Harris, Dilue Rose (1825–1914)

Type: Biography

Published: 1952

Updated: January 26, 2018

Font size: A / A reset Translate / Traducir / Traduire

Dilue Rose Harris, pioneer and memoirist, the daughter of Dr. Pleasant W. and Margaret (Wells) Rose, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 28, 1825. The family arrived in Texas in April 1833, stopped temporarily at Harrisburg, and settled at Stafford's Point in December of that year. Dilue Harris made bullets for men going to the Alamo and took part in the Runaway Scrape. After the Texas Revolution the family moved to the area of Bray's Bayou five miles outside of Houston. There Dilue attended school. She was married on February 20, 1839, to Ira A. Harris, who was born in Jefferson County, New York, in 1816, arrived in Texas in 1836, and served with the Texas Rangers, Company E. The couple lived in Houston until 1845, when they moved to Columbus. Their Houston home in the 1990s had a historic marker. Harris died in 1869 and was survived by his wife and nine children. Dilue Harris was acquainted with the leaders of the Texas Revolution and of the Republic of Texas, and her reminiscences, written when she was seventy-four and published in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association (see SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY) and the Eagle Lake Headlight, are a primary source for early Texas history. At one time Mrs. Harris lived with a son, William Lee Harris, in Purcell, Oklahoma Territory. She died at Eagle Lake, Texas, on April 2, 1914.

Visit the Texas Women Project's standalone website

The Handbook of Texas Women project has its own dedicated website and resources.

Visit Website

Evelyn M. Carrington, ed., Women in Early Texas (Austin: Pemberton Press, 1975). George L. Charlton, "Vince's Bridge: Question Mark of the San Jacinto Campaign," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 68 (January 1965). Ann Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, Women in Texas (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1982). Houston Chronicle, April 3, 1914. Houston Post, April 4, 1914. Adele B. Looscan, "Harris County, 1822–1845," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 18–19 (October 1914-July 1915). "Reminiscences of Mrs. Dilue Harris," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 4, 7 (October 1900, January 1901, January 1904). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

Time Periods:

Mexican Texas
Texas Revolution

Places:

Houston
Upper Gulf Coast
East Texas

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Herbert H. Lang, “Harris, Dilue Rose,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed September 21, 2021, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/harris-dilue-rose.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Original Publication Date:: 1952
Most Recent Revision Date:: January 26, 2018

This entry belongs to the following Handbook Special Projects:

Save to MyTSHA Load a Random Entry Report an Error Request a Revision

Become a TSHA member and get a FREE Texas Almanac!

Harris, Dilue Rose (1825–1914)

Categories:

Time Periods:

Places:

This entry belongs to the following Handbook Special Projects:

Recently Viewed

Settings