John and Henrietta Simpson Harris were the proprietors of Westport's popular Harris House hotel on the northeast corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania. John Harris was born in KY in 1795. He arrived in Westport in 1832 by covered wagon and bought the hotel in 1846 from A. B. H. McGee. Henrietta Harris was known for her delicious southern cooking and for her disapproval of dancing. The Harris family home, built in 1855, originally stood on the southwest corner of Westport Road and Main Street. It was moved in 1922 to 40th Street and Baltimore and is now the home of the Westport Historical Society. #24 on the walking tour.
John Harris was born December 4, 1795, to John and Margaret Maupin Harris in Madison County, Kentucky. He married Henrietta Simpson around 1820, and after the arrival of six children, the family journeyed by wagon into the wilderness of western Missouri in 1832. Harris purchased some 100 acres in Jackson County, and with slaves brought from Kentucky, built a log cabin for his family in woods located near the present site of Westport High School.
Around 1845, now the father of seven girls and one boy, Harris bought the property upon which he built the Harris House, Westport's first true hotel. The town was fast becoming a center of trade for a wide variety of the West's early denizens—explorers, trappers, freighters, soldiers, Indians, and miners who used Westport as an outfitting point or temporary home. Increasing Santa Fe Trail traffic and the 1849 California gold rush brought more visitors, and Harris's inn boasted many famous lodgers, including U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, his daughter Jesse and her husband John C. Fremont; explorers Francis Parkman and Kit Carson; and author Washington Irving, who reportedly was a guest during his western travels.
For a time Harris and his family lived in the hotel, which was located on the northeast corner of the intersection we know today as Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue. Although the puritanical Henrietta famously allowed no dancing in her establishment, Westporters considered the inn of such importance that when it burned to the ground in the late 1840s, they loaned Harris the materials and labor necessary to build a three-story brick structure in place of the original, which had been a log construction covered with wooden boards.
Near the present-day intersection of Westport Road and Main, Harris built his Southern colonial-style mansion in 1855. It was constructed of local materials—brick kilned of Westport clay, oak and walnut cut from nearby forests—while interior luxuries such as mahogany furniture and French wines came from New Orleans and St. Louis via steamboat. Evergreens, flowerbeds, and orchards surrounded the home, and it was here in the peak years of Westport's prosperity and geographic importance that the Harris daughters entertained their many admirers.
The Civil War soon disrupted their idyll; Union officers occupied both the Harris home and hotel during the war, and the Battle of Westport bloodied the town in October 1864.
John Harris died August 7, 1874, at the age of 78. By then the Harris home was also occupied by the family of his daughter Josephine who had married the wealthy adventurer and trail trader Charles E. Kearney. A list of John Harris' other sons-in-law reads like a roll call of Kansas City's frontier era heroes: mountain man and Indian trader Seth E. Ward married Mary Frances Harris, and brothers John and Thomas Mastin, who called at the Harris home together, married Julia Ann and Elizabeth Harris, respectively.
John Harris' hotel was razed in 1922, and demolition nearly took his home that same year. But a coalition of historians and preservationists purchased and moved the sturdy structure several blocks to 40th and Baltimore, where it stands today as the landmark home of the Westport Historical Society.
--Sources:
~~Christopher, Adrienne T. "The Harris House Story as Related by Frank C. Wornall in 1950."
~~Westport Historical Quarterly (June 1970): 25-29.
~~"The Harris Home, among the Last Relics of Old Westport, Soon May Face the Wreckers."
The Kansas City Star, 3 December 1939.
~~Jenkins, Paul Burrill. The Battle of Westport, Kansas City, MO:
Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1906.
~~MacDonald, A.B. "The Lives of Three Daughters of Kansas"
~~Missouri Valley Special Collections
~~The Kansas City Public Library | 14 W. 10th St. | Kansas City, MO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10-24-22 thanks to Ted (47075019) for birth/death county and death year. Changed death from 1874 to 1873. Headstone photo is unreadable (7 Aug 187?), declared by the photographer to be 7 Aug 1874 which is also in the above bio. Ted informs John's obit is in the 9 August 1873 Kansas City Times (p.4, col.1) saying, "died yesterday at his residence near Westport" (which would be the 8th vs the 7th if going by the obit). Additionally, his Will was probated in Jackson County 18 August 1873. Westport was later absorbed into Kansas City, MO.
