Z 0983.000 Harris (Lewis Binghaman) and Family Papers

Business and personal papers of Lewis Binghaman Harris of Gallatin and Hazlehurst, Copiah County, and his family. Harris, a merchant, planter, and attorney, was born in 1828 and died at Hazlehurst on May 10, 1891. He organized the Copiah Rebels at Gallatin, which was mustered in as Company G, Thirty-Sixth Regiment, CSA, and served as Captain. L. B. Harris was the son of Dr. Wiley P. Harris and Mary V. Ragsdale Harris, both natives of Georgia, who emigrated to Mississippi following the Seminole War in Florida. His father was active in state politics and at one time was a candidate for Governor. Related through family marriage to Albert Gallatin Brown, Harris was in contact with the guiding forces of state politics.

The papers include deeds of land bought by Harris and those negotiated for clients, family correspondence, tax receipts, bills, indentures, and miscellaneous papers. Most of the family papers after the death of Harris concern the settling of his estate, and other business affairs conducted by Mrs. Harris. Of special interest are CSA Bond receipts, bill transferring title of Negro slave, letter from Earl Brewer, Governor of Mississippi, and one ledger dating from 1835 to 1851 concerning business transactions of Edwin Rice Brown, brother of Governor Albert Gallatin Brown, at Berkshire Plantation and Holly Grove. The other volumes are memorandum books and ledgers of legal cases, mercantile accounts, plantation accounts, and household records.