San Francisco County
Biographies
EDWARD DANA HARMON
EDWARD DANA HARMON,
a landowner of Lorin, Oakland
township, was born in Warren, Trumbull
county, Ohio, May 9, 1831, a son of John Brown and
Sarah (Dana) Harmon. His mother was born
in Connecticut, a daughter of
Daniel Dana, of Norwich, a Probate
Judge there for many years, and was seventy-nine years of age at his death,
about 1841. A monument is now being
erected to his memory. His brother, Rev.
Sylvester Dana, a Presbyterian minister, died a few years later, aged over
eighty. The Danas are of French Huguenot
extraction, whose ancestry were domiciled for a time in England
and thence emigrated to New England. Mr. Harmon’s mother died November 6, 1868, having been born September 24, 1796. Jane Dana, her sister, died April 2, 1888, aged seventy-six and
unmarried; both died in Warren, Trumbull
county, Ohio. His father was born October 19, 1780, in
Rupert Bennington county, Vermont, and his father was Reuben Harmon of
Sutherland, Massachusetts,--the old homestead and probably original seat of
John Harmon of Springfield, Massachusetts, 1644-61, from whose fourth and
seventh sons, Joseph and Nathaniel, are descended two branches of the New
England Harmons.
The father of Edward Dana moved to the Western Reserve,
in Ohio, in October, 1799, with
his parents, Reuben and wife, and settled in Salt Springs, Trumbull
county, where the father owned 500 acres and tried to
manufacture salt, but found the material too weak for profitable working. Reuben, formerly a member of the Vermont
Legislature, died at Salt Springs, five miles from Warren,
Ohio, about 1810, at the age of fifty-six
years, of fever. The father of Edward
Dana Harmon returned to Vermont
about 1800 and studied medicine with the husband of his sister, Dr. Blackmer of Rupert, Vermont,
who was quite a surgeon. He studied and
practiced under his supervision till 1804, when he returned to Warren,
where he practiced until his death, February
8, 1858. he
owned a farm of 200 acres near town. In
his family there were four sons and one daughter who grew up; the youngest
child died at the age of one year. The
others are: John B. of Berkeley; Julian,
now a physician at Warren, Ohio; Charles Reuben, a merchant of Warren, who
enlisted in 1861 and was killed at Stone river December 31, 1862, after having
been promoted to a captaincy; Ed. D., whose name heads this sketch; and Sarah
Dana, a school-teacher, who died July 6, 1880 of cancer.
Mr. Harmon, our
subject, finished his schooling at the high school at Warren,
and during his youth occasionally aided his father on his farm. At the age of majority he clerked a year in a hardware store. In
1853 he came by way of the Isthmus to California,
leaving his home in Ohio, March
14, New York on the 22d, and
arriving at San Francisco April 15,
by the steamer Golden Gate from Panama. He was accompanied by his brother, John B.,
now of San Francisco and Berkeley. They bought a tract of 120 acres, squatter
title, with a house upon it, near what is now Piedmont
on the north side of lake
Merritt; he followed farming there
till about 1857. Then selling out, he
purchased a squatter’s title to 172 acres lying on the western shore of lake Merritt. In December, 1857, he obtained a Spanish
title, and sold out to Edson Adams in September,
1860; at the present time it is known as “Adams Point.” After remaining on that place until November,
1861, he moved to his present location, which he purchased December 31
following. It then comprised about 135 ½
acres. He bought this place in
partnership with H. A. Opdyke, a cousin, whom he
bought out in July, 1864; since then he has held it alone. In 1866 he sold twenty-eight acres; in 1868,
thirty-six acres; and in 1876 he subdivided the remaining seventy-one acres,
when the railroad came through. As a
builder he is now finishing his fifty-seventh house; he built forty-four
between April, 1885, and June, 1891. He
builds mostly to order, and all he has sold, on installments. He was School Trustee in this section from
1872 until July, 1891, when he resigned.
Having gone East to visit his mother in 1868, Mr. Harmon was married in
Newark, Ohio, September 24, that year, to Miss Marie Metcalf, who was born in
Newark, Ohio, September 21, 1840, a daughter of Eliel
and Temperance (Colman) Metcalf, her father a native of Massachusetts, of
French Huguenot descent but came to New England from Old England, calling
themselves English. Eliel
Metcalf was brought up in the State of New York
and settled in Newark, Ohio,
in 1838, after his marriage and died in the spring of 1878, in his seventieth
year. He was a farmer two miles from Newark,
but died in Worthington, Ohio,
whither he had moved in the fall of 1868.
Her mother died July 28, 1891
in Madisonville, Ohio;
she was born march 4, 1814. Her
grandmother Metcalf, nee Barber,
lived to be quite old, being active and vigorous at the age of seventy
years. Mrs. Ed. D. Harmon died June 5,
1882, at Lorin, leaving three children, namely; Louis
Colman, born July 28, 1869, graduated at the Berkeley high school and has been
one year at the State University; was two years clerk in a hardware store in
San Francisco, and is now night watchman in the Overmann
mine at Gold Hill, Nevada; he moved to that State mainly for his health;
Charles Reuben, born April 8, 1873, is still engaged mainly in obtaining his
education; and Julian Metcalf, born October 21, 1880.
In September, 1879,
Mr. Harmon made his second trip to the East, with wife and oldest child,
returning in December. He has lost two
children by death; Edward Dana and Grace Dana,--in infancy. He was married again December 13, 1883, in Lorin,
to Helen Metcalf, a sister of his first wife, who was born September 19, 1848.
Transcribed
by Cathi Skyles.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2,
page 304-305, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2005 Cathi Skyles.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library