JUDGE CHARLES N. HARRIS

(1867-1874)

Charles N. Harris was born at Dryden, Tompkins County, New York, on September 3, 1839. He received a common education for the time and attended university at Hamlin University, in Redwing, Minnesota, until his junior year.

In April 1861, the Civil War began. Harris would join the Union Army being assigned to Company F, First Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and was present at the Battle of Bull Run on, July 21st, 1861. He was seriously wounded and reported killed. Being left on the battlefield, he was taken prisoner by Confederate forces and sent to Richmond, Virginia, where he remained in a prison hospital until November, when he, with fifty-six others, were returned to Union forces at Fortress Monroe, where he received a discharge.

Harris would reenlist in the army in June 1862. He received an appointment at Washington, D. C., and remained there until August 1864, when he resigned a clerkship in the Quartermaster General's office and came to Nevada, arriving in September of 1864. Having studied law during his stay in Washington, he was admitted to the Bar before the Supreme Court of Minnesota, just as he was leaving for Nevada. He settled in Washoe County and entered the practice of law, until in 1866 he was elected Judge of the Third Judicial District, consisting of the counties of Washoe and Roop. In 1870 he was elected Judge of the present Second District, comprising Douglas, Ormsby, Washoe and Roop Counties. At the expiration of his term, in January 1875, he resumed the practice of law in Carson City. While practicing law, he edited the Daily Index, a small Republican paper, which began publication in December 1880, in Carson City.

In 1876, President Grant appointed Harris as Register of the United States Land Office at Carson City, a position he held until August 1880, when he resigned. Actively participating in the election of 1876, Harris was one of the Nevada delegates to the Cincinnati Republican Convention, which nominated Rutherford B. Hayes as the Republican candidate. Hayes would ultimately win and become the 19th president of the United States.

Judge Harris married Clementine Magee of Washington, D.C. in November 1867 and had two children, both boys. Judge Harris would pass away in March of 1902 in San Francisco.