Even in 1880, after he had designed the courthouse (YB47) in Carrollton, James Clark Harris (1826–1904) noted his occupation in the census as “house carpenter,” a self-assessment that indicates what he considered his true calling. A signature detail of his later works is an incised flattened ogee, often over doors and windows and on his mantel designs. Only nine buildings from his forty-year career are documented, and it is not known whether his practice extended beyond Carroll County.
Around 1875, Harris added the current two-story, side-gabled front to the 1830s one-story Ray House (now the rear wing). Here his double-tiered gallery features all manner of woodwork, with brackets on the second level so large they almost overwhelm the slender chamfered posts. Turned and jigsawn ornament continues on the interior, with the staircase balustrade seeming to drip down the rail like stalactites, and ogee arches decorate the wood mantels.
Next door, the two-story L-front Bingham-Sanders House (c. 1875; 112 W. Washington) has more standardized Eastlake and Queen Anne decoration and is attributed to Harris. Although not documented to Harris, the incised ogees over the windows and doors of the I-house (1875; 106 W. Washington) and the stunning double-tiered gallery with octagonal columns, suggest a strong attribution.
Nearby at 300 E. Stonewall Street, the William Helm House boasts one of the finest group of nineteenth-century outbuildings in central Mississippi, most of which apparently date to Harris’s 1874 remodeling of the main house. Harris’s porch, decorated with paired brackets, chamfered posts with bulbous carved center sections, and a dripping jigsawn frieze, dominates the composition.