David Ruffin Harrison was born to George Henry Harrison and Delilah Phillips (Herrin) Harrison in Herrin's Prairie, Illinois. While still a young boy, David's family moved north to the town of Marion, Illinois where his father had set up a thriving milling business. While in the process of building a new mercantile store, his father, George Henry Harrison become ill and passed away during the winter of 1848. David was just 14 years old at the time and after his father's death, his mother Delilah sold the family businesses in Marion and moved David and his younger sister, Louisa, back to Herrin's Prairie where the rest of her family was living. Before the family's move to Marion, their father had built a mercantile store in Herrin's Prairie which he left in the care of his wife's brother, Oliver Herrin during the time they were living in Marion. David Ruffin Harrison now became the man of the house and took over the running of his father's mercantile store and ran their farm. It was a very hard life in this open and undeveloped prairie area of Southern Illinois. Over the next few years the Harrison businesses continued to prosper. David had great success with his farm crops of wheat, flax and corn. Feeling the need for more education, David Ruffin left the family farm and store in 1853 to attend Shurtleff Baptist College in Alton, Illinois for a year, studying agriculture and business. He had saved every penny from his store and farm profits in order to attend college. Knowing what a good investment he had made in attending college, he vowed that when he had children they would have all the education they desired, so long as they were willing to work for it.

David Ruffin Harrison met Julia Ann Walker while attending the Hurricane Baptist Church, a short distance east of what is now the town of Carterville, Illinois. David Ruffin & Julia Ann married on January 10, 1861. David Ruffin & Julia Ann Harrison had five children:

1. George Henry Harrison born on December 14,1861;
2. Annabel Harrison born on April 18, 1864;
3. Albert Matthew Harrison born on December 5,1867;
4. Luella Harrison born on March 26, 1869; and
5. Julia Harrison born on July 5, 1874

David Ruffin Harrison would eventually build and run many successful businesses, everything from mercantile stores to banks and coal mines. He is considered one of the early pioneers of Southern Illinois. He was honored as a 33rd degree Mason and lived an exemplary life. In 1865, he was a Charter member of Herrin's Prairie United Baptist Church, which later became Herrin First Baptist Church. He served as Clerk and recorded the minutes for the church up until his death. After the passing of his wife Julia Walker Harrison on July 9, 1874, he married Elizabeth Harriet Fellows Backus in 1879. David Ruffin and Elizabeth were married for 20 years. His second wife, Elizabeth passed away on March 10, 1899. After Elizabeth's passing, David Ruffin Harrison began to take more time to travel around the country. He built a home in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he loved to spend his winters in his later years. He also took many train trips with his daughter Luella, one as far as the west coast to La Jolla, California in 1909. In the early spring of 1911, during a trip where he visited his son, Dr. Albert Harrison and family who lived in Rockford, Illinois and then on to visit his daughter Annabel Harrison Mitchell, whose family were living in Chicago, he was taken ill. David Ruffin Harrison passed away on May 9, 1911, at the age of 76, at the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, Illinois surrounded by his family.

The home he built in Herrin's Prairie in 1860 remained in
the family until the late 1920s when it was sold. After several decades, David Ruffin's grandchildren bought the home back i the mid-1940s, painstakingly restored it and maintained it as a museum for nearly three decades. In 2011 the Harrison Family Trust donated the beautiful brick home and the family's original log cabin to John Logan College in Carterville, Illinois. The brick home and log cabin had been in this location since the mid-1800s. It is now part of the college's Southern Illinois' Pioneer Village, a permanent exhibit about the settling of Southern Illinois. The home and cabin were moved and rebuilt with much of the home's original brick work that was handmade by David Ruffin Harrison.

From the many dozens of obituaries published about David Ruffin Harrison's life, the most common thread running through the notices, beyond his tremendous financial successes, was the fact that David Ruffin Harrison was a kind and generous man who cherished his family and was a devout Christian.

This bio was written by David Ruffin Harrison's gg-grandaughter, Rebecca Wright