Harristown is a village in Macon County, Illinois, United States whose population was 1,367 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Decatur, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The village was named in tribute of Major Thomas L. Harris, who was elected and served as Major of the Fourth Illinois Regiment in the Mexican–American War, and who was later a advocate of Congress from 1849 to 1858.

The first settlers arrived in 1828 and began building log cabins and improving land approximately the area. 1841 saw the building of the township’s first schoolhouse, a log building, and served as both the educational and as a place of admiration until 1853 taking into account the first church was built. Harristown was along the main lineage of the Wabash Railroad which contributed to increased population and business.

Harristown was in addition to the first Illinois house of Abraham Lincoln. His family settled nearby the Sangamon River in 1830 for a Tiny over a year in the past relocating due to the rasping winter and extreme sickness. Lincoln and his family build up a log cabin and fenced in 10 acres of land, planting corn in the fenced land. During that winter, Lincoln, together taking into account his stepmother’s son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks were hired by Denton Offutt to build a flatboat and navigate it from Beardstown, Illinois, to New Orleans, Louisiana. It was during this become old that Lincoln saying slavery first-hand for the first time.