Chatham Co Historical Society - Researched by Jim and Beverly Wiggins, February 2022; Revised April 2025

Who was Essex Harris, and what role did he play in Chatham County’s history?
Few people have heard of Harris, perhaps because his story highlights some of the county’s more disgraceful history. But his is a story of courage in response to danger and injustice that was faced by many of Chatham’s Black citizens of the time, so here we share what can be gleaned from existing records.

Essex Harris grew up in Chatham County, enslaved by W.G. Harris, who owned a large plantation in Oakland Township in southeast Chatham County. Essex stayed in Chatham County after Emancipation and, in 1870 was a 30-year-old, illiterate, mulatto farmer who rented land in Oakland Township from white farmer, Edward (Ned) Finch.1

He lived with his wife, Anna B. Harris, and five children aged 2 to 8.2 On Wednesday night before Christmas in 1870, and again in early 1871, members of the Ku Klux Klan3 attacked Essex Harris and his family. We know about the attacks because, unlike many of the others who suffered this kind of abuse, Essex reported it to
authorities and eventually testified in Washington, D.C. to a Congressional Committee looking into Klan activities. The account of the attack recounted below is excerpted from that record, made July 1,1871, to the Joint Select Congressional Committee to Inquire into the Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. In that report, the Committee recorder identified him as “Essic Harris.”

"They came to the door and knocked. I was asleep when they came. My
wife, when they commenced knocking at the door, said, “Essic, Essic,
there’s someone at the door.” I jumped out of bed. By the time I got out of
bed they had knocked both my doors open. They asked where my gun
was. By the time I understood what they said, they had my gun out of the
rack. They asked me if I had ever seen the Ku-Klux. I told them “No, sir.”
They said: “Here they are; we are the Ku-Klux. Did you ever see them
before?” I said: “No, sir.”

They asked me where my shot and powder were. I told them up in my little
bag. They took the shot and powder and walked right out, and never said
anything more...They sort of scared me at first. Some of them had on
some women’s clothes … [Some covered their faces with what] “looked
like a sort of paper or sheep-skin; it was a sort of black thing.

[A week or two later, Harris and wife had laid down in bed, when his wife
said] “Essic, the Ku-Klux is coming.” I never said anything but bounced
out of my bed and went to the door. I took my bar down and looked to see
what was the matter. They cried “Hello!” I peeped out and saw my yard
was full of men. I jumped against the door and fastened it...By the time I
had got my gun, they had knocked my window open. I had to fall to my
knees, then, to keep from being shot.

My wife was lying in bed [in the one room house].
After they got the window open they commence firing in the
window. Some of them said they were going to come in at the window and
get me out. As soon as they came, and by the time I could shut my door,
Mr. Ned Finch, the man I stay with, a white gentleman, came out among
them...He said “What do you all want? What are you going to do? Let this
nigger alone. He is a nigger I have here to work my land. He has a family,
and is a hard working man, and don’t bother anybody. Please leave him
alone.” He kept on talking, and walking around the house, and begging
them to leave me alone. They were all around my house. After a while
they got vexed, and ran him back into his house, and told him that as soon
as they were done with me they would fix him. He got scared very much
then...
They kept knocking at my door, saying that they had killed me. It was half
an hour before they knocked the door down, I reckon; but as soon as they
got the door down, so they could shoot in, they commenced firing in the
door, though they had been firing in the window all the time.... I was sitting
very close to the window. When they put pistols in at the window I could
see them and prevent them from hitting me...There were five children in
the house. I never had time to see what they were all doing; but they all
got out of the way. I thought they were all dead.

