Sarah Bethia Harris

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90321694/sarah-bethia-harris

Sarah Bethia Bailey, daughter of Bethia Grier and Zachariah Bailey, married John West Harris on December 14, 1847. The marriage certificate was recorded in Stewart County, Ga.

A detailed biographical sketch devoted to Joseph Thomas Bailey, one of Sarah Bailey Harris’s brothers, was included in Volume II of “Memoirs of Georgia,” which was produced by The Southern Historical Society, Atlanta, and published in 1895. In that sketch, Sarah Bailey Harris (Mrs. John W. Harris) is named as a daughter born to Bethia and Zachariah Bailey. The text reads: “To this union [Bethia Grier and Zachariah Bailey] were born six children: Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, who lives in Clayton, Ala.; Mrs. Mary Key, deceased; Mrs. Sarah Harris; J.T., the subject of this sketch; Mrs. Mildred Sharp, of Dawson, Ga., and Zacharias, of Robinson county, Texas.”

Sarah Bethia Bailey and John West Harris were the parents of Eudora Harris McDonald and Eva Harris Comer.

Eva Harris, who married Braxton Bragg Comer in Randolph County, Ga., in 1872, was mentioned, along with her parents and other family members, in Anne Kendrick Walker’s “Braxton Bragg Comer: His Family Tree From Virginia's Colonial Days,” which was published in 1947. For details on Page 179 that concern Sarah Bethia Bailey and her husband, John West Harris, the book’s author drew upon the memoirs of Sallie Comer Lathrop, one of Eva Harris Comer’s ten children by Braxton Bragg Comer.

Mrs. Lathrop, who was the author of several books that tell the story of her family, was married in Birmingham (Jefferson County), Ala., in 1893 to James Henderson Blount, Jr., whom she later divorced. In 1902, Mrs. Sallie Comer Blount married Frank Holland Lathrop in Birmingham.

“Bethia,” which was used over a matter of generations in this family, was the name of Sarah Bethia Bailey Harris’s great-grandmother, Bethia Castellaw Alexander (Mrs. Samuel Alexander). Elizabeth Alexander (daughter of Bethia and Samuel Alexander) and Thomas Grier were the parents of Bethia Grier, wife of Zachariah Bailey and (after Zachariah Bailey’s death) John Roe.

According to the obituary that appeared in "The Southern Christian Advocate" (August 27, 1873), "Mrs. Sarah B. Harris [,] wife of John W. Harris, was born in Randolph county, Feb. 15th, 1832, and died in Cuthbert, Ga., July 17th, 1873." The obituary indicated that the deceased "was for many years a beloved and worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in Cuthbert."