The Harris family was one of the first free Black/multi-racial families in Oakland County, coming from Georgia with their adult children and settling in the 1830s wilderness of what is now Berkley. Hamlet, who was Indigenous Cherokee, bought his wife Jane out of enslavement in Georgia and took her surname. From 1850-1870, the Harris family housed or fostered a number of apparently unrelated Black children and adults. This suggests that they actively supported freedom seekers and the abolitionist cause. The multi-racial Harrises prospered, and three generations of their descendants helped shape the history of both Royal Oak Township and Birmingham.

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