Person:John Harris (12)

It appears that President Franklin Pierce may be descended from John Harris.

From NEHGS Register July 1951, p. 190-197, Harrises in Boston Before 1700

Between 1658 and 1697 in Bonston there were among the Harrises three Johns, two Williams (not including William of Block Island who was probably a brother of Richard of Braintree and Boston), two Thomases, as well as Barnard and Joshua, all having children and most of them simultaneously.This group requires a minimum of three fathers. John Harris who came on the Christian 1635 and William Harris of the Amitie could have been fathers of some of them. Possibly Richard, gentleman, who died in Cambridge in 1644 was a father. There is no record of any dealing or relationship between any two of the above- named Boston Harrises.

... a group of Harrises of considerable means, who apparently had not too much to do with the church and its hierarchy and indeed appear to be linked at least with such subversives as the Rev. John Wheelwright. However they came trailing clouds of respectability, for the used and were accorded the title of "Mr." and "Mrs.".

... This Harris family in Boston seems not to have been too pious. It is not known why John was "admonished" in 1643/4 in Boston. The Godly of Boston became so annoyed at Thomas Harris in 1658 that they gave themselves the pleasure, doubtless exquisate, of cutting off his ears. (Footnote: Honesty requires us to admit that had the same situation arisen in England or Europe, the so-called center of culture, the mayhem committed upon Mr. Harris would have been far worse.) In 1659, he was on Shelter Island with Lawrence Southwick, the Quaker. In 1634, a Joshua Harris had been apprenticed to the well-known Quaker, Francis Weston. There are records of births but not of baptisms of Richard's children born in Braintree. Richard bought land of and perhaps married the daughter of the once disarmed Richard Waite who "held fast to the heresies of Mrs. [Anne] Hutchinson" (Savage), took seizin of land from Thomas Savage, whose wife, Faith, was daughter of Anne Hutchinson. Thomas, in Hartford in 1674, appears not in the church records, and Hartford refused to make him an inhabitant in 1681 even though they called him "Mr." Harris. William of Hartford was so far out of the church that only in 1705 did he own the Covenant, when his first child was ten years old. James Harris had his first child in 1667, but didn't get around to having his seven children baptised until sixteen years later, 1683. William Harris, Jr., born on Block Island, was not baptised until he was sixty-eight.

John Harris was born in 1605/6. John Harris, aged 28, was listed 16 March 1634/5 "to be transported in the Christian to New England" (The Register, vol 14, p. 302). 7 Oct. 1640, John Harbert was granted Hohn Harris's land if he could show "a sufficient assignment from Mr. Harris" (Rec. of Gov. & Co. of the Mass. Bay Col., !:309). John Harris was "to pay 2s 6d fees; was admonished and discharged" 5 March 1643/4 (Records of Ct.s of Assts. of the Mass. Bay, p. 139). He was made freeman 26 May 1647 in Boston (The Register, vol. 3, p. 191).

This John, born in the year preceding 16 March 1606/7, could be the John last of the four boys and girls "under 18 years of age" named as his children in the will dated 11 April 1607 (ibid., vol. 51, p. 409) of Richard Harris, mariner of Leight, Essex, on the Thames just below London. That will called Mr. William Neguse "my good friend... our pastor"; Benjamin Negs of Boston was from London.

It is quite possible that Richard of Leigh belonged to the Harris family of Wapping; his granddaughter, Elizabeth Bourne, married William Harris, Jr., mariner, of Wapping, the dock-yard village in the parish of Stepney.

Richard, the testator, a man of property, referred to "my ships". His "deceased daughter Jane" had married John Bourne, Jr., of London, and Charlestown and Dorchester, Mass. John Harris in Boston was called Mr., a title then used rarely and carefully to indicate a person of position.

It is here suggested that John Harris, son of Richard and Sarah and brother of Richard, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Mary was Mr. John Harris of Boston 1640 and was father of

Richard William John Thomas James (possibly) Elizabeth (?) An Elizabeth Harris m. in Boston in April, 1668, Zachariah Sawtelle of Groton, Mass., b. 26 May 1643 (Pope's Pioneers), whose second wife Anne was mother of his daughter, Anne, b. 14 March 1673/4. Zachariah had Zachariah, Jr., b. in 1670 and Elizabeth, b. in October 1671 (Groton V.R.) SarahA Sarah Harris witnessed Maj. Thomas Savage's release 4 March 1677/8 to Aldwine Child, father of the child of the Major's unwed daughter (Suffolk Co. Deeds, 11:62). The only known Sarah Harrises then were Sarah, wife of James; Sarah, wife of William, the merchant; and Sarah, wife of Thomas. Sarah and Thomas appear only once in the records, at the birth of a child, and may have been living elsewhere. Sarah, the witness, could have been a spinster, daughter of John. Note that Richard named his first child, both by wife Margaret and by wife Elizabeth, Sarah.

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