Stanislaus
County
Biographies
IRA HARRIS, Jr.
The life story of Ira Harris, Jr.,
of Modesto, Stanislaus County, California, is that of the career of a self-made
man, pushing, progressive and patriotic, who has shrunk from no duty and
hesitated at no obstacle, a career of honest industry and a victory worthily
won. Mr. Harris comes from the
Revolutionary stock in both lines of descent, great-grandfathers of both of his
parents having fought for American independence. He was born in Rhode Island, November 18,
1848. His great-grandfather Harris was
an early settler there, but Jeremiah Harris, grandfather of the subject of this
sketch, and his son Ira Harris, the father of Ira Harris, Jr., were both born
in Massachusetts. Ira Harris married
Miss Fanny Clark, a native of Massachusetts, whose father had fought in the War
of 1812, following in the footsteps of his patriotic fathers. Ira Harris was a wagon maker during his
active years. He is still living at the
age of eighty-four. His wife died at the
age of seventy-one, having given the work of most of her years to the Baptist
church. They were the parents of six
children, four of whom are living.
When the subject of this sketch had
attained his fifteenth year, the struggle between the north and south was at
its height and the need of more volunteers to put down the slave-holders’
rebellion was pressing. The boy had
inherited warlike blood, the demands of which would not be denied, and July 15,
1863, he entered the United States Navy, onboard the frigate Ironsides. He was on duty at the capture of Fort Wagner
and Fort Gregg, helped to silence the Cummings battery on Morris Island and
assisted to batter down other fortifications on Sullivan’s Island. He was in the service about a year all told,
and received a slight injury from a fragment of a shell and another from an
iron lever attached to one of the guns on the Ironsides. He was honorably discharged at Philadelphia,
and returning to his home devoted himself to acquiring a practical knowledge of
the carriage maker’s and blacksmith’s trades in his father’s shop. He went to Colorado in the fall of 1879 and
from there to San Francisco, California, in 1883. Six months later he came to Modesto, where
for four years he was employed by Mr. Englehart and
for a year afterward by Mr. Harter. In
1889 he opened a shop on his own account, which he has since managed
successfully, giving attention to carriage making, ironing and repairing and to
general blacksmithing, making a specialty of repairing all kinds of machinery. He has prospered satisfactorily and has
acquired considerable town property. He
is an influential citizen and is identified with the orders of the Druids and
the Artisans, and is a Mason, a member of blue lodge and chapter, and is a past
commander of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1899 Mr. Harris was elected by the
citizens of the town as one of the city trustees, which position he is
earnestly laboring to administer justice for all.
Mr. Harris was married in 1869 to
Mary Muhlholland, of Irish ancestry and a native of
the state of Rhode Island, and the union has been blessed by the advent of
eight children. Their eldest son,
William, following in the footsteps of his father and his ancestors, gave his
services to his country as a member of Company D, of the Sixth California
Regiment, in the Spanish War. The other
children are named Emma Agnes, Fanny, Mary, Ellen, Josephine, George and Genever.
Mr. Harris’s brother, Thomas E.
Harris, also served in the United States Navy during the Civil War and he also
achieved a record of which he had a right to be proud. Four of Mr. Harris’s uncles, Jeremiah,
William, Abel and Oran Harris, served in the Union army during the rebellion
and two of them gave their lives in defense of their country.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 382-383. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.