(May 6, 1806 in Pompey, N.Y. – September 29, 1860 in Baltimore, Maryland) was an American physician and dentist and dentistry school founder.

In 1828, Dr. Harris turned to full-time dentistry, and by 1833 was a student of Dr. Horace H. Hayden located in Baltimore, Maryland.

Licensed by the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, Harris conducted an itinerant dental practice throughout the South, before settling permanently in Baltimore in 1835.

In 1840 he was the first to respond to the call of Dr. Horace H. Hayden to organize the American Society of Dental Surgeons (ASDS).

Apparently his initial attempt was to establish a dental training school attached to the Medical Department of the University of Maryland.

Undaunted, Harris persevered in his efforts, and during the winter of 1839–40, almost single-handedly he gathered the signatures of representative citizens for a petition to the legislature of the state of Maryland for the incorporation of a College of Dental Surgery at Baltimore.

Surmounting the opposition of jealous medical rivals, he successfully managed to obtain the charter and with the aid of Horace H. Hayden, Thomas E. Bond, H. Willis Baxley, S. Brown, E. Parmly and others, he organized the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1840.

At that time there were only about three hundred trained and scientific dentists in the entire country; the rest were relatively untrained operators, outright quacks, or charlatans.