In the early annals and later history of Jo Daviess County the name of this gentleman stands prominently forth as that of an honored pioneer who has been active in developing its resources, and in promoting its advancement to the front rank of the rich and prosperous counties of the great commonwealth of Illinois, and it is with pleasure that we present to his many friends this biographical sketch, in which his life-work, to some extent, will be perpetuated and handed down from generation to generation, for the benefit of his descendants. The Captain is a valued resident of the City of Galena, with whose mining interests he has been extensively identified for more than half a century. He has, also, been largely interested in the steamboat business on the Mississippi River, and in his various enterprises he has met with success and has amassed a handsome competence. He is, and has been for years, President of the Old Settlers’ Society of Jo Daviess County, and can relate, with great interest, many incidents of pioneer life here more than half a century ago, when the surrounding country was yet in its primitive condition, it having been his privilege to watch almost its entire growth. When he came here in the first quarter of this century the greater part of the Northwestern territory, from the eastern bounds of the State of Ohio on the east to the Mississippi River on the west; from the Great Lakes on the North to the waters of the Ohio on the south, was still in the hands of the pioneers; settlements were few and scattering, with not many large towns: in some parts the primeval forests stretched for miles and miles unbroken, inhabited only by Indians and wild animals; and there were innumerable wild prairies, whose fertile acres had been open to the influences of summer suns and winter rains and snows for countless ages, that still awaited the coming of the white man, that they might be made to yield abundant harvests of wheat and corn, to feed not only the hungry mil-lions of this continent, but even of other countries across the sea.

Capt. Harris comes of an honorable New England ancestry, a sturdy, vigorous, noble race, and he can trace his lineage back to the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock from the Mayflower in 1620. His grandfather and his great-grandfather, of the same name as himself, were natives of Massachusetts. Later in life his grandfather emigrated across the border into Connecticut, and finally went from there to Delaware County, N. Y., in 1780, the removal being made with teams. He became a pioneer of that part of the country, and buying a tract of land in Delaware County, he cleared a farm from the wilderness and there passed the remaining years of an unusually lengthy life, his death occurring at the advanced age of ninety-eight years. The maiden name of his wife, who was also a native of Massachusetts, was Rood. During his residence in New York he erected a frame house on his homestead, sawing all the lumber with a whip-saw. All the nails used in the construction of the house were made by a blacksmith in the vicinity, and our subject has some of them preserved as relics.

James Harris, the father of our subject, was born in Connecticut, and was quite young when his parents moved to New York State, where he was reared and married. Abigail Bathrick, a native of Delaware County, becoming his wife. They continued to reside in that county until 1815, when Mr. Harris went to Cincinnati, Ohio, the family not removing there until the following years, and there Mr. Harris taught school for a time, and later rented a farm and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was afterwards employed as an engineer in a woolen factory. In 1820 he moved to Greene County and engaged in farming there. He became a prominent man in his locality and was elected magistrate. He continued his residence there until 1823, when he came to Galena and was a resident here until his death. When he first came here he was in the employ of Dr. Meeker, who had large interests here, and the first year Mr. Harris had charge of the general business; and in 1824 he opened and improved the first farm cultivated in Jo Daviess County, which is located four miles north and a little west of Galena. The following year he commenced the improvement of a farm for himself three miles southwest of Galena, which was the second farm in the county. He lived on that place four years, and then returning to the city became conspicuously identified with its civic life, was elected Magistrate, and served until his death, Oct. 10, 1829, of cholera. His sudden demise was a misfortune to the little town, which thus lost one of its most useful and able public officers. He was a man of high intelligence and of incorruptible character, whose influence was always exerted for the good of his community. Socially, he was a Royal Arch Mason; and, politically, he was independent of party, voting for men and measures, rather than for the interest of any special candidate. To him and his worthy wife were born twelve children, of whom ten grew to maturity. The mother died in Galena, July 9, 1844, leaving to her descendants the precious legacy of a useful life.

