Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 531
HENRY C. HARSHBARGER

Henry C. HARSHBARGER (Portrait), of Boyer Township, is a large landowner and farmer, and a man whose prominence is so closely connected with, and interwoven into, the history of Harrison County, that it is befitting that more than a passing mention should be made of him in this connection.

Let us go back to Spencer County, Ind., in the days of old "Tippecanoe," and by research in the family records it will be found that our subject was born March 5, 1840, and seven years later he might have been seen accompanying his parents, peeping out of an emigrant's wagon, as it was during that year that his parents came overland to Mahaska County, Iowa, where they remained until the spring of 1856, and then came on to Harrison County and settled on section 33, Boyer Township, which is now the County Poor Farm. Our subject remained with his parents until 1861, when he enlisted in Company I, First Nebraska Infantry, but after two years the regiment was transferred to the cavalry service, and Gov. Thayer, of Nebraska, was his Colonel. He was mustered in at Hannibal, Mo., August 10, 1861, and participated in the following engagements: Black Water, Mo., in the fall of1861; Ft. Donaldson; Pittsburg Landing; first siege of Corinth, May 30, 1862. They also operated in Tennessee and Kentucky, and were in many small engagements not necessary to mention in this connection. He was also at Cape Girardeau, Mo., of the summer of 1863, and at the battle Chalk Bluff. Their next engagement was at Sylamore, Ark., in the spring of 1864.

In June, 1864, he re-enlisted for three years more, at Duvall's Bluffs, Ark., having sixty days' veteran furlough, and the Government furnished him transportation to Omaha, allowing him to visit his home. Upon returning to Omaha, at the expiration of his furlough, the Indians were making trouble along the Western border, and he was sent with his regiment, where he remained the balance of his time spent in the service. On account of our subject's disability, he received an honorable discharge at Ft, Kearney, Neb., November 24, 1865. He then returned to his father's home, in Harrison County; but, after one year of work on a farm his health gave way, and he was placed in nomination and elected County Recorder, at the fall election of 1866. After holding this office two years he was elected County Judge, in the fall of 1868, and served until January 1, when, by virtue if his office, he became County Auditor, the office of County Judge having been abolished. So, it will be seen, our subject was the last County Judge, as well as the first County Auditor. After leaving the Auditor's office, he engaged in the mercantile business at Woodbine, in a partnership with H. C. Laub, of Denison, our subject carrying on the business at Woodbine, continuing there three years, at the expiration of which time he moved to his farm in the Boyer Valley, which he had purchased some time before. He bought his present farm in 1879. It was mostly wild land, which he improved. He now have five hundred and sixty acres of land under the plow, and about two hundred acres of tame grass, besides pasture-land. His well-arranged farm-house is 24x28 feet, while his horse-barn is 28x40 feet, and a cow-barn 24x84 feet.

Mr. Harshbarger was married to Emily Mundy, December 14, 1865, by which union there have been born three children; Virgie P., June 8, 1867; John E., September 6, 1868; Charles C., January 13, 1871. Virgie P. was married to J. A. Prater, February 23, 1887. Mrs. Harshbarger, the mother of these children, died January 23, 1871.

For his second wife our subject married Miss Nettie B. Edgerton, September 17, 1871, and by this union there have been seven children born; Hope, December 24, 1872; Miller M., June 1, 1875; Harry S., September 11, 1880; Jesse J., March 22, 1883; Mary M., March 3, 1885; Edwin L., December 15, 1888; and Henry C., March 28, 1891. Of these children, Hope died July 13, 1874; Harry S., December 23, 1881; Jesse J., May 22, 1883; Henry C., September 17, 1891; and the mother died April 5, 1891. She was born in Onondaga County, N.Y., January 15, 1855.

Mrs. Emily (Mundy) Harshbarger was born in Wisconsin, November 16, 1846.

Concerning the father of our subject, it ma be said that he was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, December 18, 1890, where he remained until he was twenty-two years of age, and then came to Spencer County, Ind., where he opened up a farm in the heavy timer-land, and remained there eight years. During that time he cleared over sixty acres of land. He then came to Mahaska County, where he bought a piece of wild land upon which he lived until 1856, and then came to Harrison County and lived until 1870, when he sold his farm and moved to Kansas. When he came to this county, Magnolia was the neatest postoffice, and Council Bluffs the nearest trading point, and during the "hard winter" of 1856-57, their breadstuff was corn-meal, and sometimes this had to be ground in a coffee-mill. Teams could not be taken out of their stables, and hand-sleds had to be used to draw wood on. Their meat consisted of venison, which was very plentiful in this county at that date.

To return to the subject of our sketch, it may be said that he is identified with the Republican party, and has been prominent in the Grand Army Post, of which he was Commander about three years. He is also a member of Charter Oak Lodge, A. F. & A. M., No. 401, at Woodbine. He served four years as Postmaster at Woodbine, from 1869-1873. He was also appointed as Collector of Internal Revenue, and served as such for two years and a half. He was also Deputy United States Marshall in 1870, for the entire county, and took the Decennial Census in that year alone; and again, in 1880, served in that capacity, taking the census of Boyer and Lincoln Townships

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