Online records say John S. Harris bought Lot 23 in Block 1 on 30 July 1870 (unknown if this is him) and Alex S. Harris earlier bought Lot 6 in Block 32, ks.
John Harris was born December 4, 1795, to John and Margaret Maupin Harris in Madison County, Kentucky. He married Henrietta Simpson around 1820, and after the arrival of six children, the family journeyed by wagon into the wilderness of western Missouri in 1832. Harris purchased some 100 acres in Jackson County, and with slaves brought from Kentucky, built a log cabin for his family in woods located near the present site of Westport High School.
Around 1845, now the father of seven girls and one boy, Harris bought the property upon which he built the Harris House, Westport's first true hotel. The town was fast becoming a center of trade for a wide variety of the West's early denizens—explorers, trappers, freighters, soldiers, Indians, and miners who used Westport as an outfitting point or temporary home. Increasing Santa Fe Trail traffic and the 1849 California gold rush brought more visitors, and Harris's inn boasted many famous lodgers, including U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, his daughter Jesse and her husband John C. Fremont; explorers Francis Parkman and Kit Carson; and author Washington Irving, who reportedly was a guest during his western travels.
For a time Harris and his family lived in the hotel, which was located on the northeast corner of the intersection we know today as Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue. Although the puritanical Henrietta famously allowed no dancing in her establishment, Westporters considered the inn of such importance that when it burned to the ground in the late 1840s, they loaned Harris the materials and labor necessary to build a three-story brick structure in place of the original, which had been a log construction covered with wooden boards.
Near the present-day intersection of Westport Road and Main, Harris built his Southern colonial-style mansion in 1855. It was constructed of local materials—brick kilned of Westport clay, oak and walnut cut from nearby forests—while interior luxuries such as mahogany furniture and French wines came from New Orleans and St. Louis via steamboat. Evergreens, flowerbeds, and orchards surrounded the home, and it was here in the peak years of Westport's prosperity and geographic importance that the Harris daughters entertained their many admirers.
The Civil War soon disrupted their idyll; Union officers occupied both the Harris home and hotel during the war, and the Battle of Westport bloodied the town in October 1864.
John Harris died August 7, 1874, at the age of 78. By then the Harris home was also occupied by the family of his daughter Josephine who had married the wealthy adventurer and trail trader Charles E. Kearney. A list of John Harris' other sons-in-law reads like a roll call of Kansas City's frontier era heroes: mountain man and Indian trader Seth E. Ward married Mary Frances Harris, and brothers John and Thomas Mastin, who called at the Harris home together, married Julia Ann and Elizabeth Harris, respectively.
John Harris' hotel was razed in 1922, and demolition nearly took his home that same year. But a coalition of historians and preservationists purchased and moved the sturdy structure several blocks to 40th and Baltimore, where it stands today as the landmark home of the Westport Historical Society.
--Sources:
~~Christopher, Adrienne T. "The Harris House Story as Related by Frank C. Wornall in 1950."
~~Westport Historical Quarterly (June 1970): 25-29.
~~"The Harris Home, among the Last Relics of Old Westport, Soon May Face the Wreckers."
The Kansas City Star, 3 December 1939.
~~Jenkins, Paul Burrill. The Battle of Westport, Kansas City, MO:
Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1906.
~~MacDonald, A.B. "The Lives of Three Daughters of Kansas"
~~Missouri Valley Special Collections
~~The Kansas City Public Library | 14 W. 10th St. | Kansas City, MO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10-24-22 thanks to Ted (47075019) for birth/death county and death year. Changed death from 1874 to 1873. Headstone photo is unreadable (7 Aug 187?), declared by the photographer to be 7 Aug 1874 which is also in the above bio. Ted informs John's obit is in the 9 August 1873 Kansas City Times (p.4, col.1) saying, "died yesterday at his residence near Westport" (which would be the 8th vs the 7th if going by the obit). Additionally, his Will was probated in Jackson County 18 August 1873. Westport was later absorbed into Kansas City, MO.
Online records say John S. Harris bought Lot 23 in Block 1 on 30 July 1870 (unknown if this is him) and Alex S. Harris earlier bought Lot 6 in Block 32, ks.