My wife had got between the bed-ticking and the mat; my little children
were in another bed; they had got in a pile, right on top of one another;
like a parcel of pigs…
They came to my window and pulled off their caps. Some of them I knew, and
some I would not know in the daytime if I was to see them…They always
say in my county that a man could not kill a Ku-Klux; they said they could
not be hit; that if they were, the ball would bounce back and kill you. I
thought though that I would try it; and see if my gun would hit one...It had
only a common load with one or two big shot, such as I always put in it...I
shot this man, xxxxxx, and Mr. xxxxx4

... [A pair] carried off the shot one.
They said, “Boys, the old man is calling for his five-shooter and loading his
gun; let us leave.” Upon that they went off...I was hit in nine different
places...there was three bullets---one through the thick part of my hip, just
above the knee; one right through the muscle of the arm; one cut through
the hair, taking skin and all; the balance were shot. I have got a shot in my
left toe, which cannot be got out; it is there among the joints, and it has to
stay…
Miss Sally [Ned Finch’s spinster sister] came out and walked among them
and walked till they left. She was all the time begging them to leave me
alone...after they left, Miss Sally came out and said “Ann! Ann!” My wife
said “Ma’am?” (Miss Sally raised her from a little bit of a thing.) Miss
Sally said, “Are the children dead?” My wife said she did not know whether
they were or not. I looked around, and they were not. Miss Sally said
“Come out and carry all the children into our house and let them stay there
till day; the men are coming back to burn the house. I thought they were
coming back; I told them to go in the house; I walked around all night; I
never slept a bit.

I went to Pittsborough that Sunday morning [walked seven miles]. I was
then shot pretty well all over, so I could hardly get along...I went to get the
ball out of my arm. Dr. Hanks asked me what was the matter with me. I
told him I was shot. He asked me how I came to be shot...Said he “Go and
see Mr. Aleck Ramsey and see what he says about it.” I went down to
Ramsey’s house. I told him that I got shot...I knew some of them. Then he
said “All I have got to tell you is, to carry them to the law; that is all I could
do when I had the power; and now I have got none.” I thought it stood
them in hand to seek out these men when I told them I was shot. But no
man made any move, and I had to go to Raleigh...I had to walk ten miles
to get to the cars [the railroad where he sometimes worked to earn
money].5"


During his testimony, Harris was asked if he knew of other Ku-Klux violence. He answered, “They have whipped and shot some people about there, right bad, and burned some houses...I have heard of them killing them here and yon, but not close to me. There was a black man not far from me, named Anthony Davis. They went one night and got hold of him, and whipped him very bad...They whipped him and shot two
of his children...Right now there are not more than five or six or seven colored men within no more than four or five miles of me... Some have moved out; some have gone away off...The Klan got so bad that they said they might be punished, and they left.”7

Also during his testimony, Harris was asked about his politics. He responded that he did vote Republican, but did not make political speeches and did not expect to vote again because, “That is just the way it is. It is not worthwhile [sic] for a man to vote and run the risk of his life...Within the last few years I have moved my voting place to Pittsborough, on account of not wanting to vote where I had been voting. A number of people belonging to the same township---fifteen or twenty---quit voting for the same reason...Now I have got so I am afraid to vote.”8 This would prove to be the most significant portion of his testimony! The goal of the Ku-Klux was to end the black vote and maintain white supremacy.


Was Essic/Essex Harris a credible witness? According to several who testified on his behalf, he was. Mr. Elias Bryan, a farmer from Haywood, testified that he had known Harris for 30 years and vouched for his good character. Further, Mr. Bryan had discussed Harris with the man who “raised him”—in other words, the man who formerly enslaved him—W. G. Harris, who said that Essic’s “character was as good as any man’s,” as did Mr. Ned Finch, from whom Harris rented the land on which he lived and worked. Finch had come to him and said “Essic, I want you to go and farm on my plantation. I’ve got plenty of land there; I have bought some land lately; and there’s enough for us all. You come and stay with me, and I will always try to furnish you with
horses and land.”9

As noted, Essex Harris had been enslaved to William G. Harris, a former state legislator representing Chatham County whose large plantation was in Oakland Township. He enslaved forty people in 1850, thirty-five in 1860. The ages of their children suggest that Essex and Anna B. (who apparently was enslaved by Ned and Sally Finch), had two children, daughter Flora and son Thomas, before Emancipation. After Emancipation and the family’s move to the Ned Finch property in Oakland Township and before the KKK
attack, Essex and Ann had three more children, daughter Catherine and sons Edgar and Mathew.

