When John Richardson Harris came to Texas in 1824, he continued his family's pioneer tradition. John Harris immigrated from England, settled in Pennsylvania, and founded the town of Harrisburg in the early 18th century. His son, Samuel Harris, eventually settled in the frontier region of New York. John Harris, the father of John R. Harris, was born in 1760, the eldest child of Samuel and Elizabeth Harris. He remained in New York, marrying Mary Richardson in 1789 and having ten children.
David Harris followed his brother, John Richardson Harris, to Texas as one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred. He helped his brother establish the town of Harrisburg, Texas, at the junction of Buffalo and Bray's Bayous. Along with two other brothers, William Plunkett and Samuel, he took over business operations in Harrisburg after the sudden death of John R. Harris in 1829 and was the original executor of his brother's estate. He married Tabitha Kincade Iiams ca. 1828 and settled between Red Bluff and present day La Porte. The couple had three children.
The fourth child of John Richardson Harris and Jane Birdsall, John Birdsall Harris was born on January 14, 1821, in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. He joined his mother and siblings, DeWitt Clinton, Lewis Birdsall, and Mary Jane, in Texas sometime after the Revolution. In 1839, he established himself in Harrisburg as a shareholder in the Harrisburg Town Company. A year later he promoted the Harrisburg and Brazos Railroad. He was elected alderman in the first Harrisburg municipal election in 1842. In 1849, he married Virginia Goodrich and had four children - John Goodrich (1850), Maurice Birdsall (1852), Benjamin Goodrich (1856), and Mary Eliza (1859). He died of typhoid on July 21, 1867, in Houston, Texas.
From the guide to the Harris family papers MC062. 50105482., 1795-1875, (Bulk: 1836-1852), (Albert and Ethel Herzstein Library, )
