Nat died in 1873] p40. He took his family to Ft. Worth in 1876. Through an acquaintance he had made in London, he got a commission from a London syndicate that held an issue of Texas State Bonds of carpetbagger days. He located state lands on those bonds as the legislature had recently, and voted to retire the bonds in this way. He was to get a percentage for payments. [In 1880 Isaac Foster was enumerated 3 times: 1Jun1880 in Ft. Worth, 7Jun in El Paso, and again on 19Jun back in Ft. Worth.] p41. He went with the engineers that were locating the route for the road from Ft. Worth to El Paso. He took his son, Nat and our brother Percy(3) with him to El Paso, where with funds based on his share of the located land, he started the first streetcars in that town, an old Spanish settlement. He built an office building, store on the first floor, office above. [Tarrant County, TXGenWeb 1878-79 Fort Worth City Directory: KNEELAND & HARRISON (Walter E. Kneeland, Isaac F. Harrison) Land Agents, office Seaton Bldg., upstairs cor, Houston and First. http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~txtarran/citydirectory/1878-79-cd-4.htm] He remained there by himself and Fanny, his wife at Fort Worth, and Nat and Percy joined the survey down in Old Mexico on the line of the Mexican Central Railroad. p42. Percy came back when the survey halted for lack of funds, and Nat, a partner strayed off into the mountains looking for old Spanish silver mines and he mined silver ore until the U. S. demolished silver. Then he went back to the State of Sineola to look for gold on the west coast. He died there. [Sinaloa is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located in the northwestern part of the country. The state is bordered to the west, across the Gulf of California, by Baja California Sur. Because of its great mining potential, Sinaloa was coveted by the Spanish who sought to exploit its mineral wealth.] p43. Stuart had a job in the mayor's office, and remained there and built a home. When his father was stricken by paralysis in El Paso Stuart brought him to Ft. Worth to die and they are all buried there, Uncle Ike, Fanny and Stuart. Stuart left two children living in Houston. A son Kenneth and a daughter[Mary F.(1903TX- ? CA) whose name is unknown. Kenneth is an oil man. Their sister joined her father and married a Mr. Mixer[couldn't find Mr. Mixer], an official of the Southern Pacific Railway located in San Diego or Los Angeles where she died. p44. Some years ago, I was at the old Natchez Hotel talking with Joe Roose who had been a school mate of mine at the Phoenix School when we were boys. He asked me if I remember his older brother Leon, who joined Uncle Ike's command while still a boy. He called to Leon and told him that I was little Jimmy Harrison[James Parmenas Harrison]. Leon said that he did not remember me. Then he told me of being in El Paso and seeing a man with a newspaper get up from his chair at the hotel, walk up to the front of the group, and stick the paper in another man's face and demanded "Did you write this article?" Then the party raised and said "I am responsible for anything I publish." He then slapped him on one cheek and then on the other, stepping back drew two derringer pistols and holding them by the muzzle, held them out saying "take one and shoot it out." p45. The editor backed off refusing the gun. Leon said that he asked "who are they?" He was told that it was General Harrison [Isaac Foster] resenting the paper's attack on him. [The Roose (Rose) Family were of the refugees who came to Fayette when the Yankees occupied Natchez.] p46. The Civil War was brewing and John Brown, the abolitionist, tried to raid the South and incite the Negro Slaves to rise and massacre the whites as they had done in St Domingo and other parts of the Indies. The citizens felt that it was necessary to have some plan of safety and organized a company and made father captain. They would meet at Rachel (Plantation) and twice a month do drills and target shooting. When the war was started this company enlisted in the war as a calvary unit first but changed to an artillery with four little brass six pound cannon which looked big then. p47. The company camped at the old Sellers Place with the old double log house, four rooms, hall, attic, gallery and glass sash and dressed floors. and the big pecan tree. The size of the tree denoted the long period of time that the Sellers Family had lived there, as there were no wild pecans in those days. There was the grass yard with many marble tombs and headstones enclosed in a brick wall with iron gate. p48. This was burial ground of the ancestors of the present Walter Sellers. Blant Stuart married the daughter of this house, another daughter married William Thompson. There was a boy two or three years younger than I, named Emmitt, a son of Robert Sellers living in the neighborhood. p49. Father was getting old and the duties and nervous strain brought on an attack that paralized his left side for months and he had to give up his captaincy and put a paid schedule in the ranks. He was later commissioned a provost Marshall of the district of South