Leander Harris was born on March 19, 1833, in West Fairlee, Vermont, to Stephen and Mary Harris. His father was a farmer who owned $2,000 of real estate in 1850. The family moved to Massachusetts in the mid-1830s before settling in Hampstead, New Hampshire, in the late 1840s. By 1850, Harris was working as a shoemaker. He married a woman named Emily in the 1850s, and they had at least two children: Annie, born around 1857; and Clara, born around 1859. By 1860, he owned $100 of personal property.

 

Harris enlisted in the Union army on September 1, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company I of the 4^th New Hampshire Infantry on September 18. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 10½ inches tall, with light hair and blue eyes. The regiment took part in the Battle of Port Royal, the Bermuda Hundred campaign, the Battle of Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg, and the Carolinas campaign. He was wounded in the thigh at some point during the war. He mustered out on August 23, 1865.

 

They moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, after the war, and his wife died there of diphtheria on February 4, 1866. By 1870, he was working in a shoe factory in Bradford, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth D. Colby in Haverhill on April 7, 1875. They settled in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and Harris worked as a farmer. He died of Bright’s disease and “senility” in Hampton Falls on August 23, 1912.

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