The subject of this sketch was born in the town of Courtwright, Delaware Co., N. Y., July 24, 1808. He was eight years old when he started with his mother, in 1816, to join his father in Cincinnati. The mother, with her seven children, made the entire journey with a two-horse wagon. An uncle, of Mr. John Bathrick, accompanied them, riding over the mountains with them, the entire trip taking thirty days, a quick journey in those days of slow travel, there being no railroads or canals in that part of the country then, and all transfer was with teams, or on the river with flatboats, keel-boats and barges. In 1823 our subject accompanied his father on another long journey at the time of their coming to Galena, they preceding the other members of the family, who did not come until the following year. They made the journey with Dr. Meeker, who built a keel-boat, called “Col. Bumford,” for their transportation; and loading it with eighty tons of mining supplies, provisions, etc., the boat being manned by thirty-five men, accompanied by four women: Mrs. Bensen Hunt, sister of our subject; Mrs. John Doyle, Mrs. Maria Bunts, and Maria Rutherford, they started on the momentous voyage down the waters of the Ohio and up the Mississippi, April 20, 1828, and had a pleasant and easy passage to Cairo, which, at that time, was a small hamlet, containing but one frame house.

They found the waters of the Mississippi very high, and the rapid current hard to stem, and the men had to resort to various expediences to get the boat along through the rushing waters. They first tied the boat to a tree, so that it would not drift down stream, and then sent a skiff ahead with a long rope, which was fastened to a tree; the boat would then be drawn to the tree, made fast to it, and then the rope carried further up the river to another tree, and so on, this method of propelling the boat being called warping. At times the men would run the boat close to the shore and pull it along by catching hold of the bushes and trees, that mode being called bushwacking. At other times the men would walk along the bank and pull the boat by a rope, that process being called cordelling. While they were resting for the night at Grand Tower, the steamer “Virginia,” the first that ever went up the river above the mouth of the Illinois River, passed them.

That was in the last part of April, or the first part of May. They made a short stop in St. Louis, spending Sunday in that city, which then had about 5,000 inhabitants. Alton was but a small settlement on the east bank of the Mississippi, and was the last town until Clarksville, Mo., was reached, and after the latter place came Louisiana, Mo. A log cabin and a blacksmith’s shop were the only two buildings in Hannibal at the time. At Quincy, John Wood, the first settler and the only resident at the time spoken of, of that city, and afterward Governor of Illinois, was living in his little cabin near the river, which he had built in 1822 on his claim taken up the previous year. The only farm between Quincy and Galena was on the Missouri side of the river, fifteen miles above Quincy, and was owned and occupied by Capt. White. Near Ft. Edward, where Warsaw now stands, a sail was raised, and all was going well, when a shot was fired from the fort, and Dr. Meeker, concluding that it was best to stop, the commandant of the fort insisted on searching the boat for contraband goods, and after satisfying himself in that direction, and sampling the whisky in the locker, the boat was allowed to pass on. At Nauvoo there was an Indian village, inhabited by 5,000 aborigines. At Rock Island there was a Fort Armstrong and garrison, at the lower point of Rock Island in the Mississippi, and on the present site of the city an Indian village. The journey from there on was an uneventful one, and the party arrived in safety at its destination at Galena, then known as the Upper Mississippi Lead Mines. When our subject and his friends landed at Galena, there were probably about 100 white men and 150 Indians. Mr. Harris, and those accompanying him, lived on the boat until log houses could be erected on land for their shelter. During the first season our subject engaged in mining with an Indian boy, but failed to strike a lead. The next summer he was more successful at Vinegar Hill. Subsequently, he discovered the mines at West Diggings, about two miles southwest of Galena, near the Mississippi, which were equal to the best in the country. He was actively engaged in mining the three following years.

The circumstances connected with his rich find in that place are as follows: While he and his brother, Robert S., were lying under a shade tree one Sunday, taking a rest and talking over their prospects in this, to them, new country, with all the ardor and enthusiasm of youth (for they were neither of them of age), Daniel told Robert that he thought he knew of a good lead, and after some persuasion induced Robert to accompany him to the place above referred to. After going to a hole that had been sunk about eight feet and abandoned by a “sucker,” our subject got down into the shaft and struck his pick into the side of the hole – a lucky stroke, for he was enabled to secure in one piece, after it was taken out, 35,000 pounds of the metal: and the mine later produced more than 4,000,000 pounds, while his brother’s mine, which was not quite so valuable, yielded a large amount of lead. Since that time the Captain has been more or less interested in mining with great success, and still is. After the first three years, he and his brother Robert also engaged in agricultural pursuits, carrying on their father’s farm.

