Harris, Raymond B.

Raymond B. Harris received his initial education at Sunbury Academy, and his medical degree from the Savannah Medical College. After his graduation he became an anatomy teacher at the college, and remained there until the Civil War.

He was an officer and assistant surgeon in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He served in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. He married (1) Laura E. Dasher in 1866. and their children were Mary Ella, Cothern Walton, and Cornelia Harris and (2) Ophelia L. Dasher, sister of his first wife, and their children were Raymond Victor and Mary Winn Harris. Cornelia Harris died at the age of 11. Raymond Vic­tor Harris got his second name because Harris was elected to the state senate by two votes the day he was born. Harris in 1876 was mayor of Jesup, Georgia, and was chairman of the Board of Health in Darien, Georgia, from 1878 to 1881.

The grandfather of this gentleman migrated from Virginia to Columbia County, Georgia, where Raymond Harris, father of Raymond B. Har­ris, was born. He served in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Phila­delphia, Pennsylvania, and married Mary Elizabeth Jones of Liberty County on May 16, 1822. He established a medi­cal practice and resided on Palmero Plantation in McIntosh County, Georgia. At least two of their children were Cornelia and Raymond B. Harris. Cornelia Harris married William Edward Screven, son of Reverend James Odingsell Screven, and grandson of Brigadier General James Screven. They re­sided in a home at Sunbury built by Reverend Screven in 1801. Raymond Harris practiced medicine in McIntosh, Liberty, and Bryan counties for 64 years. By 1845, he and his wife were residing with Cornelia Harris Screven and her family at Sunbury. He died at the age of 91 and is buried in the Walthourville Presbyterian Church cemetery.