But what happened to Essex after his historic testimony? On 18 May 1872, less than one year after his testimony, the Raleigh Sentinel, a conservative Democrat newspaper, reported--
"Our notice of our trip to Chatham was confined
to the political discussion which took place
between the candidates for Governor. The
Court is now in session, but we did not enter
the courthouse because we had no fancy to
look upon a carpetbag army-straggler on the
bench… [Judge Albion Tourgee, a Republican
Union veteran from Ohio, had moved to North
Carolina and played a significant role in writing
the new State Constitution during
Reconstruction].
The trial of two loyal league negro preachers,
Essex Harris and Sam Perkins, for larceny, they
having stolen flour, attracted public attention.
The preachers were in jail were many of the
Radical law makers should now be, or will be
when justice is meted out to them."


During his testimony before the U. S. Congressional Committee, Harris had identified Samuel Perkins as a “colored neighbor.” Why the reference to them as “loyal league preachers”? The Loyal League was a national pro-Union organization which after the Civil War appealed to former Southern enslaved persons as a means of improving their economic situation. According to Harris’s Congressional Committee testimony, the
Loyal League was present in Chatham County until the Klan became active. He said he had attended two or three meetings. Was he still active after the KKK attack? Was the theft charge a trumped up one in retaliation for his testimony? We find no information to answer these questions.

Harris and Perkins were tried in the Chatham County Superior Court. The minutes of the trial read—
"State vs. Essex Harris &
Sampson Perkins. The
following were sworn and
empaneled to wit Sidney
Griffin, Alvis Gross, Andrews
Loyd, Daniel Upton, J.D.
Smith, Samuel Jones, Griffen
Bennett, Gaston [Gustin?]
Edwards, John W. Beal,
G.W. May, W. H. Brewer, &
Garrett Bray who say they
find the defendants who for
their verdict say that the defendants are
guilty. [Edwards, a 32-year-old illiterate
farmer from Center Township, was the only
Black among the twelve jurists.] Judgment
of the Court that the defendants Essex Harris
and Sampson Perkins be imprisoned for five
years in the Penitentiary of this State in
Raleigh this the 18th of May 1872.10"


On the following 28th, the Weekly Sentinel reported--
"A friend writes from Pittsboro that Judge
Tourgee has sentenced two radical
preachers to the penitentiary for ten years.
Rev. Samuel Perkins and Rev. Essex Harris
are the men. They were the principal
witnesses against the kuklux. Essex was
summoned to Washington to testify before
the Outrage Committee--Gov. Caldwell has
thus lost two votes. But no great loss when
the week’s work is balanced for the Governor
pardoned three fellows out of the penitentiary
while two were put in."


But the “two” may not have been “put in.” There is some reason to doubt that Essex served a ten-year, or even five-year sentence. He and his wife Ann had three more children between 1872 and 1877 (daughters Cornie and Notie and son Right). And the 1880 U. S. Census reported that the Harrises, ages 45 and 35, were farming in Cape Fear Township in the most Southeast part of Chatham. The Sentinel’s reference to
Governor [Tod Robinson] Caldwell, a Republican, and his willingness to pardon those who might vote for him raises the possibility that Harris, who testified that he voted Republican but wouldn’t do so again, was also pardoned. Unfortunately, no records of Governor Caldwell’s pardons can be found.

