Dr. Adonijah Washington (A. W.) Parrish (1851-1928) purchased the Capt. Thomas Harris property in 1895. He had been practicing medicine in Queen City, Missouri, but now moved his family to Kirksville. This included his wife, Emma (Bartlett), and two sons, Victor and Bert.
The Dr. John Burton family sold the Capt. Harris mansion in Kirksville on February 7, 1895, and moved to California. The buyer was Dr. Adonijah Washington (A. W.) Parrish (1851-1928) who paid $5,000 for this house and approximately one acre of land. This was considerably more than the Burtons had paid for it in 1879 which was $1,800.
As we learned in our previous episode, when the Harris mansion was only four years old, it was sold on May 6, 1879, by Thomas and Hester Harris to their daughter and son-in-law, Dr. John and Fannie Burton, who lived there until 1895.
It is believed that the two-story Italianate mansion at 101 E. Burton Street in Kirksville was completed in 1875. And, it is assumed that the Harris family moved into this home sometime in 1875, so let us look at who they were at that time. Captain Thomas Clark Harris was age 51 and ran what have been described as the Kirksville Woolen Mills, a flouring mill, and a store north of town.
Captain Thomas Clark Harris (1824-1887) moved his family to Kirksville, Mo., after serving as a 1st Lieutenant, a 2nd Lieutenant and a Captain in the Civil War. His last assignment was with Company H of the 7th Missouri Cavalry. This happened to be the same unit with which a man named Jacob Alfred Tinsman of Adair County served as a Sergeant. Readers may remember that in Part 88 of this history, Jacob had been stationed a short distance from the Westenhaver farmhouse when Corporal Hervey Dix became the first casualty of the Civil War in Adair County in 1861. Jacob had heard the gunfire and set out for Kirksville to sound the alarm.