Mississippi when the state was put under military rule. His attorney(authority) superceded all civil law and courts. It was his duty to provide rations and teams for the troops in his district. p50. He could and commandeer teams, slave districts, food and feed, in fact, anything for the Army. Boats to ferry troops, couriers or supplies across the Mississippi at night to escape the patrol of the Yankee Boats. p51. He would call on all planters for slaves and tools to send to build fortifications at Vicksburg, and Port Hudson. Many of the Natchez Families went to Rachel and Plantation to meet husbands and fathers on leave of absence from the armies, and relatives from invaded sections. p52. General Francis T. Nichols, later governor of Louisiana, when wounded met his family there and stayed weeks and weeks. General William T. Martins wife of Natchez waited a month of more. Major Walworth also, General Quitman's widow and daughters came to meet Frank Ogden who married one of the daughters of the Racheland Parlor. Mrs. Steven Routh of the party, and General Lowell who commanded at New Orleans, also met his family and remained for months. p53. General John McHenry who was later the first governor of Louisiana after the Carpetbaggers were run out and while there Aunt Leonly[Roche Leonly Stuart - Dutch wife] found that Mrs. McEnery was a Stuart Cousin at home at Monroe, LA. That near and they did not know each other.. p54. There were many young government and army officers in business with father in his official capacity, and secret service men, conscript officers. The Pine Grove across from the public road was a regular company ground for Wirt Adams Brigade when in the district and for any other troops passing through and the Racheland home quartered Adams and his staff of commanders and other forces. p55. When General W. N. R. Bealle were sent to fortify Port Hudson, he stayed at Racheland organizing the work and waiting for additional forces He was a West Pointer and father became very fond of him. They kept up correspondence for years and he sent a wedding card when he married a Miss Brent of Baltimore. p56. I well remember one night [James P. was about 12] when the family was at supper table, the arrival of a courier with a dispatch notifying father of Lee's Surrender, the end of the Civil War. All arose and gathered around father as he drew near the candle to read the sad news. There were tears and sobs and distress and few words as we accepted the doom of defeat. The house was as quiet and still as if there were death with us, just like a funeral.. p57. For fear that I may forget to mention it, when I write of the Harrisons and Gibsons of early days in Adams County, Mississippi, I read in the Times Picayune an interesting article about the thoroughbred Arabian Race Horses and the breeding for improvement in America. p58. The first racing association was organized in the South, and was originally established in New Orleans by Adam L. Bingaman and James G. Harrison, cotton planters of Natchez. This was a surprise to me and a revelation upon which I could build many conjectures. p.59 First, why had I not heard at the family fireside chats that my grandfather was a sporting man and a friend and associate of Colonel Bingaman, the high sport and owner of chain seven plantations and blood kin of the elite of Natchez of the old days, the Dahgrems, the Vidaldavises, the Ellets, the Surgets, the late June Surgent, a nephew inherited all his millions from Colonel Bingaman. There wealth of the Bingamans riviled that of the Roths and the Hunts. p60. David Hunt had 1700 slaves and more than 20 plantations. Yes, it was strange that through all the years of intimate family life, I had never heard even a whisper of the facts revealed in this article until a lifetime had past. But memory restricts me little words and incidents that under the light of this revelation assume moment's importance. p61. One fact was that there was an old field on the old Home Hill Plantation that was, in negro parlance, the race tract field where there was remaining evidence of a half mile track engineered with great labor along the edge of a horseshoe shaped ridge. The start was at one heel and the finish at the other with the valley between. p62. On Sunday the herd of some "cut" horses that ran on pastures were driven up once a week for salting and inspection in the barn lots, mares, colts, fillies and geldings. This was quite a show and the household ladies and others viewed it from protecting panels of the tea-rail space and rider fence, watching the antics of the young negro bucks who were allowed to go among the herd and keep the horses gentle, vaulting upon the unbroken geldings without saddle or halter and taking a tumble when it came. They were wonderful riders and reckless to a degree. p63. These slaves who were reared on the home plantations were wonderful with live stock in the care, feeding doctoring and training. Groups of older negroes in their Sunday crossed "gulluses" and fresh oiled shoes and blue jeans would stand around and join the fun boasting of their youthful feats. Among these older slaves discussions of the