(From the Jamestown Evening Journal, February 13, 1907, page 7)

 

AGED CITIZEN DEAD

MRS. Catherine HARRIS PASSED AWAY TUESDAY NIGHT.

Was Born at Meadville, Pa Nearly One Hundred Years Ago - Had Resided in Jamestown From Nearly Eighty Years - Leaves Many Descendants - Double Funeral Will be Held Thursday.

After 98 years of active life Mrs. Catherine Dickes Harris of 12 West Seventh Street, passed away at midnight Tuesday, living only a few hours after the death of her daughter, Mrs. Maria Hall.  She is survived by seven great grandchildren, Miss Lillian E. Wickfield of New York City; Frank H. Hall of Youngstown, Ohio; William, Robert and Ella Hall of Gowanda, NY; Mrs. Grace Lee and Richard Wickfield Jr. of this city, with whom she made her home.  She also leaves three great grandchildren, Richard Hall of Youngstown, Ohio; William and George Lee of Jamestown, NY

Catherine Dickes was born June 10, 1809, on a farm near Meadville, Pa.  Her grandfather was a full blooded negro.  Quite a romance is connected with the marriage of her grandfather and grandmother.  An English captain of an African slave ship brought her grandfather to England and he later married the captain's daughter.  Their son came to America where he married a white woman of Dutch extraction.

At the age of six years her father died, leaving the family in needy circumstances and then began the real struggle to keep the family together.  When Catherine Dickes was 19 years of age she was married to John Harris of Erie, Pa., and in 1828 they removed to Jamestown and on the piece of ground which Mrs. Harris still called home they erected a small building 16 feet in length in which they resided for the first three years of their married life.

Around them were a few scattered dwellings but the real settlement of the village extended not much farther north than Fourth Street.

Additions to the little house grew from time to time as they were needed until the home was completed and remained as it is now and has been so long familiar to residents of that portion of the city which has grown up around and a out it until the little house with its old fashioned garden in front came to be one of the landmarks of the city and when people passed they looked in for a smile from the oldest resident of Jamestown.

Year after year she planted lemon verbena, blue bells, holly hocks and other century old plants in the little garden which then occupied the whole yard, and she would stop and talk with the neighbors about the way to make the blossoms fairly cover the plants and her bright beds of flowing colors illustrated the way she cared for her "growing things."

She was tall and slender and with a refined and intelligent face; she loved her home and when Richard Wickfield Jr., her great grandson was left motherless at two years of age she took him and cared tenderly for him and with as great tenderness as his own mother could have given him, and in her declining years Mr. Wickfield has cared for her and her daughter (his grandmother) just as tenderly.

Every day was a busy day for her unless, which rarely happened, she was confined to her bed.  Even up to Christmas time only two months ago she insisted upon doing a washing and to be inactive was her only hardship.  She hoped to live to be 100 years of age and it seemed very probable with her constitution, but a few days ago she was stricken with pneumonia which had already fastened itself upon her daughter, and the fight was an uneven one from the start, for while she survived Mrs. Hall's death a few hours, her splendid vitality was so diminished that death ensued.  She was a woman of a peculiarly sunny and happy disposition, generous, thoughtful and unselfish.

A double funeral will be held Thursday afternoon at 2 o'clock in the A.M. E. Zion church over the remains of Mrs. Harris and her daughter, Mrs. Maria Hall.

 

(From the Jamestown Evening Journal, Friday, February 15, 1907, page 6)

A DOUBLE FUNERAL

IT WAS HELD FROM THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Mrs. Catherine Harris and Her Daughter, Mrs. Maria Hall Were Buried Thursday Afternoon - Pastor Likened the Lives of These Two to Those of Ruth and Naomi - Robert N. Marvin Paid Last Tribute of Respect to His Old Nurse.

The funeral of Mrs. Catherine Harris and that of her daughter, Mrs. Maria Hall, were held jointly from the African Methodist Episcopal Church on Spring Street Thursday afternoon,  the pastor of the church, Rev. G. Henry Morse, officiating.  The two caskets were covered with flowers and the auditorium of the little church was nearly filled with relatives and friends of the aged mother and daughter, both white and colored people uniting to do honor to the memory of two good women.

As the caskets were carried into the church by the bearers, Rev. Mr. Morse preceded the party, reading an appropriate selection from the Bible as he passed down the center aisle and took his position in the pulpit.  The service consisted of several hymns by the church choir and the assemblage, the reading of passages from the Bible by the pastor, and a funeral sermon by the latter.  Rev. Mr. Morse likened the life of Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Hall to that of two Bible characters, Ruth and Naomi, and spoke in feeling terms of the love which each bore for the other.  He dwelt on the good life which each of these two women led and referred to the fact that the oft-expressed desire of the mother that her daughter should be the first to enter into the kingdom of heaven had been granted.

At the conclusion of the sermon the caskets were opened and those present filed past to take the last look at the departed.  The caskets were then born from the church by the bearers and taken to Lake View Cemetery,  Rev. Mr. Morse conducting  a brief burial service at the single grave.  The bearers for Mrs. Harris were H. C.. Frazier, John Lott, William Wright, and Robert Townsend, with Robert N. Marvin as an honorary bearer.  The bearers for Mrs. Hall were John Robinson, William Hawkins, Ollie Masterson and Daniel Roberts.

Among those in attendance at the funeral was Robert N. Marvin and on reaching the church, he explained to Rev. Mr. Morse that he came to pay the last tribute of respect to his old nurse, Mrs. Harris.  She was the nurse in the Marvin family for several years and Mr. Marvin has never failed to entertain the highest regard for the woman who cared for him when he was a babe.  He has been of assistance to her in numerous ways and frequently visited her for the propose of ascertaining her needs and talking over the old days.  He took great pleasure in doing these things and, as he stood before her casket and looked for the last time upon her kindly face, he was deeply touched.

Those in attendance at the funeral from places other than Jamestown were as follows:  Mrs. W. F. Hall and son, and Louis Craig of Gowanda, N. Y.; Mrs. W. H. Seaton and Mrs. W.F. Ayers of Buffalo; Frank H. Hall and John Holmes Jr., of Youngstown, Ohio; and Mrs. Jennie Robinson of Eire, Pa.