An emancipated slave, he emigrated to Liberia in 1830 and engaged in a string of adventures, most notably thwarting an attack on the Heddington mission by a Loma army in 1840.
In February 1830, he arrived in Liberia with several other colonists, including George W. Erskine, a Presbyterian missionary who had been trained for the ministry by Isaac Anderson at the Southern and Western Theological Seminary (modern Maryville College).
[1] On March 8, 1840, Harris and his wife were staying at the home of the Reverend George S. Brown at Heddington, a remote Methodist mission 25 miles (40 km) from Monrovia when a band of 300 to 400 tribesmen led by the Loma chief Gotorah attacked.
En route from Washington, D.C., to Tennessee, Harris extolled the qualities of Liberia to crowds of free blacks.
[8] In October 1841, he delivered a speech to over a thousand attendees at a camp meeting in Maryville organized by Isaac Anderson.