By the 1900 U. S. Census it was recorded that Essex Harris, now age 65 and widowed, was living as a boarder and laborer on the Amos Byrd11 farm near Haywood in New Hope Township. The date of record was 12 June 1900. No death record of Ann Harris can be located. On 30 August 1900, marriage records indicate that Essex Harris, age 60, married Nancy Stewart, Black, age 30, and also living in New Hope Township. She
was recorded as single, living in a rented house with three children (the youngest age 2), and employed as a day laborer.


On 17 June 1908, the Chatham Record reported--
"On last Monday during a severe
thunderstorm about three miles
below Haywood a mule and a well
known old colored man named
Essex Harris while out in a field
were struck by a bolt of lightning
and both were instantly killed."


In the 1910 Census, Nancy Harris, widow, 46 with four children in the household, employed as a washer woman, is found in Cape Fear Township in Chatham County. Nancy married Albert Walker in December of 1910.12 Essex’s testimony, as well as that of others, before the Congressional Committee had
significant consequences—at least for a time. On April 20, 1871, the U. S. Congress passed the Third Enforcement Act or “the Ku Klux Act” as it was more popularly known. It targeted secret organizations that used intimidation and violence to achieve their objectives. Whenever Klan activities were too powerful for civil authorities to suppress, the president (Grant) could call in the military and suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

On the eve of the August 3 state election, Company K of the 2nd Artillery was sent into three North Carolina counties—Chatham, Moore, and Harnett. The commander of the Company later reported that the election “passed off very quietly.” By the end of 1871, federal officials had used the Act to make twelve hundred arrests in North Carolina, but which resulted in only twenty-three guilty pleas and twenty-four convictions. In 1873, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Amnesty Act which absolved Klansmen of
all crimes committed while in disguise. And by the end of 1874, the U. S. attorney general ordered all remaining Klan cases dismissed.13
Essex Harris should be recognized for his courage to speak out, which resulted, even if only temporarily, in a reduction in the terrorism of the KKK in Chatham.
..............

1 Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary
States 42nd Congress 2nd Session House Report 22 vol. 2, p. 76.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081782785&view=1up&seq=100 Accessed 18May2020.

2 Year: 1870; Census Place: Oakland, Chatham, North Carolina; Roll: M593_1129; Page: 133B

3 In this paper the Ku Klux Klan is variously referred to as the Ku Klux Klan, the Ku Klux, the Klan, and the
KKK.

4 Names are given in the Joint Select Committee Report, but we have not included them here.

5 Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary
States 42nd Congress 2nd Session House Report 22 vol. 2, pp. 87-90.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081782785&view=1up&seq=111 Accessed 18May2020.

6 Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary
States 42nd Congress 2nd Session House Report 22 vol. 2, p. 91.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081782785&view=1up&seq=115 Accessed 18May2020.

7 Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary
States 42nd Congress 2nd Session House Report 22 vol. 2, p. 95.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081782785&view=1up&seq=119 Accessed 18May 2020.

8 Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary
States 42nd Congress 2nd Session House Report 22 vol. 2, p. 95.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081782785&view=1up&seq=119 Accessed 18May2020.

9 Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary
States 42nd Congress 2nd Session House Report 22 vol. 2, p. 76.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081782785&view=1up&seq=100 Accessed 18May2020.

10 Chatham County Superior Court Minutes, May 1872, Page 187, State v. Harris and Perkins. Scan from
State Archives of North Carolina.

11 Amos Byrd was a Black farmer—a free person of color before Emancipation.

12 We know that this Nancy Harris is the same one who married Essex because her parents are listed on
both marriage certificates and are the same. Our thanks to Alan Welch, who provided this information,
which clarified a question raised in an earlier version of this paper concerning another Essex Harris of
about the same age. Alan’s information confirmed that it was our Chatham County Essex Harris who was
struck by lightening and died in 1908—leaving Nancy a widow. The other Essex Harris is found in the
1910 Census in Pocket Township, Lee County.

13 Bradley, Mark L., Blue Coats and Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina,
University Press of Kentucky, 2009, pp. 237, 246, 251.