Abram & Catherine Clark Harder

HARDER CLARK

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 8/26/2010 at 20:37:41

History of Woodbury County 1984

Abram and Catherine Clark Harder
By Katherine Wolpert

Abram and Catherine Clark Harder were early settlers of Weedland Liberty Township. Abram chose the place when he was twenty-one soon after the Civil War. He had been mustered out of the Nevada Volunteers at Fort Douglas, Utah, July 12, 1866, and had begun his long journey back to his native Illinois.

He stopped to work for a time in Sergeant Bluff as a farm hand and in the Holman brickyard. He was still in town in 1870 as his name appears on the 1870 Federal Census. On March 9, 1872, he married Catherine Clark in Crystal Lake, Illinois. He brought her back to Weedland.

Catherine was the oldest child of Mary Duffy and Martin Clark. Both were born in County Mayo, Ireland, but Martin came to America earlier as he served with the Illinois Volunteers, 2nd Regiment, Company A, in the Mexican War. For is service he received 160 acres bounty land. His parents, Thomas and Catherine Clark, owned land in McHenry County ($2000 value 1860 census). These four are buried near their homesteads in Thabor Cemetery, Crystal Lake.

As sisters, Catherine was working on in Chicago and was one of the throng that passed the bier of the assassinated President Lincolne when he lay in state. In 1893, she returned to Chicago for the Columbian Exposition. She told of swinging for an hour at the top of the Ferris wheel while it was halted for repairs.

The first Harder home in Weedland was a log cabin near the meandering Missouri, but since they were ever mindful of the bank cutting spring flow, they soon built a bigger house on the high bank.

Abram farmed, and in the winters he cut wood with the help of Indians who came from Nebraska across the frozen river. Hauling wood to Sioux City for sale was a day’s journey with a plodding team, but it helped to support his family of seven children.

Catherine told of Indians watching her through the windown as used her sewing machine. She kept a diary ovr the years, cryptic records of births, deaths, comings, and gloings: ‘The Hess children died in the diptheria epidemic.’ ‘The 1899 cyclone his Salix.’ ‘Nell Reed caught the flyer to Chicago.’ ‘Brassfields went to Oregon.’ ‘Tom Clark went to Oklahoma.’ ‘Freddie Davison died June 27, 1900.’ ‘Mr Tone died August 6, 1899.’ These items reflect the life that centered around Four Corners where all the children attended the Weedland School.

The Harder children were: Ira, John, Joseph William, Mary Elizabeth, Ruby Ann, Freeland Abram, Ellen Isabel ‘Nelle’, and Martin Jacob.

At the turn of the century Abram retired from farming and moved into Sergeant Bluff.

Abram was born December 10, 1845, in Woodstock, Illinois. His parents were Jacob Harder, 1818-1885, born Herkimer County, New York, and Elizabeth Freeland, 1811-1852. They lived in Steuben County, New York, and Woodstock, Illinois.

Abram’s grandparents were James and Catherine Higgens Harder. James was baptized 11 September 1778, Columbia County, New York. They lived and held land in Herkimer and Steuben Counties, New York and Woodstock, Illinois. James was in the New York Militia in the War of 1812.

Great grandparents were Jacob, baptized Claverack, 25 March 1750, died 1825, German Flatts. And Catherine Thomas, died 1822. Jacob served in the Albany County Militia under Robert Rensalaer in the Revolution.

Great great grandparents, Johan Michael and Maria Harder, who came from the German Palatinate in 1709. In 1715, Johan was sworn in ‘at mayor court in the city Hall of Albany and sent to Canada during the French and Indian Wars

Abram and Catherine Harder are buried in St Joseph’s Cemtery in Salix not far from the willow-lined Missouri that once nearly encircled Weedland. The star of the Grand Army of the Republic marks the Harder tombstone. It is a fitting punctuation for a migration that can be traced in courthouses and military records across the United States from ocean to ocean.