Information Sheet

 

 

R            Harrison family.

143                  History, 1980.

                                    One folder, photocopies.

 

 

 

This is a compilation of historical and genealogical material concerning the Harrison fam­ily of Phelps and Laclede counties in Missouri.  Assembled by Florence J. Malaney, the material in­cludes copies of family papers, 1860-1865, genealogical research on the family by Clair V. Mann, n.d., and correspondence with Robert K. Hooker, 1980.

 

James Berry Harrison brought his family to Missouri from South Carolina in 1817 or 1818, settling at the confluence of Little Piney Creek and the Gasconade River at what is now Arling­ton in Phelps County.  Harrison (1788-1842) built the first log cabin in the area, which also served as county courthouse, post office, and community meeting point.  Harrison, who was quite prominent politically, served as clerk of Crawford County, and was elected to the Missouri legis­lature in 1826 and 1832.  His sons, John Brazil Harrison (1809-1860) and Ben­jamin Berry Harri­son (1818-1886), helped establish county governments in Miller, Pulaski, and Laclede counties, as they were organ­ized.  They were also, respectively, co-founders of the towns of Tuscumbia and Lebanon.  John Harrison married three times, last to Martha Lewellyn Hyer of Lake Spring in Dent County, Mis­souri.

 

The Harrison family history, compiled by Florence J. Malaney for the Laclede County His­tori­cal Society, incorporates copies of several documents that pertain to various members of the family.  John B. Harrison’s will is included, as is a typescript of the Masonic rites held at his fu­neral in 1860.  There is also a typescript of a letter written by Martha Hyer Harrison to her brother-in-law, Benjamin Harrison, after the close of the Civil War.  Benjamin, who sym­pathized with the Confederacy, had moved his family to Red River County, Texas, when the war broke out.  His siz­able land holdings in Laclede County were later confiscated by a hostile county court.  Martha Harrison was also fighting to keep the court from seizing her husband’s estate, and she reported in the letter  on the machinations of the court.  She also commented on the Union troops who passed through Lebanon, and whose officers boarded at her home.

 

The remainder of the Harrison family history is composed of genealogical and histori­cal ma­terial written by the late Clair V. Mann, and correspondence with Robert K. Hooker of Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  Hooker is the grandson of Joseph Thomas Hooker, John B. Harrison’s business partner in a general store in Lebanon before the Civil War.

 

Additional biographical information on the Harrison family can be found in the Good­speed’s and Laclede County Historical Society’s histories.  A daybook from the Harrison & Hooker store at Lebanon, 1853-1854, has been microfilmed as Western Historical Manu­script Collection-Rolla collection number R099.

 

 

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