The Case Study
Nathan R Harris lived in Simpson County, Kentucky for seventy years where he became the father of twelve and a prosperous farmer who at his death owned a 369-acre farm. Harris died at age seventy-six in March 1881 and was buried in the Harris Family Cemetery. However, family folklore placed the Harris farm ten miles from the cemetery.If the story were correct then why was Harris buried so far from his farm? This question began the search for land records to determine the actual location of the Harris farm.

The 1882 fire in the Simpson County Courthouse destroyed the early books of recorded deeds which could verify the farm’s location. The surviving court records included the 1881 Evans vs. Stringer equity court case filed by the Harris children following their father’s death. The trial’s findings, exhibits, and depositions, all primary evidence, contain his will and farm deeds, and information about his wives, children, and grandchildren, the location of these family members, and most importantly the married names of his four daughters.

Analysis of the trial’s documents reveals the family’s utter disregard for Harris’s legal will. To protect the interest of her stepchildren, the stepmother challenged the executor’s attempts to gain immediate control of the farm. She forced him to agree that each of the thirteen heirs would receive their rightful share of the Harris estate. Then the Harris children sued each other in the Evans vs. Stringer equity trial to determine if their share of the estate would be cash or land. The court divided the farm into two parcels and sold the parcels at auction in June 1882. It then distributed the proceeds to the heirs with each of the nine full shares receiving about $82,600 in current dollars.

The original Harris farm deeds included in the trial exhibits verify that Nathan R Harris owned the land that holds his grave. He never owned the farm located ten miles from his cemetery. His grandson, John Harris, owned it. It is now evident that the Harris family story was primarily about this grandson and had its origin in the 1890s. The trial information tells a family history about Nathan R Harris beginning with his 1824 marriage to his first wife, his second marriage in 1858, and his acquisitions of farmland beginning in 1839. Family information was included about the life of the son who an executor and purchased one of the parcels of his father’s farm, the lives of the five Harris children who moved to other states, and the lives of the three daughters who remained in Simpson County, two of whom married Evans and Stringer.

Robert Widdice
RWiddice@comcast.net