Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 672
HON. D. M. HARRIS

Among the remarkable characters in Harrison county was the late Judge D. M. HARRIS, editor and proprietor of the Missouri Valley Times. His long service in journalism, his long and good life, his peculiar way of putting things into the printed page, his connection with Odd Fellowship and his service in other ways that made him an important man in this section of the state of Iowa, requires the presentation of a fitting sketch of his career in the annals of his county. Throughout Iowa, and especially on the Missouri slope, Judge HARRIS was well and favorably known to thousands of admirers--those who believed in solid Democratic editorials.

D. M. HARRIS arrived in Missouri Valley when the town was in its infancy and lived there many years and there died honored and respected for his many manly and noble virtues. He died at the advanced age of ninety years, two months and eighteen days, having been born in Montgomery county, Ohio, at the point where now is the city of Dayton, July 21, 1821. His parents died when he was but nine years of age, after which he went to Maurry county, Tennessee, and there remained until 1854, in which year he moved to Audubon county, Iowa, where he practiced law. He was elected county judge of Audubon county, in 1856, being the second judge in that county. He served two terms and in the autumn of 1859 was elected to a seat in the House of Representatives of the Iowa Legislature. In 1886 he was elected to the twenty-first General Assembly. He was always a defender of the Democratic party and its platforms. He was a strong political factor in Iowa for thirty or forty years. His newspaper experience included the editorship of papers at Exira, where he edited the Defender; the Capsheaf at Atlanta; the Democrat at Independence, Kansas; the Guthrie County Ledger; the Harrisonian, at Missouri Valley; the Audubon Defender, and the Missouri Valley Times. He commenced his newspaper work in 1863 and remained at the helm until just before his death.

It was he who aided in securing the grand lodge rule requiring all men to unite with the Odd Fellows' order in Iowa to refrain from addiction to drink or from engaging in the saloon business. This rule of the Iowa lodges obtained about 1885.

Judge HARRIS was a stanch member of the Christian (Campbellite) church and ever stood for all that was high and noble in the community. He was married July 29, 1841, to Martha M. WHITE; a native of Tennessee, by which union ten children were born, all of whom are still living. One of the exceptional enjoyments of this worthy couple was their golden wedding anniversary, July 29, 1891, when scores of relatives and friends assembled at the Harris home in Missouri Valley. Many valuable and appropriate golden gifts were given them at that time. Judge HARRIS died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. C. C. LAHMAN, October 9, 1911. His wife died several years before he passed from earth and he was gently cared for by his daughter. The son Robert, or "Bob," as he usually was styled, was a partner of his father many years and had charge of the business and mechanical parts of the business.

"The closing scenes of the lives of such men as Judge HARRIS and John C. MCCABE of the near-by Logan Observer, who passed from earth's shining circle only a week before Judge HARRIS, are what gives grandeur to man's estate, and mark him as connected with the glory of immortality and gives us reason for emulating their virtues and forgetting their faults," said A. H. SNIFF, of the Missouri Valley News, on the occasion of Judge HARRIS's death. The reader is urged to refer to the chapter on "Reminiscences" in this volume, where will be found an article written by Judge HARRIS in October, 1905, a few years prior to his death, in which he reviews the changes his eyes had beheld in "Fifty-one Years."

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