John and Henrietta Simpson Harris were the proprietors of Westport's popular Harris House hotel on the northeast corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania. John Harris was born in KY in 1795. He arrived in Westport in 1832 by covered wagon and bought the hotel in 1846 from A. B. H. McGee. Henrietta Harris was known for her delicious southern cooking and for her disapproval of dancing. The Harris family home, built in 1855, originally stood on the southwest corner of Westport Road and Main Street. It was moved in 1922 to 40th Street and Baltimore and is now the home of the Westport Historical Society. #24 on the walking tour.
John Harris was born December 4, 1795, to John and Margaret Maupin Harris in Madison County, Kentucky. He married Henrietta Simpson around 1820, and after the arrival of six children, the family journeyed by wagon into the wilderness of western Missouri in 1832. Harris purchased some 100 acres in Jackson County, and with slaves brought from Kentucky, built a log cabin for his family in woods located near the present site of Westport High School.
Around 1845, now the father of seven girls and one boy, Harris bought the property upon which he built the Harris House, Westport's first true hotel. The town was fast becoming a center of trade for a wide variety of the West's early denizens—explorers, trappers, freighters, soldiers, Indians, and miners who used Westport as an outfitting point or temporary home. Increasing Santa Fe Trail traffic and the 1849 California gold rush brought more visitors, and Harris's inn boasted many famous lodgers, including U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, his daughter Jesse and her husband John C. Fremont; explorers Francis Parkman and Kit Carson; and author Washington Irving, who reportedly was a guest during his western travels.
For a time Harris and his family lived in the hotel, which was located on the northeast corner of the intersection we know today as Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue. Although the puritanical Henrietta famously allowed no dancing in her establishment, Westporters considered the inn of such importance that when it burned to the ground in the late 1840s, they loaned Harris the materials and labor necessary to build a three-story brick structure in place of the original, which had been a log construction covered with wooden boards.
Near the present-day intersection of Westport Road and Main, Harris built his Southern colonial-style mansion in 1855. It was constructed of local materials—brick kilned of Westport clay, oak and walnut cut from nearby forests—while interior luxuries such as mahogany furniture and French wines came from New Orleans and St. Louis via steamboat. Evergreens, flowerbeds, and orchards surrounded the home, and it was here in the peak years of Westport's prosperity and geographic importance that the Harris daughters entertained their many admirers.
The Civil War soon disrupted their idyll; Union officers occupied both the Harris home and hotel during the war, and the Battle of Westport bloodied the town in October 1864.
John Harris died August 7, 1874, at the age of 78. By then the Harris home was also occupied by the family of his daughter Josephine who had married the wealthy adventurer and trail trader Charles E. Kearney. A list of John Harris' other sons-in-law reads like a roll call of Kansas City's frontier era heroes: mountain man and Indian trader Seth E. Ward married Mary Frances Harris, and brothers John and Thomas Mastin, who called at the Harris home together, married Julia Ann and Elizabeth Harris, respectively.
John Harris' hotel was razed in 1922, and demolition nearly took his home that same year. But a coalition of historians and preservationists purchased and moved the sturdy structure several blocks to 40th and Baltimore, where it stands today as the landmark home of the Westport Historical Society.
--Sources:
~~Christopher, Adrienne T. "The Harris House Story as Related by Frank C. Wornall in 1950."
~~Westport Historical Quarterly (June 1970): 25-29.
~~"The Harris Home, among the Last Relics of Old Westport, Soon May Face the Wreckers."
The Kansas City Star, 3 December 1939.
~~Jenkins, Paul Burrill. The Battle of Westport, Kansas City, MO:
Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1906.
~~MacDonald, A.B. "The Lives of Three Daughters of Kansas"
~~Missouri Valley Special Collections
~~The Kansas City Public Library | 14 W. 10th St. | Kansas City, MO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10-24-22 thanks to Ted (47075019) for birth/death county and death year. Changed death from 1874 to 1873. Headstone photo is unreadable (7 Aug 187?), declared by the photographer to be 7 Aug 1874 which is also in the above bio. Ted informs John's obit is in the 9 August 1873 Kansas City Times (p.4, col.1) saying, "died yesterday at his residence near Westport" (which would be the 8th vs the 7th if going by the obit). Additionally, his Will was probated in Jackson County 18 August 1873. Westport was later absorbed into Kansas City, MO.
