Sacramento
County
Biographies
HARVEY WILSON HARKNESS,
M.D.
(1821-1901)
Joining a party of immigrants at Rock Island, Illinois, H. W. Harkness, M.D., traveled with them by overland route to California. After a tedious journey across the plains he arrived in October, 1849. He first located at Bidwell's Bar on the Feather River where the middle and south forks join. It was a flat in the river bed, where, on July 4, 1848, John Bidwell had discovered gold. When Dr. Harkness arrived at the Bar it was the County seat of Butte county, a prosperous village with migrating, inconstant population. Here Dr. Harkness first practiced his profession in California. Likewise was it his first introduction to the mining industry and in which he took an active part---financial, not physical. At Bidwell's Bar and elsewhere, for several years, this interest was to continue.
The next year, 1850, possibly following Bidwell Bar's loss of the County seat in September, 1850, he removed to Sacramento, then the growing city on the banks of the Sacramento river, 'at which place he spent the succeeding years in the busy life of a physician until his retirement in 1869 with a well earned competence.'¹
Harvey Wilson Harkness (1821-1901) was born in the town of Pelham, Massachusetts, on the 25th day of May, 1821 of Scotch parentage. Both his father and grandfather belonged to the oldest and most universal of professions, that of husbandman. The seventh child, in a family with small means, Harvey, at an early age took, through necessity, a child's proportionate responsibility in farm life. His primary schooling was acquired during winter months; the remaining months were given to manual labor, requisite for maintenance of the large family.
Having an unusually studious turn Harvey entered Williston Seminary when eighteen years of age. After a course of study in this institution, and deciding to practice medicine as a profession, he entered the office of Drs. Barrett and Thompson, at Northampton, Massachusetts. Here he pursued his preparatory studies, and subsequently attended lectures of the Pittsfield Medical College from whence he received a diploma of M.D.
His youth was filled with shadows. The brothers and sisters anticipating a full life's promise, advanced in vigor to maturity and then, one by one, fell heir to that dread malady---consumption. Their passing left a void in Dr. Harkness's life, a loneliness never engulfed, and created a melancholia, even in his lighter periods. The memory of the familial affliction perhaps influenced Harvey Harkness to seek the sunny climate of California. The death of his wife, Amelia Griswold Harkness, whom he married in 1854, added to the pent-up sorrows. This union lasted less than a year, and Dr. Harkness never married again.
Dr. Harkness was an astute business man. At an early period he made real estate investments in and about Sacramento and accumulated a large estate. This estate 'consisting of ninety acres near Sacramento, lots on Second street, the property where the Orleans Hotel stands, and other realty in Sacramento,'² at his death was valued at $150,000.00. He owned also the Wells Fargo building on Second Street, and no doubt, too, there were other holdings. With this and other competencies Dr. Harkness retired at the early age of forty-eight years. Retirement afforded an opportunity to devote a full time to his avocation---the study of Pacific Coast fungi. And too, there was that inner desire for a student's life, in the quiet of his comfortable quarters at the Pacific Union Club. Assuredly he was not asocial---his period of practice and his social contacts while living in Sacramento counteracted any such idea---, but books, his microscope and his own thoughts were more amiable to inner feelings than the garrulousness of a social world. He was an impressive figure among acquaintances. Almost six feet tall, with blue eyes, light complexion, always well attired, with rather positive viewpoints although quiet in mannerism, he drew friends and new friendships unto himself.
Dr. Harkness took an active interest in advancement of education, helped organize the school department of Sacramento, and was elected, in 1853, the first president of the local Board of Education. A memorial, the Harkness Grammar School, remained because of his connection with, and efforts for, the educational department. His membership and influence on Sacramento's first Board of Health, participation in organizing the Sacramento Society for Medical Improvement, and influence on still earlier medical societies have been recited.
Dr. Harkness' Sacramento practice was active, and he was highly considered by fellow practitioners. He was Sacramento's first microscopist. Essays presented before the Medical Society were always learned and teeming with research. Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins were his neighbors, friends and patients. Their friendship 'lasted during the lives of those of them who remained in California.'³ He took great interest in the railroad enterprise of these friends and 'was present at the ceremony of the laying of the last rail May 10, 1869.'4 When Governor Leland Stanford founded and endowed Leland Stanford Jr. University in 1885 he selected Dr. Harkness one of the trustees in that grant.
