Freestone County, Texas Biographies Biography of Dr. William P. Harrison (12 Oct 1880-23 Jan 1953, buried Greenwood Cemetery in Teague, TX.) [Note - his death certificate puts his birth date as 12 Oct 1879] A History of Texas and Texans, VOLUME 4 By Frank White Johnson, Eugene Campbell Barker, Ernest William Winkler Published by American Historical Society, 1914 Page 1934 DR. WILLIAM P. HARRISON, M. D., one of the foremost professional and business men of Teague, is a native of Grimes county, Texas, and is a son of Bernard Harrison, who settled in the vicinity of Bedias, as a pioneer, prior to the Civil war period. Dr. Harrison was a Virginian, and was a young man at the time of his advent into Texas. He was born in Grimes county, about 1830, and he died at his farm near Bedias, Texas, in 1895. He spent his life as a farmer and stock man, becoming an extensive land owner in the county, and proving himself a successful business man. He left a good-sized estate when he died. Bernard Harrison was a soldier in the Civil war, and he had his first military experience as a member of Terry's Rangers, prior to the outbreak of the war. He later was enlisted regularly as a Confederate soldier, though still as a member of the well-known Terry organization, and he saw considerable active service. He was never one to take an unduly active part in politics, though he supported Democratic policies, and he was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. In his business activities Bernard Harrison was successful and prosperous and he accumulated something like five thousand acres of land. His farm alone embraced five hundred1 acres, all of which was cleared and under the plow. His presence in that locality worked a decided improvement in what was originally a wilderness, and the Bedias community owed much to his aggressive and progressive methods. He married Miss Margaret Plaster, a daughter of William Plaster, who was a Tennessee settler coming to Texas prior to the birth of his daughter. Mr. Plaster was one of the first white settlers of Grimes county, and he was a merchant of Bedias, presumably the first one in the place. Dr. Harrison of this review is one of a family of eleven children, nine of whom yet survive, and three of them are members of the medical profession. He is the youngest of the family. He was born on October 12, 1880, and he passed his boyhood in the Bedias community to the age of fifteen years, when he went to the A. & M. College at Bryan, and there acquired his higher education. He finished the agricultural course there, and was graduated in 1899. He began his career in business as a traveling salesman for an advertising house out of Chicago, . and for a year he was occupied in that manner. Then, in 1900, he took up the study of medicine in the medical department of the University of Texas, and in 1904 was graduated with the M. D. degree. His class standing won for him an internship in the John Sealey Hospital in Galveston, and he spent a year there. About this time yellow fever broke out and became epidemic in New Orleans, and Dr. Harrison entered the quarantine service of the state of Texas, with station at Galveston. His assignment was that of quarantine inspector and with the quelling of the epidemic he left the service. He then took up professional work with the McCabe & Steen Construction Company, as a contract surgeon, and he served with them for three months. In the fall of 1907 Dr. Harrison came to Teague and established himself in practice. He has been division surgeon for the T. & B. V. Railway since the establishment of the division here, and he is county health officer of Freestone county, as well as being a commissioned officer of the medical corps of the Texas National Guard, by appointment of Governor Colquitt, under date of June 10, 1913. As to his business connections in Teague, it may be said that the Doctor is a stockholder in the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Teague and of the Teague Building Company. Dr. Harrison was married in Teague on February 2, 1910, to Miss Grace Setzer, a daughter of Mrs. H. B. Setzer, who came to Texas from North Carolina, where Mrs. Harrison was born. Mrs. Setzer in maidenhood was Miss Helen Jones, and she has borne her husband two sons and two daughters. Dr. and Mrs. Harrison are without issue. The Doctor is a Mason, with Blue Lodge, Chapter and Commandery affiliations, and he is also an Elk and a Pythian Knight. He has been a delegate to the State Democratic Conventions on several occasions, that constituting his only political service.