11 Facts About Ira Harris

Ira Harris was an American jurist and senator from New York.

Ira Harris was born in Charleston, New York on May 31,1802.

Ira Harris grew up on a farm, and graduated from Union College in 1824.

Ira Harris then studied law in Albany and, in 1827, was admitted to the bar.

In February 1861, Harris was elected a US Senator from New York to succeed William H Seward who did not seek re-election, but would be appointed US Secretary of State by Abraham Lincoln.

Ira Harris visited Lincoln at the White House often and grew a friendship with him.

Ira Harris was a good friend of his predecessor in the Senate, William H Seward.

Ira Harris's son William Hamilton Harris was a brevet lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Ordnance Department.

Judge Ira Harris was, for more than twenty years, a professor of equity, jurisprudence and practice in the Albany Law School and, during his senatorial term, delivered a course of lectures at the law school of Columbian University, Washington, DC In the Senate, he served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Ira Harris was buried at the Albany Rural Cemetery with his first wife, Clarissa.

Ira Harris's grandson, Henry Riggs Rathbone, was a congressman from Illinois.