'From 1875 until the day of his death, more than twenty-six years, he was identified with the California Academy of Sciences. He was president of the Society nine consecutive terms, from 1887 to 1896. Then he was succeeded by Pres. Jordan of Stanford University.'5 The fungi (vegetable growths) of the Pacific Coast was, mainly, the direction in which he devoted scientific resarches(sic). His writings on the subject were prolific, and mostly were to be found in bulletins of the proceedings of the California Academy of Science, Grevillea and other publications. It was he who discovered truffles in California. 'In July, 1889, his work, “California Hypogaeous Fungi,” was published by the society. It is a volume of 292 pages and is finely illustrated with color plates.'6 In collaboration with Justin P. Moore, A.M., Dr. Harkness prepared a catalogue o the Pacific Coast fungi' 'a pamphlet of nearly fifty pages, containing the names of some 2000 genera and species examined and ascertained by the industrious authors, who state that many other species remain in their collection not yet classified . . . 'The work will be a lasting memorial, highly honorable to its authors.'7 The Doctor attracted attention throughout the world as a scientist. 'He was employed by the United States to plant truffles (a subterranean fungus used as an aliment) in various localities in California.'8
Ten years prior to death Dr. Harkness gave his scientific collection, more than 10,000 species, to the California Academy of Science. A majority of the species the Doctor gathered on the Pacific Coast, while others were obtained during extensive travels, national and international, and many he received by exchange and purchase.
'As a member of the Academy, and especially after he became its president, he devoted most of his time to promoting its interest and the cause of science for which it was founded. He attended strictly to the duties of his office; was seldom absent from a meeting, and presided with dignity and decorum. Though he had little or nothing to do with the original donation of our great benefactor, James Lick, he had much to do in the economical administration of that benefaction; and he asserted considerable influence in securing the large and generous donations of Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and Mrs. E. B. Crocker. It was almost, if not entire, due to him that we received the liberal Pierce bequest and several others.'
'It may justly be said of him that he was an active, efficient and devoted assistant of the Academy in its transition from its dark days to its flourishing condition; from its chrysalis state to its present prosperous activity. It was during his encumbency(sic) as president that this fine building, in which we meet, was designed, erected and dedicated as the home of Science in this great metropolis of the Pacific Coast. He placed its corner stone, and gratuitously labored with a sort of fatherly superintending interest over every part of its construction, watching with jealous inspection every brick that was laid and every trowel that was handled in its building. And when it was completed, it was he, more perhaps than any other, that directed and guarded the careful removal and transportation of its treasures from the dark, dingy, dusty and dilapidated old quarters on Dupont street.'9
Dr. Harkness passed this life July 10, 1901, in the quiet of his rooms at his beloved Pacific-Union Club. The only known relatives then living was an aged brother in Utah, and a nephew, Sumner J. Harkness, of Scofield, Utah, 'former Probate Judge and now County Commissioner of Carbon County.'10 The nephew was at his bedside when death came. Funeral services were held at the Odd Fellows cemetery in San Francisco. The remains were cremated.
“I am going to own my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone,---
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned.”
1 ZOE, Townsend Stith Brandegee, Editor, v. II, 1891, p.1-2 .
2 San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 1890, p. 12, col. 5.
3 Memorial Pamphlets, Theodore Henry Hittell, 1905, p. 3-6.
4 Sacramento Bee, May 14, 1887, p. 8, col. 2
5 San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 1901, p. 12, col. 5.
6 Ibid.
7 Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, v. XXII, 1879-80, p. 518.
8 Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, v. XLIV, 1901, p. 544.
9 Memorial Pamphlets, Theodore Henry Hittell, 1905, p. 3-6.
10 San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 1901, p. 12, col. 5.
Transcribed 3-10-17 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: “Memories,
Men and Medicine A History of Medicine In Sacramento, California by J. Roy
Jones, M.D., Pages 370-374. Publ. Sacramento Society for
Medical Improvement, 1950.
Golden Nugget
Library's Sacramento County