Harrison, Henrietta Hardin Carter.

The Carter-Harrison Family Papers, including manuscripts from the Hardin, Carter, and Harrison families, is a rich resource of documents from one of the most well-connected families in the American South. This collection provides a look at the lives of some of Waco's most elite citizens from the American Civil War on into the late 1800s.

The connection between the Hardin-Carter-Harrison families was Henrietta Hardin Carter Harrison. Henrietta was born into the Hardin family and married James Henry Carter, who died in the Civil War. After the war, Henrietta married James Edward Harrison, who was also marrying for the second time. Many of Henrietta's letters survive in the collection, along with two diaries that she kept after the war.

Henrietta Hardin Carter Harrison was born in 1827 in Richmond County, Georgia, to Edward and Jane Hardin. She married James Henry Carter while still in Georgia, but at some point they decided to come to Texas. James enlisted in the Confederate army during the Civil War, but was killed in 1864 in Hamburg, Louisiana. He is said to have been a captain in a Texas unit from McLennan County, perhaps the 15th Texas Infantry, but there is no record of him in surviving muster rolls. James and Henrietta had four children together, one of whom died in infancy. Many of James' letters to Henrietta and a few from Henrietta back to him are preserved in this collection.

In 1866 Henrietta married James Edward Harrison of Waco. James came from a wealthy and well-known family in American history, the Harrisons, which made him a distant relative of President William Henry Harrison, several politicians on the state and local levels, and many military officers. Various members of the family were good friends of future Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and moved with ease in the elite circles of the Lower South society. By the time he moved to Texas, James was becoming well-known in his own right, as he spent time as a trader with the American Indians in present-day Oklahoma and served as a Mississippi state senator. Sometime during his travels, James went to Georgia, and eventually married Mary Ann Evans from Morgan, Georgia. He was 27 and she was just 17 years old. Mary Ann must have accompanied James on most of his travels, since their ten children were born in Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas. Though they had ten children together, only nine lived to adulthood. After arriving in Texas in 1857, fourteen years after his older brother Thomas had moved there, James and Mary Ann purchased land ten miles south of Waco along Tehuacana Creek and began setting up a plantation. Though most sources claim he bought 6,000 acres of land around McLennan County, the tax records only show that he owned 3,000 acres. Harrison also owned forty-one enslaved African-Americans who worked in his cotton fields.

Harrison was involved from the beginning with the secession movement in Texas. He was a delegate to the state Secession Convention, and was sent with two other men as Texas state commissioners to the Five Tribes in current-day Oklahoma. The written report of Harrison's committee activities with the Five Tribes can be found in this collection.

After his mission to the Five Tribes, Harrison enlisted as a Confederate major in Joseph Speight's 1st Texas Infantry Battalion, a unit filled with men from Central Texas. When the unit was reorganized as the 15th Texas Infantry in 1862, Harrison became lieutenant colonel. His final promotion was in 1864, to the rank of brigadier general of infantry under the French-born general Camille Armand Jules Marie Prince de Polignac. James served in the Trans-Mississippi area for the entire war, participating in campaigns in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. At the end of the war, Harrison was in charge of surrendering the Trans-Mississippi Department to Union forces under the direction of his own commanding officer. James' letter to the United States president asking for a pardon after the war is preserved in the collection, along with orders issued by Harrison to his military unit.

Upon returning home, James Harrison began putting his post-war life together. Many of his now-free slaves stayed in the area and worked as tenant farmers for him. These freed slaves and their descendants eventually formed the community Harrison Switch, named for a place close by where the railroad turned its cars and engine around to send the train back in the opposite direction. Harrison also married Henrietta Hardin Carter Harrison, who had been a widow since her husband died during the war. The couple married in 1866, with James at 51 years old and Henrietta at 39. They did not have any children together, but both had children from their previous marriage.

James Harrison continued to be a community leader after the war. After receiving his pardon for participation in the war from the president, he became a trustee of Baylor University, deacon in Waco's First Baptist Church, and first president of the Baptist General Association of Texas. He was also good friends with Texas Governor Richard Coke. Various letters in the collection refer to James' extensive community involvement, and several letters from his friend Richard Coke are also preserved.

In 1873 James began to have pains and numbness in his left shoulder and hand. He continued life as usual, but when his whole left side became paralyzed, he began writing out his will and making provisions for his loved ones. He was fully paralyzed in 1874, but recovered enough to go on a vacation to hot springs in Michigan. He became sick again in 1875, and this time did not recover. James Edward Harrison died on 1875 February 23 and is buried in First Street Cemetery, Waco, Texas. Henrietta lived on until 1909, when she died in Waco, Texas. Two of Henrietta's diaries of life after the war can be found in this collection.

Harrison descendants continue to study their families' past. Katharine Harrison Sarrafian published a book on the Harrison family in 1966, and a transcription of Henrietta's diaries was finished by another Harrison descendent in 1973. In 2005, the Harrison family returned to Waco and gathered at the historic Earle-Harrison House for a family reunion. Today the Harrison legacy stands in Waco and around the Southern United States as one of the most elite families during the 1800s.

From the description of Carter-Harrison family papers, 1837-1932, undated 1845-1895. (Baylor University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 768484865