HARRIS, William Logan, M. E. bishop, born near Mansfield, Ohio, 4 November, 1817; died in New York city, 2 September, 1887. He attended the schools about his home, and pursued a course of classical and mathematical studies at the Norwalk seminary, Ohio. He united with the Methodist Episcopal church in 1834, and in September, 1837, was admitted on trial to the Michigan conference, which then included the northwestern part of Ohio. Upon the readjustment of the conference boundaries in 1840, he became a member of the north Ohio conference, and by a later subdivision he fell into the central Ohio conference. For eight years he labored in pastoral work on several circuits and stations in the northern and central parts of Ohio. In 1845 he became an instructor in the Ohio Wesleyan university. In 1846-'7 he was stationed in Toledo, and in 1848 at Norwalk. In that year he became principal of Baldwin institute, at Berea, where he remained till in 1851 he was chosen professor of chemistry and natural history in Ohio Wesleyan university. Here he continued until 1860, when he was elected by the general conference one of the corresponding secretaries of the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal church, which office he held by quadrennial re-elections till May, 1872, when he was elected and ordained a bishop. He was a delegate in the general conferences for 1856, 1860, 1864, 1868, and 1872, and also the secretary of that body at each of these sessions. He received the degree of D. D. in 1856 and of LL.D. in 1870. During the years 1872-'3 he circumnavigated the globe, visiting the mission-stations of his church in Japan, China, and India, and also those in the various countries of Europe. He is recognized as an expert in Methodist church law, and has published a small work on "The Powers of the General Conference" (1859), and conjointly with Judge William J. Henry, of Illinois, a treatise on "Ecclesiastical Law," with special reference to the government of the Methodist Episcopal church (1870).