Online records say John S. Harris bought Lot 23 in Block 1 on 30 July 1870 (unknown if this is him) and Alex S. Harris earlier bought Lot 6 in Block 32, ks.
John Harris was born December 4, 1795, to John and Margaret Maupin Harris in Madison County, Kentucky. He married Henrietta Simpson around 1820, and after the arrival of six children, the family journeyed by wagon into the wilderness of western Missouri in 1832. Harris purchased some 100 acres in Jackson County, and with slaves brought from Kentucky, built a log cabin for his family in woods located near the present site of Westport High School.
Around 1845, now the father of seven girls and one boy, Harris bought the property upon which he built the Harris House, Westport's first true hotel. The town was fast becoming a center of trade for a wide variety of the West's early denizens—explorers, trappers, freighters, soldiers, Indians, and miners who used Westport as an outfitting point or temporary home. Increasing Santa Fe Trail traffic and the 1849 California gold rush brought more visitors, and Harris's inn boasted many famous lodgers, including U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, his daughter Jesse and her husband John C. Fremont; explorers Francis Parkman and Kit Carson; and author Washington Irving, who reportedly was a guest during his western travels.
For a time Harris and his family lived in the hotel, which was located on the northeast corner of the intersection we know today as Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue. Although the puritanical Henrietta famously allowed no dancing in her establishment, Westporters considered the inn of such importance that when it burned to the ground in the late 1840s, they loaned Harris the materials and labor necessary to build a three-story brick structure in place of the original, which had been a log construction covered with wooden boards.
Near the present-day intersection of Westport Road and Main, Harris built his Southern colonial-style mansion in 1855. It was constructed of local materials—brick kilned of Westport clay, oak and walnut cut from nearby forests—while interior luxuries such as mahogany furniture and French wines came from New Orleans and St. Louis via steamboat. Evergreens, flowerbeds, and orchards surrounded the home, and it was here in the peak years of Westport's prosperity and geographic importance that the Harris daughters entertained their many admirers.
The Civil War soon disrupted their idyll; Union officers occupied both the Harris home and hotel during the war, and the Battle of Westport bloodied the town in October 1864.
John Harris died August 7, 1874, at the age of 78. By then the Harris home was also occupied by the family of his daughter Josephine who had married the wealthy adventurer and trail trader Charles E. Kearney. A list of John Harris' other sons-in-law reads like a roll call of Kansas City's frontier era heroes: mountain man and Indian trader Seth E. Ward married Mary Frances Harris, and brothers John and Thomas Mastin, who called at the Harris home together, married Julia Ann and Elizabeth Harris, respectively.
John Harris' hotel was razed in 1922, and demolition nearly took his home that same year. But a coalition of historians and preservationists purchased and moved the sturdy structure several blocks to 40th and Baltimore, where it stands today as the landmark home of the Westport Historical Society.
--Sources:
~~Christopher, Adrienne T. "The Harris House Story as Related by Frank C. Wornall in 1950."
~~Westport Historical Quarterly (June 1970): 25-29.
~~"The Harris Home, among the Last Relics of Old Westport, Soon May Face the Wreckers."
The Kansas City Star, 3 December 1939.
~~Jenkins, Paul Burrill. The Battle of Westport, Kansas City, MO:
Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1906.
~~MacDonald, A.B. "The Lives of Three Daughters of Kansas"
~~Missouri Valley Special Collections
~~The Kansas City Public Library | 14 W. 10th St. | Kansas City, MO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10-24-22 thanks to Ted (47075019) for birth/death county and death year. Changed death from 1874 to 1873. Headstone photo is unreadable (7 Aug 187?), declared by the photographer to be 7 Aug 1874 which is also in the above bio. Ted informs John's obit is in the 9 August 1873 Kansas City Times (p.4, col.1) saying, "died yesterday at his residence near Westport" (which would be the 8th vs the 7th if going by the obit). Additionally, his Will was probated in Jackson County 18 August 1873. Westport was later absorbed into Kansas City, MO.
Online records say John S. Harris bought Lot 23 in Block 1 on 30 July 1870 (unknown if this is him) and Alex S. Harris earlier bought Lot 6 in Block 32, ks.
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