merits of Blue Dick, Rifleman, Molly Moon, Cinderilla. These names meant nothing to my young ears, but were in some way impressed upon my memory. p64. Mingled with these I seem to hear the weak voice of a little dried-up brown man who claimed to be an authority on horse flesh because he once wore the cap and colors on the Association Track, rode the Claybank filly to win. There were memories of a big, fat open-face Swiss Watch as big as an old-time sour milk biscuit. The face of this watch was beautifully made in yellow and red gold. On one occasion I heard father say that the watch was bought in Berlin by Colonel Bingaman as a present to grandfather, but it was little used as it was too heavy to carry in his pocket. p65. There was memory of the talk of the plantation blacksmith, when I stood in the shop door to watch. He prided himself on the name Gabriel L. Bingaman and imagined he had pompous airs and manner of speech of his idol and always accented the L middle of his name with gusto. I really doubt if this prideful L is anything but the terminal L of Gabriel and that his name was no more than Gabe but this ringing sound of the L in the title of his idol Adam L. Bingaman which was called at most public gatherings at home and abroad had caught his ear. p66. When he first heard the preacher proclaiming the herald of the last day with his trumpet ringing this terminal L with resounding peals Gab knew that he was advanced to a higher bracket in the social life of his circle, and Gabe became Gabriel L to which he added Bingaman to make it complete p67. As I first remembered him he was quite a personable figure in his ragged and multi-patched garb, patches of so many weaves and so thickly laid on as to drape like a quilt. He was of tall and powerful build, supple and erect, a kindly gray head matted an inch thick and scant kinks of graybeard on his cheeks. He cared nothing for his clothes and when he stood before you, you saw only the man and not his rags and patches, his approach and address were not bold, nor cringing nor humble. Simply natural as of a man with nothing to hide and nothing to gain. After the day's work was done, he always came before Uncle Nat, his master, to report the progress of the work at the shop which we would imitate piece by piece. Also any apparent carelessness or abuse of his implements and tools and who was probably guilty, which he did impartially. He was differential to the ladies of the family and their guests and never intruded upon them. If ladies were present on the low gallery where Uncle Nat sat he would halt at a distance until summoned, then stood on the ground at the gallery's edge and make his report., hat in hand. He never presumed to take his seat on the low gallery edge unless invited when a plate of something good was brought and offered to him. I never knew where he learned proper etiquette, that of a favored slave. p68. I do not know if he was born and bred as a slave of our family or if acquired after he was grown. While he displayed the utmost regards and difference for the white ladies, and his attitude toward the negro women was anything but ingratiating. His wife, old fat Sally was beneath his notice, but she served and worshipped him. My old mammy Harriet with whom lead by the hand, I toddled down to the shop when I could hear the hammers ringing on the anvil. She would nag and tease him and mock his formal composites, he would only say "keep that child outside." p69. Now, with all of this prolonged intimacy, it was never intimated by any of the household or the slaves that my great grandfather had run racehorses. Could it be possible that the obedience was so absolute that when forbidden to speak of this connection, the order was obeyed to the letter. In the spirit. Yes the race horse episode was taboo. But why? Did his losses break the family fortune? It looks that way to a man up a tree. p70. The family fortunes were at a low about 100 years ago. Yes 100 years ago this fall. Father and Uncle Isaac 21 & 23 years old in the year of 1839 entered the land [Louisiana] for Delta and Maryland, a wilderness to retrieve the family fortune. End of the narrative 'THE JOSEPH HARRISON FAMILY'. Additional Comments: I am not sure I would call this a 'biography' per se, but more a history of the descendants of the Joseph Harrison family. If studied very carefully it gives a wealth of family and local history, almost all of which can be verified by source documents. Comments or additions by me are in square brackets.[ ] This document was purchased 40 years ago in a Houston garage sale for 50 cents by a Colin Harrison (no relation to Joseph). Colin took the document back to his home in Utah. There it had remained for the past 40 tears until Colin posted to a Harrison web site that if anyone wanted the document, they could have it. Fortunately, one of our 'Harrison Scholars' grabbed it immediatly. I will leave it to you to decide if it worthy of inclusion in your project. Best Regards, Wayne File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ms/jefferson/bios/harrison16gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/msfiles/ File size: 38.6 Kb