Mr. John Gross stands with one of the carriages his ancestor Nathan Harris likely drove at Hampton.
NPS
Nathan Harris (c. 1815-lv. 1880), was the senior coachman at Hampton. According to Ridgely family memoirist James McHenry Howard, Nathan was "...the driver who used to handle the four in hand so skillfully as to command the admiration of the people of Baltimore.” After Emancipation in 1864, Nathan became the owner of a successful stable and horse breeding business in the Govans area of Baltimore City.
Nathan’s wife, Ellen, was an older sister of Louis, Ann, and Caroline Davis, and is listed in records with her sister Caroline, so she may have worked in the dairy, and she may have been involved in preparing hams produced on the farms. She and Nathan had eleven children, among them a daughter Isabella (1862-1935). Isabella was one of the last children to be born enslaved at Hampton. During the Ethnography Project, researchers have discovered dozens of living descendants of Isabella/Belle Harris and her husband Dennis Gross in the Towson area.
