Harris family.

Thaddeus Mason Harris (1768-1842) was the son of William and Rebekah Harris. William Harris ran a public writing school in Charlestown, Mass., until the Revolution, then moved the family to Lancaster. William lost everything when the British burned Charlestown. He died in 1778 at the age of thirty-four. Thereafter Thaddeus lived with several people, including Ebenezer Morse of Chockset (now Sterling), Mass., who helped prepare him for Harvard College. He entered Harvard College in 1783, graduated in 1787, taught school in Worcester, and eventually returned to Cambridge, earning an A.M. degree in theology in 1789. He was librarian of Harvard College Library (1791-1793), when he was ordained as the minister of the First Parish Church in Dorchester. He was elected to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1792, and in 1795 married Mary Dix of Worcester; they had nine children. In 1802 he contracted yellow fever during an epidemic; he traveled to Ohio for four months to recuperate, and later published an account of his trip. He received a Doctorate in Theological Studies from Harvard College in 1813. He resigned as minister of the First Parish Church in 1836, and died in 1842.

Thaddeus William Harris (1795-1856) was the oldest child of Thaddeus Mason and Mary (Dix) Harris. He entered Harvard College in 1811, at sixteen, received an A.B. in 1815, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1820. He practiced medicine with Dr. Amos Holbrook of Milton, Mass., and in 1824 married Dr. Holbrook's daughter, Catherine. They had twelve children, one of whom died in infancy. He became interested in botany and entomology and published dozens of articles on those subjects. In 1831 he became Librarian of Harvard College Library, which he remained until his death in 1856. William Thaddeus Harris (1826-1854) was the oldest child of Thaddeus William and Catherine (Holbrook) Harris. He entered Harvard College in 1842 and received his A.B. degree in 1846. He attended Harvard Law School and received L.L.B. and A.M. degrees in 1848. He subsequently worked at the law office of William S. Bowditch, as Assistant Librarian at the Harvard College Library and Boston Athenaeum, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1853. He was also known as a history scholar, published transcriptions of epitaphs from the Old Burying Grounds in Cambridge and Watertown, and revised Hubbard's "History of New England". He died in 1854 at the age of twenty-eight.