Examples that impress force of character on all who study them are worthy of record in the annals of history wherever they are found. By a few general observations the biographer hopes to convey in the following paragraphs, succinctly and yet without fulsome encomium, some idea of the high standing of John H. Harris, of Elkhorn, as a business man and public benefactor, one of the representative citizens of Walworth county. Those who know him best will readily acquiesce in the statement that many elements of a solid and practical nature are united in his composition and which during a series of years have brought him into prominent notice throughout the southern portion of the state, bis life and achievements earning for him a conspicuous place among his compeers.
Mr. Harris was born in Jefferson county, New York, August 29, 1856. He is the son of James B. Harris and Rachael (Chene). Harris, the mother a native of Jefferson county, New York, daughter of an old family of that state. James B. Harris was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and when a boy he emigrated to Ingersoll, Canada, with his parents where his brother and other relatives had preceded him. He came down into the state of New York, probably about 1850, and there married Rachael Cheney, and he conducted a cheese factory in Jefferson county, that state, most of his life.
Two sons and three daughters were born to .Mr. and Mis. James B. Harris, namely: John H.. of this sketch; Minnie is the wife of John McKelvie and they live in southern Kansas; Belle, who was a teacher in the New York schools, died there in 1910; Maria, the fourth child in order of birth, married C. O. Roberts, and they live in Philadelphia, Jefferson county, New York; George B.. third in order of birth, was born February, [860, has always been in the creamery business, being at present associated with the subject in the management of the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company, of which there are several branches, he being in charge of the one at Waukesha, in which city he resides, having moved there in 1891 from Spring Prairie, where he had lived up to that time. He married Alma Coleman, daughter of James Coleman and wife, an excellent family of Spring Prairie, and George B. and his wife have five children. John C, Hugh, George, Robert and Helen.
John H. Harris grew to manhood in New York and there received his education, remaining in his native community until the spring of 1879, when he came to Clinton Junction. Wisconsin, where he lived something more than a year, then moved to Walworth county, Wisconsin, in 1880, and located bout seven miles east of Elkhorn, in Spring Prairie township. There he operated a cheese factory until 1890. when he and Walter A. West, George B. Harris and George B. Puffer formed the Wisconsin Butter & Cheese Company, one of the best known companies of its kind in the state, a large, prosperous and growing concern.. The subject is president of this company and its splendid success is due largely to his able management.
Mr. Harris has long been active and influential in public affairs and is an ardent Republican. In [898 he was elected state senator, and lie served his constituents in a manner that won their hearty approval and reflected much credit upon himself.
Mr. Harris has been very successful in a business way. being a man of progressive idea-, sound judgment and keen discernment. Aside from his large cheese manufacturing interests, be owns a valuable and finely improved farm of one hundred acres in the southwestern part of the city limits of Elkhorn. Here he has an excellent barn, worthy of special mention because of its size, convenience and completeness, a model dairy barn in every respect. He is a breeder of full-blood Holstein cattle and is taking a great deal of interest in improving and enlarging his herd.
The domestic life of Mr. Harris began on September 5, 1882, when he was united in marriage with Effie G. Webber, daughter of Loring O. and Alary (Fairbanks) Webber. She was born in Raymond, Racine county, this state. Her mothers people came from the state of New York. Loring O. Webber was one of the first settlers of Racine county, and his father erected the first frame house built in that county.
Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Harris, namely: Cora Belle, wife of Clarence A. Arp, lives in Chicago, where he is connected with the Universal Cement Company ; James L. lives with his father in Elkhorn; Robert Bruce and Ruth M. are also at home.
Mr. Harris is a thirty-second-degree Mason, and he belongs to the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
WISCONSIN BUTTER AND CHEESE COMPANY
One of the most popular and widely known business firms in Walworth county is the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company, with head offices in Waukesha, Wisconsin, being the largest and best equipped concern of its kind in this locality, if not in this part of the state, in fact, there are comparatively few creamery factories anywhere that equal it.
About 1890 Messrs. Harris and West, together with George E. Puffer and George Harris, formed the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company, a corporation with a capital stock of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Mr. Puffer and George B. Harris went to Waukesha and took charge of the plant there, while J. H. Harris and Mr. West remained at Elkhorn in charge of the plant here, the former being president of the company and the latter vice-president. They operated at one time twenty-seven creameries.
Their original plant at Elkhorn was near the fair grounds, but in 1904 they removed to near the station of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company (north-west corner of South Broad and West Centralia streets), in order to secure better side track and shipping facilities, and there they erected their present commodious and substantial plant, a model indeed of an up-to-date factory for dairy products, modern in every appointment, sanitary and convenient. The building is of yellow pressed brick and it is so handsomely finished that travelers have frequently mistaken it for a hotel. Even the huge smokestack is ornamental, being neatly decorated with designs made of various colored brick with the letters W. B. & C. Co. showing plainly up and down the smoke stack. Along the front are two driveways where every morning long lines of teams are drawn up to unload the milk that is hauled in from all directions. Rapidly the milk is received, weighed, a sample taken for testing in the chemical laboratory and then poured out to run in a constant flow to the large receptacles on the floor below.
All through the factory runs a thorough system for handling the milk, making it into butter. Neufchatel and cream cheese, casein, condensed milk, or shipping the cream. Various machines and appliances are needed for such work and they have installed the most approved and latest designs. Power is furnished from four high-pressure boilers of one hundred and fifty horse power each, and two other boilers of lesser power. They also have a good system of cold storage rooms and coolers. Water to operate the plant is drawn from a deep drilled well. They have their own ice plant and a tower for cooling water. A hydraulic elevator facilitates the work of the factory. For the convenience and cleanliness of the employes of the factory, there are toilet and dressing rooms equipped with shower baths.
Here is to be found a complete battery of cream separators, also large Pasteurizers. A large copper vacuum retort, costing three thousand dollars, is used for condensing milk, where the air is drawn out. Forming such a vacuum that milk will boil at a temperature of one hundred and twelve degrees. The condensed milk is either canned in small tins or put in bulk into large cans, cooled in the coolers where fifty cans at a time are revolved by machinery in cold water until cold enough to ship to the ice cream factories. From the skimmed milk casein is made, or dried curds, which is then put through a dry kiln and thoroughly dried, then shipped away to make sizing, glazing and glue.
In its earlier stage of manufacture it resembles the Neufchatel cheese (similar to cream cheese but with less fat), of which this company makes a most excellent quality, which is very popular; that made here is the Elkhorn brand and that made at the Waukesha plant is the Arrow brand.
This concern manufactures about fifteen hundred pounds of butter day at the present time: they ship a car load of cream daily to Chicago; they handle as high as eighty to ninety thousand pounds of milk daily, and their business is constantly increasing.
For shipping facilities they have a cement platform along the rear end of the building, from which their products are wheeled directly into the cars, lined up on the tracks to receive them. It would be hard to find a more thoroughly equipped or systematically managed plant of this nature than that of the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company.
From: Beckwith, A.C. (1912). History of Walworth County Wisconsin