John S. Harris

Page 677
John S. Harris has attained to substantial success as a planter and stockman of Perry County. Born in Woodford County KY on April 11, 1866, he is the son of John W. Harris and Florida Ann Neet. His education was obtained at the public schools of his native county and principally in the town of Versailles. At the age of fourteen years he left school and went to work with his father upon the farm and in 1881 removed with his parents to Perry County Ark, where the elder Harris purchased 320 acres of wild land, and the following year homesteaded 160 acres more, upon which he cleared fifty acres, built houses, barns and made a great many improvements. During the same year he erected a substantial dwelling on the first purchase and by 1885 he had cleared off and put under cultivation thirty acres more. He became a well known and popular citizen of Perry County and on the occasion of his death, in September 1886, left a large circle of friends and acquaintenances as well as a wife and six children to mourn him. His son, John S., commenced farming for himself at the age of twenty years, on land rented from his father's estate and in the first year put in a crop of forty five acres consisting of cotton and corn with the first named predominating. His crop has increased from year to year and he now has sixty acres of cotton and twenty acres of corn under cultivation, the former averaging a bale to the acre and corn going largely over. Mr. Harris is a steady going, shrewd business man and an experienced farmer and his work thus far has given the older farmers of that section to understand that they must look well to their laurels or else be surpassed by their energetic young neighbor. He became familiar with the breeding and raising of stock on the home farm in Kentucky and he is now thinking seriously of entering into that business which in his judgement is much more profitable than his present occupation. In social matters he takes an active part. Mr. Harris is still a young man and his future is a bright one. His intention is to make Perry County his permanent home and the citizens of that place can congratulate themselves upon having him in their midst.