Harris, Dilue Rose (1825–1914)

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.