My junior high school history teacher always said, “History bleeds, people! History bleeds!” We study wars and big, traumatic events in class, but when the story narrows down to an event that happened long ago in our own backyard, his statement becomes more palpable.
My great aunt Jesse Harris wrote down a story that happened right in our area in 1841. It’s a sad story about her husband’s great uncle, which was handed down in their family, but first I’ll give you a little background on Jesse.
Jesse is the person who had the vision to make The William Harris Homestead in Walton County (just a stone’s throw from the Barrow County line on Hwy. 11) what it is today. A Georgia landmark, it is listed on the National Register of Historical Places, and it’s mission is to provide heritage, agricultural and environmental education. Perhaps you or someone you know have attended one of their fabulous school field trips.
One of the more dark memories of the Homestead had to do with William Harris’s brother, Jourdan. He lived in the log house on the Homestead with William and their mother, Milly. In 1839, Jourdan married Comfort Whaley who was from what is now Barrow County. (Barrow County wasn’t established until 1914.) They had two daughters.
Unfortunately, Jourdan and Comfort had domestic problems, and in 1841, Comfort took their two-year-old daughter, Frances, and an infant named Elizabeth back to her parent’s home. This same year William Harris married his wife, Amanda Davenport, so they would have been newlyweds.
As the sad story goes, Jourdan rode on horseback to the Whaley home, and there he found his wife and mother-in-law sitting in a buggy. His wife was holding his two daughters. Somehow without harming the girls, Jourdan shot and killed both his wife and her mother.
Jourdan galloped back to the Homestead with Comfort’s brothers in hot pursuit. In my Aunt Jesse’s written account, she states, “He was cornered in front of the old mulberry tree in front of the smokehouse beside the ash pit.” They shot and killed him.
You can imagine that the whole area in which we live (though much less populated at the time) was in an uproar over these murders.
The Harris family was so outraged over what Jourdan had done that Harriet Davenport Harris insisted he not be buried in a cemetery.
These few facts are all we know. Stories are passed down and become tattered like clothing until all we have are a few facts. People who might have known more either don’t want to or don’t think it’s necessary to fill in details. We’ll never know what was going through his mind when he committed such a heinous act. On Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1978, my great aunt Jesse and her husband, Hubert Harris, found the grave of Jourdan Harris near the farthest corner of their property. It doesn’t give us any other details to the story, but the lonely grave does confirm that history bleeds.
If you want to learn more about the William Harris Homestead, check out their website at www.harrishomestead.com.
Shelli Bond Pabis is a Winder resident and columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at writetospabis@gmail.com.
great story Shelli!