Harmon Truth and Tradition

John L. Harmon and his wife Elizabeth Byrd were my 4th great grandparents.  There is a huge amount of questionable information about this couple floating around the Internet - the purpose of this blog is not to try to explain all that I find wrong that can be proved otherwise, but primarily to point out some discrepancies in a family tradition reported in a newspaper story.

To find out more that is actually documented concerning John L. Harmon, go to my Harmon webpages beginning here:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~katy/harmon/index.html.

I will just say here that he was not a son of Jacob Harmon and Sarah Lorton - he was most probably not even of German descent. His apparent relatives in the area of western Virginia where his records are first found were named William, Patrick, Joseph, Sarah, Elizabeth, etc.   Unfortunately there are just too few records in early Montgomery, Grayson, and surrounding counties to discover the exact relationships. Y-DNA testing has supported his close relationship to a Patrick Harmon, whose parents are thought to have have been Joseph and Sarah Harmon, possibly from Pennsylvania before migrating to Virginia.  Y-DNA of descendants has shown John L. Harmon is not likely part of any of the German Harman/Harmon families that were in western Virginia at that time.

Now, on with the story.

A grandson of John L. and Elizabeth, Charles Harmon, born 25 December 1844 in Boone County, Indiana, died 13 August 1915 in Brownsburg, Hendricks County, Indiana.  He was quite a story teller.  He had fought in the Civil War and did a great deal of reminiscing - many of his stories found their way into newspapers, particularly a series called "Past Times" by Joan Lyons that appeared in the Zionsville Times Sentinel.  The Past Times Collection is at the Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Library in Zionsville, Boone County, Indiana and can be found by following along to their Downloads/Databases link and then to "Past Times" and searching on whatever you like.

http://www.zionsville.lib.in.us/hmmpl/page/main

A search for Charles Harmon will bring up a total of 53 articles - he either wrote these or appears in them.

Here is the direct URL to the story about his ancestry
http://www.zionsville.lib.in.us/greenstone/collect/past/index/assoc/HASH0181.dir/doc.pdf

The same story is related here by scrolling down the page.
http://genealogytrails.com/ind/boone/civilwarvetsbios.html

Just a little background.   John L. Harmon died in 1825 in Marion County, Indiana; his wife lived considerably longer - at least until after 1850, when she was living with adult children in Carroll Co, Illinois.  John and Elizabeth's son James, who was the father of our subject Charles, died in April of 1847 - his wife, Philadelphia, nee Dickerson, died a month later.  Charles was not yet three years old when he was orphaned.  He never knew his grandfather at all, likely never met his grandmother, and would scarcely have remembered his parents.

In his narrative, written in 1906, Charles, now age 62, states that what he knows of his ancestors was told to him by his brother, James Dickerson Harmon, forty or fifty years earlier - about 1860 or so. Charles would have been in his teens, his brother James, born in 1828, in his thirties - James was about 19 when their parents died and James had died in 1897.  James never knew his grandfather, either.

I don't know what your experience might be, but I've been fortunate to have many relatives live very many years.  Their stories told by memory sometimes changed over the years.  Different family members have very different memories about the same events.  We also have a few story tellers in the family and they generally like to embellish - my stepfather, a champion of stories, said he never told a story the same twice - that would be too boring!  Based on the many Civil War stories related by Charles in this series - told decades after the events - he was also a story teller of large proportions. There are instances in some of the articles written by others that do not support all that Charles related.  But I do not intend to in any way discredit his Civil War memories - I'm sure the trauma of his years in this War was imprinted quite clearly.

Now, here are some his "facts"from his story about his ancestors and why I believe we really cannot depend on the accuracy of his statements regarding his lineage.

Charles stated that
"during the Revolutionary War a family of Harmons came over from England.  Near the coast of Virginia the ship in which they were sailing was wrecked.  Of the family, all perished except two boys.  They were rescued and landed in Virginia.
One of these boys was my grandfather, John.  These two brothers were separated, never to see each other again.  The brother Richard, it is known, went Northwest into Pennsylvania.  Grandfather drifted to the southwest into the Carolinas then up into Tennessee and on into the south central portion of Kentucky, locating near where the battle of Mills Springs was fought.
My grandmother's maiden name I do not remember.  Indeed, I am pretty certain I never knew.
It is my understanding that my father was born near the place where, during the War of Rebellion, the battle of Mills Springs occurred (Pulaski Co, KY.)
I think it can be stated with a full degree of certainty that grandfather, John L. Harmon, was of pure English stock, and it may be stated with equal certainty that Grandmother was of Irish descent, in part at least.  She lived to be 99 years old and died at the home of daughter Jane Ray in Illinois."

