John Harris, who are you

Last night I was surfing the net when I came across a site containing some police books from the early 1800s in the north of Tasmania.

Echoes of Bushranging  Days in Van Diemen’s Land: Brady, McCabe, Perry, Geffreys  and Britton
1837 – 1851  box 2 vol 5
National Library of Australia Manuscript collection MS3251

I found them really interesting and as I read, I came across a report on a fight which involved a John Harris and in which a man died. In 1867, Ephraim Doe went to Port Arthur for killing a man called John Harris in a fight over sheep stealing and I wondered whether this could possibly be the same John Harris. If Ephraim knew that the man he was fighting had already killed someone some years before, it would certainly give him some impetus to fight back. The answer is that I still don’t know if it was the same person but I am going to try to eliminate as many as possible and see what I have left. John Harris who died at the hands of Ephraim in 1867 was about the same age as Ephraim. There are about three pages of John Harrises in the Colonial Index. If I eliminate all the ones too young, and all those who died too early, that is going to cut the list down. Then I can check the convict “permissions to marry” (fight no 1 John H was not a convict)and that will eliminate a few more. If I cross reference with newspaper reports, I might be able to rub a few more out. I am never going to know for certain but I will do my best. I have another puzzle to solve!

I also came across a reference to a Guernsey frock so I did a check via the net and found this site which explains how all these clothes came to be named and what they actually were

http://www.nationaltrust-gsy.org.gg/content.aspx?p=137