W. J. HARRIS.

W. J. HARRIS, the president and head of the company, is a native of Butler county, Pa., born at Harrisville on October 13, 1841. His parents, James and Mary A. (McKee) Harris, were also natives of Pennsylvania. The father was a manufacturer of furnaces for many years, then turned his attention to farming. In 1852 he brought his family to Iowa, making the trip of several weeks by water--down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to Fort Madison. After their arrival they farmed in Lee county three years, then, in 1855, moved to Grinnell in the western part of what is now Poweshiek county.

During the Civil War the father enlisted in defense of the Union in the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, the celebrated "Gray Beard Regiment," in which he served three years in various parts of the South, doing guard duty mostly and holding the rank of orderly sergeant. After his discharge from military service he returned to his home at Grinnell, where he died in 1870. His widow survived him twenty-two years, dying in 1892. They had five sons and five daughters seven of whom are living.

W. J. Harris, the only one of the family resident in this county, grew from the age of eleven years to manhood in this State and obtained his education here, attending the public schools and spending a short time at the Iowa College. In 1879 he came to Lewis and began dealing in stock and grain, building the elevator for his grain trade which he still owns. He continued in the stock and grain trade until 1890, when he abandoned it to give his sole attention to the banking business, which he had started two years before, and in which he is still engaged. In addition to this he is a stockholder in the Iowa Trust & Savings Bank of Atlantic, and also owns farms in Nebraska and South Dakota.

W. J. Harris was married in 1864 to Lucy A. Patterson, a native of Maine. They have two sons and one daughter--Bert C.; Minnie, wife of W. B. Davis; and James P., a druggist in Omaha. The father is a Republican in politics but not an active partisan, and never sought or held office. He is a member of the Masonic order, through lodge, chapter and commandery, and belongs to the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Harris is now one of the few survivors of the early days of struggle and privation in this region, one of those who saw the dawn of civilization here and has lived to behold its noonday splendor. He is universally esteemed.

Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018, from "Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pp. 358-359.