Search billions of records on Ancestry.com
   
 

John Anderson Harris & Eugenia Boothe Towe (Jennie Darling) Harris

John Anderson Harris and Jennie Towe Harris are my great-great grandparents. When Grandmama first showed me her old family photographs, these were two that interested me the most. I started my research with these two families, particularly the Towe families and their history in Perquimans County, NC.

John and Jennie were married 2/8/1882 by W.W. Rennage of Perquimans, at her parents' home (James and Martha Towe) in Woodville Township. Witnesses were John Towe (brother) and Sarah White. One of my big geneaology hopes is to one day find out if this home is still standing. 

John's parents, Joseph Harris and Margaret Ann Thompson were married 11/3/1853. John was born 9/11/1856. John's father died in 12/1859, when John was only 3 years old. John's only Harris sibling (a sister, Delfina born 2/22/1859) died 7/1860 when she was less than a year old. Margaret and John must have been made of pretty tough material to hold up with these two deaths so close together. Margaret married Caleb Raper 11/20/1860.  I think that John must have been close to his stepfather because he gave my great grandmother the middle name "Raper". I also wonder if Dora was named after his oldest half-sister, Salvadora (there were 8 years between them). This is a Raper family name, as Caleb's sister was also named Salvadora.  The Harrises and the Rapers were from Pasquotank County. These two surnames appear somewhat frequently in Pasquotank County records, but I haven't been able to make a lot of connections. Most of what I have been able to gather is recorded here in the Harris Bible Notes. This page also includes other information I've collected related to this family. I tried to find John's grave in the Old Hollywood Cemetary in Elizabeth City, but couldn't find it there. However, his obit states that he was buried at his family home. The obit leads me to believe that the Rapers could have been from Weeksville in Pasquotank County. 

 

Their children:

 

 
 

Jennie was daughter of James Martin Towe and Martha Boothe Towe. She was born 10/5/1860 in Perquimans County, the youngest of 9 children. I have included a separate page about her family, since a lot of my research for awhile concentrated on finding out about her family. Evidently she inherited her family Bible, and eventually it was passed down to me. This was a great starting point for me in my research, to learn the names of her parents and siblings. Census records for 1870 show real estate valued at $2500 and personal property valued at $1000, a large amount of money for those days. It appears from will and deed records that this land was divided after her father's death. I am trying my best to identify its location!

 

Family Residences

Below is the home where the Harris family lived in Elizabeth City in 1900 (71 Church Street). Church Street is now renumbered and is also now "West" and "East" but a 1903 Elizabeth City map and Barbara's good memory helped me identify the house. The following children lived at this home (estimates for ages by the 1900 census taker): Dora (17), Alice (15), Johnnie (13), Gaston (11), Ercel (8), Annie (6), Vernon (4), George (1). 
 
This picture was labeled "Harris home - Berkeley, 1905". I imagine the lady on the porch could be Jennie with one of the girls. 
Norfolk City Directories for 1904-06 list Jennie living in Berkeley with Gaston (a machinist) at 707 Sixth St. In 1907 she lived at 705 Brunswick; in 1908 at 609 Liberty; in 1913 on Faquier. In 1915, Gaston is listed as a plumber, living at 50 Poplar Avenue. Soon after they moved to the family home at 210 Poplar Ave.

 

Apparently when the Harris children were young (pre-1900) they lived on a farm. Wilbur related a story his mother Ercel told about the chickens on the farm, that she sometimes fed. There was an eclipse; it must have been total for it got so dark that the chickens thought it was the end of the day, and went to roost. When it got light again in about an hour the rooster crowed and the hens came out, thinking it was another day.

 

 

Wilbur Palmer shared this thought:

 "Grandma brought their children to Berkley, where there would be many more opportunities in nearby Norfolk and Portsmouth. Had Grandma remained [in North Carolina] with the children, my mom wouldn't have met the shy young sailor who begged Grandma for her daughter Ercel's hand in marriage. And in Berkley, my Aunt Anne met an ambitious soldier named August. Their daughter, and only child, is Dorothy. Aunt Alice fell in love with a city government employee named Arthur. They had no children. And Aunt Dora met a young man that was the most handsome man she had ever seen, Robert West."

Return to the homepage