So here is what can be documented ...John L. Harmon is first positively appears on a tax list and living on Crooked Creek in Montgomery County, Virginia, in 1787 - tax lists usually refer to the previous year.  He was listed with a William Harmon, not as an independent male.  In December of 1787, he married Elizabeth Byrd, in Montgomery County, and apparently was 21 by then, as no permission was required.   Old cemetery listings give a birth for John L. as 1767 (the stone no longer there) which is very close in agreement.   Now it is 300 miles and more as the crow flies from this area to the coast of Virginia with some wicked mountains in between.  The story of a shipwreck and abandonment seems unlikely, given where he was living as a 21-year-old in 1787, five years after the end of the war.  The settlers in this area of Virginia came down the Indian paths and the rivers from northern Virginia and Pennsylvania and nowhere is there any suggestion that John L. Harmon was born anywhere other than Virginia.  A more plausible story would be an accident traveling down a river - not on the ocean - and certainly such could happen.   For a brother to travel to the northwest also seems somewhat implausible.  The two brothers story sounds a bit like an adaptation of the "three brothers myth - one stayed, one went west, one went south..."

John L. Harmon never lived in the Carolinas or in Tennessee.  He was in Virginia - Montgomery County and then Wythe and Grayson as the counties were formed.  Then he was a bit further west in Russell Co by 1796 where he remained until at least until the fall of 1803.  (His wife's mother and stepfather were in Grayson County. Several of Elizabeth's married sisters live near and around the Harmons in these locations.)

In 1804, John Harmon was living on Fishing/ Pitsman (goes by both names) Creek, Pulaski County, Kentucky.  James, father of Charles, born in 1797 according to a family Bible, was certainly born in Virginia - not Kentucky.  However, Charles was right about one thing - the Harmons did possibly live near where the Battle of Mill Springs was fought in the Civil War - that battle is also known as the Battle of Fishing Creek.

By 1812, the Harmons were in Hamilton County, Ohio, as cited when they sold their property back in Pulaski County.  Charles (or James) seemed to be unaware they had ever lived there.  Charles and James's parents were married, 18 February 1816, Franklin County, Indiana, and may have been the first of the Harmons to settle in Indiana.  The family did not stay long in Ohio.

Since Charles didn't even attempt to give his grandmother a given name, I think we can be certain he knew basically nothing about her.  By all accounts, she was from a Virginia family.  That both John L. Harmon and Elizabeth Byrd, were from somewhere in the British Isles is almost certain - that would be an easy family tradition/assumption for many families and both the Harmon and Byrd surnames could well be English in origins.  Byrd isn't typically Irish.

Another true fact is that Charles and James had an uncle named Richard.  Perhaps they confused him with their grandfather's supposed brother Richard, for whom there is not a shred of documentation.  In fact, their grandmother, Elizabeth (Byrd) Harmon, was living with Richard in Carroll County, Illinois, in the 1850 census and reported as blind. That she lived to be 99 and lived with her daughter Nancy, wife of Chesley Wray, in Knox County, Illinois isn't supported.  Elizabeth doesn't appear in any record after that 1850 census. She isn't with any of her children in 1860.  If she lived to be 99, that would have been say 1869 or 1870 and in 1870, Nancy Wray, widow, was herself age 71, and living with her son Mark.

The narrative goes on to discuss siblings and family members - some of the information seems correct, but siblings are omitted and some of the data is not quite right.  At the very best, these writings are third hand as remembered by Charles, told to him by James, who had been told presumably by other family members, some decades earlier.

As in so many of these stories, there is undoubtedly a grain of truth - but which grain?  John could have been orphaned at an early age - there's nothing to tell us how he was actually related to the William Harmon in Montgomery County, although the first thought is that they could be father and son.  He certainly could have lost family members in some sort of boating accident - or a similar accident could have happened in an earlier generation to John's parents or grandparents.  He could have lost contact with a brother Richard - although that may be a confusion regarding his son of that name.  Given that he may have had a close relative named Patrick Harmon - there might be a bit of Irish in the Harmon line, but probably not in his grandmother Byrd's family.  That said, there are still some serious holes in the story, much of which should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt rather than as grains of truth.

Newspaper reporters do love a good story.  I have had another experience with a newspaper article that was quite far off the mark - and produced a Revolutionary War ancestor that was never in my family.  I wrote a blog post about Moses Allen and why Moses was not Ethan Allen, of the Green Mountain Boys, It's here:
http://moreleaves.blogspot.com/2009/07/not-descended-from-ethan-allen.html

I have also written a blog about Charles Harmon and his brothers that fought in the Civil War and it can be found here:
http://moreleaves.blogspot.com/2011/04/civil-war-ancestors-harmon-brothers.html

Civil War Ancestors - The Harmon Brothers

Another of my great, great grandfathers was William Alexander Harmon - as far as I know, his Civil War service was of a week's duration.  At least four of William's brothers also served in the Union Army.

