Pennsylvania Indian Traders:John Harris

Contents 1 Documentation 2 Sketch

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Documentation

See:

Pennsylvania Indian Traders

Indian Trading Posts of Pennsylvania

Based on The Early Traders of Conestoga, Donegal, and Paxtang, in Hanna, 1911, The Wilderness Trail

Pennsylvania Indian Traders:The Setting

Pennsylvania Indian Traders:Earliest Pennsylvania Traders

Pennsylvania Indian Traders:List of Sketches

Pennsylvania Indian Traders:1718 Tax Assessment

Pennsylvania Indian Traders:License Lists

Pennsylvania Indian Traders:Trading Paths

USGENWEB

Sketch

John Harris, father of the founder of Harrisburg, removed from Philadelphia to Conestoga Township before 1718, his name occurring on the first tax-list of that township in this year. Before 1733, he had established a trading house on the Susquehanna, just above the mouth of Paxtang Creek, where he carried on a trade with the Shawnee and other Indians who then lived on the west side of the river, along Yellow Breeches and Conodoguinet creeks, and at the mouth of the Juniata. He died here in 1748. The account of Dr. Egle and others that he had seated himself and built a log-house on the Susquehanna as early as 1705 cannot be accepted as correct. These writers have mistaken John Hans Steelman for John Harris, and of course cannot contend that the two were identical. In June, 1733, Shekallamy complained to the Pennsylvania Council that John Harris had built a house and cleared fields at the mouth of Juniata. He was informed that Harris had built that house only for the purpose of carrying on his trade; that his plantation, on which were his houses, barns, and other improvements, at Paxtang, was his place of residence.

During the settlement of the Cumberland Valley by the ScotchIrish, 1733-50, Harris's trading house on the Susquehanna, near the mouth of Paxtang Creek, became a place of great importance; and a ferry was established there by the owner, which was maintained by his son for many years after his death. John Harris, Jr., received a license for the ferry from the Governor in 1753. In the summer-time, the river was fordable at this point. Esther, wife of the first John Harris, assisted him in his trade with the Indians, and many incidents showing her courage and sagacity have been preserved in the local annals of Harrisburg. Her grandson related that on one occasion she rode on horseback nearly all the way from her home to Philadelphia in one day. At another time, while in charge of their trading house on Big Island, she learned of her absent husband's illness, when she immediately started down the river in a birch-bark canoe, so that she might join him and take care of him. Watson states that she was an expert swimmer, and could use firearms as well as a frontiersman. Of her children, Elizabeth, the eldest, married in 1744, John Finley, the Indian Trader who afterwards (1769) guided Daniel Boone and his party into Kentucky.