My Genealogy Hound

Mrs. Nancy Harsh is probably the oldest resident of the county. This well known Union county pioneer is the daughter of Samuel McKay, a native of Maryland, and his wife, Mary (McCulley) McKay. The latter was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch-Irish parentage. Nancy was born June 14, 1810, in Washington, Pennsylvania. She was married at an early age to Daniel Harsh, of Pennsylvania-Dutch ancestry. Soon after marriage they removed to a farm in Clinton county, Ohio, where all but one of her seven children (five boys and two girls) were born.

Upon the death of her husband she carried out his previously formed intention and moved with her family to Illinois. She settled after a time on a farm in Bureau county near Princeton of that state, where her family grew up. In 1861 she moved to Union county, Iowa, accompanied by her sons Philip L. and Alexander; also her daughter Jennie. Their home was on section 35, Highland township, where she resided until she moved to Creston, where her sons Ex-State Senator A. F. Harsh, now of Lowell, Nebraska, and J. B. Harsh, president of the Creston National Bank, lived. This she still considers home though she is now with her daughter, Mrs. E. P. Donlin in Hopkins, Missouri.

Although nearly ninety-eight years old she is active in mind and body and bids fair to round out a century of existence in this life. She has been a pioneer in three new states and had much to do in making them. Wherever she has lived she has been known as a woman of strong personality, great independence of character, inflexible will, indomitable energy, great executive ability, public spirited and devoted to the interests of church, school and the home.