The Harmon men were sons of James Harmon and Philadelphia Dickerson, whose fathers had both served in the Revolution.



Robert John Harmon, the fourth child but the eldest son, was born 21 Feb 1824, Marion County, Indiana.  He enlisted as a private in Company A, 86th Indiana Infantry on 1 Aug 1862; he was discharged 2 Jan 1863.  Possibly his enlistment was only for three months, he may also have suffered an injury or illness.  On 13 Jun 1881, Robert J. Harmon applied for his invalid pension which he did receive.  He died 1900 in Oklahoma and his wife, Sarah (Dye) Harmon then applied for her widow's pension.  This is a file I have not yet obtained from the National Archives.


William Alexander Harmon, was born 7 Jan 1826, Marion County, and married on 17 Jun 1847 in Boone County, Indiana, to Emma Elizabeth Miller.  By the time of the War they had five children. William enlisted on 7 Oct 1863, as a Private in Company G, Indiana, 102nd Infanty Regiment, 10 Jul 1863, and was mustered out a week later, on 17 Jul 1863, at Indianapolis. This was a minute men regiment called up for citizens' defense when word was received that a Confederate force of 6,000 cavalry had crossed the Ohio River and was moving on Corydon. The 102nd was organized in Boone County and numbered 623 men. It left Indianapolis the next day by rail, traveling to Vernon, where Company K was mounted and sent in pursuit of the enemy. The unit was moved to DuPont, thence to Osgood and on the 14th of July to Sunman's station. It returned to Indianapolis on July 17th and was mustered out.



James Dickerson Harmon was born 8 Jan 1828 - some old family letters refer to him as "Jay".  It is possible he served as well, but more than one James Harmon was in the Union Army and the information available on the Internet has not indicated that any of them enlisted in Boone County where Jay was living at the time of the War.


Nelson S. Harmon was born 5 Jun 1833.  He married Catherine Wilson, 19 Jun 1853 in Boone County, and had three children at the beginning of the War.  Nelson enlisted in Company L, Indiana 3rd Cavalry Regiment on 23 Oct 1861.  He was mustered out of the 3rd Cavalry on 15 Dec 1864 at Savannah, Georgia, and transferred to Company A, Indiana 8th Cavalry Regiment the same day.  Nelson was mustered out of the 8th Cavalry Regiment on 20 Jul 1865 at Indianapolis, IN, having served pretty much the entire War.  The Indiana Civil War service records have not been filmed so little can be discovered online other than just the most basic information.


Francis Marion Harmon, born 8 Feb 1835, married Minerva Utterback about 1856.  By one of those strange genalogical quirks, I am kin to both.  Francis was a great, great grand-uncle.  Minerva was a 5th cousin, several times removed, her family going back to the ironworkers at the Germanna colony in Virginia.  The family had moved to Iowa before the civil War began, living near Minerva's parents, and had at least three children.  Francis was wounded in the War, then died of typhoid fever.  Letters he wrote to his family just before his death, as well as Minerva's letter informing a brother of his death, have been transcribed on the Utterback GenForum message board.

Francis M. Harmon, whose residence was Glenwood, Iowa, enlisted 10 Oct 1861, as a Private, in Company F, 15th Infantry Regt, Iowa. He gave his age as 26 and was mustered in on 18 Nov 1861. He was severely wounded in the hand on 6 April 1862 at the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, and died of typhoid fever at the division hospital on 1 Jun 1862. He is buried at Pittsburg Landing, now Shiloh National Cemetery - a picture of his grave marker is on their website.  There were 760 soldiers of the 15th Iowa, of that number there were 185 casualties, killed, wounded, or missing, at Shiloh - nearly a fourth of the regiment.


The youngest son [and youngest child] of James and Philadelphia was Charles, born 25 Dec 1844.  The parents both died in 1847 and Charles lived with his older brother Jay. With all those brothers in service, he apparently could not to wait to "join up".  The family tradition is that he first enlisted before his 16th birthday, but he should have turned 16 in December of 1860, before the war started.  Charles was likely not quite 18 at his first enlistment.  Whatever may be the truth of that story, his older brother Jay got him released from that first enlistment in Company L of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry, and took him home.  Charles did enlist again 9 Apr 1863, Company A of the 8th Cavalry.  His brother Nelson served in both companies as well.  Charles was mustered out on 20 Jul 1865 at Indianapolis, along with Nelson.  He may also have an invalid pension file that I have not yet ordered from the National Archives - the Index card for Charles Harmon lists both companies.