Our subject secured his title of Captain by his extensive connection with the steamboat business on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. He began life as a boatman in 1833, and at different times has been interested in more than a hundred steamboats, plying from New Orleans to St. Paul or St. Anthony, but more especially from St. Louis and Cincinnati to St. Paul, and he has been sole owner of the following boats: “Jo Daviess” (his brother was also for a time interested in that boat); later he and his brother owned the “Frontier.” He next built the “Smelter” in the season of 1836-37, and also the “War Eagle No. 1;” next, the new “St. Paul” and the “Preemption,” and subsequently he constructed the “Relief,” and after that the “Pizarro.” He later purchased and operated the ”Heroine,” then the “Franklin No. 2,” the “Senator,” the “Yankee,” and also the “Enterprise; and many others, and he was associated with the Minnesota Packet Company. One of the boats in which he was largely interested, and which he had had constructed at Cincinnati, and ready for the water in six weeks, though not quite completed, he was offered a profit of $15,000 for by a boat company on the Ohio River, and this being a good profit, he accepted it. The boat when completed would cost about $75,000. He had intended the steamer, which he called the “John Finch,” but which was later named the “Brilliant,” for a transfer boat for the army, and meant to run her past Vicksburg for Grant. During the trying times of the great Civil War our subject was one of the most active of the loyal citizens of the Union, without whose substantial aid and encouragement to back her soldiery she must have fallen. He was very zealous in the cause, and spared neither time nor money to promote the best interests of his beloved country in her hour of peril. He spent large sums of money for various purposes, and among other things equipped a whole company with Henry repeating rifles that cost $62.50 apiece, and he has one of them in his possession as a relic. He was quite close to Gen. Grant in those days, and was quite familiar with the various members of the War Department, and it was but just that, in view of the large sacrifices that he made in spending his money so freely to aid in furnishing the sinews of war at a time when many hesitated to even invest their money in Government securities, for fear of the downfall of the Union, he should receive ample return, and he did make money.

Capt. Harris has been twice married. His first marriage, which took place in Galena, May 22, 1833, was to Miss Sarah Maria Langworthy. She was born in the State of New York, Feb. 17, 1811, and died on the Island of Cuba, whither she had gone with her husband for her health, Jan. 25, 1850. She was the accomplished daughter of the late Dr. Stephen Langworthy, of Dubuque, Iowa. The following is recorded of the five children born to her and her husband, all of whom are living: Lorinda is the widow of Jonathan Dodge, and lives in Chicago, Ill.; Amelia is the widow of Francis O’Farrall, and she lives in Chatfield, Minn.; Mary A. is the wife of Thomas J. Maupine, of San Francisco, Cal.; Medora is the wife of Charles F. Trego, a prominent citizen of Chicago. Daniel S., Jr., married Miss Kittie Ott, and he lives on Puget Sound, near Seattle, Wash. The Captain was a second time married, in Galena, Aug. 25, 1851, Miss Sarah Coates becoming his wife. She was born in Tulu Township, Chester Co., Pa., March 7, 1824, and was a daughter of Samuel and Margaret (Cherrington) Coates. Mrs. Harris died Feb. 23, 1886. She was the mother of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. The others are as follows: Wenona is the wife of John V. Hellman, of Galena; Ernestine is the wife of C. F. Taylor, of Warren, in this county; Irene is the wife of John A. Gillette, of Buncombe, Lancaster Co., Wis.; I. Ann is the wife of Dr. H. L. Jenckes, of Hazel Green, Wis.; Paul Cherrington is attending the military school at Faribault, Wis. He is a good scholar, and will graduate in the class of 1889, and is editor of the school paper. The death of Mrs. Harris was a severe blow, not alone to the immediate members of her household, but to a large circle of friends, and to the society of this city, which she was so fitted to adorn. She was a woman of superior culture, being highly educated and accomplished, and an artist of much skill, and the beautiful home of herself and husband still shows traces of her presence in its artistic furnishings and adornments. She was a person of strong and noble character, and for years before her death was one of the most prominent women in the State of Illinois. She was the Secretary of the Soldiers’ Monument Association of Jo Daviess County, and was one of the most energetic persons in causing the erection of the soldiers’ monument.

Capt. Harris is widely and favorably known throughout Jo Daviess and adjoining counties as a man of ability, possessing a broad and liberal spirit that has ever delighted in advancing the interests of the community and of his country at large, he having to this end labored, made sacrifices, and invested his capital judiciously, awaiting patiently for returns. He possesses a well-balanced, vigorous mind, and in all business transactions is methodical and strictly honorable, and, during his long residence in this county of sixty-six years, he has won the friendship of many people, who are attached to him by his frank geniality and other pleasant personal attributes. He is a thorough Republican in his political sentiments, and in him that party finds one of its firmest supporters.

Contributed by Carol Parrish - From Portraits and Biographical Pg 770-773