My Genealogy Hound

Capt. Geo. Harsh, one of Sumner County’s most useful and influential citizens, is a son of Phillip and Madeline (Kahler) Harsh, and was born in Schuylkill County, Penn., in 1827. The father was a German, born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1798, and immigrated to the United States when he was about fourteen years old. He settled in Pennsylvania, where he married in 1820, and in 1839 moved to Cincinnati, O., where he remained two years, then moved to Nashville, Tenn. He was by profession a very fine physician and surgeon and upon moving to Nashville, engaged in the practice of medicine. He received two diplomas in his profession, one from Germany, having returned to his native country to complete his studies. The latter part of his life he turned his attention to the homoeopathic school of medicine, and was the first to introduce that practice in Nashville. He remained in that city until 1860, then purchased a farm four miles from there and spent the rest of his life quietly. He died in 1871. He was a prominent mason. The mother was a native of Schuylkill County, Penn., born in 1803, and died in 1884. She was a member of the Lutheran Church. Capt. Harsh was raised and educated at home; when fourteen years old he began as a clerk in a mercantile house of his father’s at Lebanon, Tenn., and was afterward in Gallatin until 1847, when he entered the Mexican war in the Third Tennessee Regiment as second lieutenant, ex-Gov. W. B. Bate being first lieutenant. He served in that capacity until the close of the war, when he returned home, but soon after spent some time traveling in the North, and acted as cashier of the mercantile house of John Purdue, of LaFayette. In 1849 Capt. Harsh returned to Gallatin, and in 1850 went to Lebanon; in 1851 he married Miss Mary S. O. Guthrie, who died in 1855, and in 1856 he married Miss Tobithia Newby, of Smith County. They had ten children, eight of them living: Phillip W., a minister in Texas; Mary A., wife of W. W. Brown; Nathan J.; Callie E.; Lee Cheatham George; R. N. Herbert and William G. Mrs. Harsh died in 1868, and in 1869 he married Mrs. James K. Polk, daughter of William T. and Mary A. Edmonds, of Memphis. Three children were born to them, two living: Thomas Walker and Alex Cyrus. After his first marriage he remained in Lebanon two years, then spent five years in Smith County, engaged in farming and milling. In 1858 he went to Nashville and engaged in brewing a short time; then was in the grocery business until the war commenced, when he entered the Confederate Army as captain of Company E, First Tennessee Infantry, and was in active service until the battle of Shiloh, when he was captured and imprisoned at Nashville about three months, when he was paroled and did not re-enter the service. In 1866 he established with his brother a government store at Nashville, the firm being Harsh Bros. In 1872 he established another store in New York City, of which his brother had charge until his death in 1873, when the business was discontinued, and in 1874 Capt. Harsh purchased a farm in Sumner County of 440 acres, four miles east of Gallatin, where he has since resided, with the exception of two years spent in the grocery business at Nashville. The farm is well cultivated, with fine improvements on it, the dwelling being one of the handsomest in Sumner County. He is a man of very fine business qualifications and of strict integrity. He is a director of the Nashville Plow Company, vice-president of the Farmers’ & Traders’ Bank, of Gallatin, president of the Gallatin and Bledsoe Creek Turnpike, and was magistrate for a number of years in Davidson County. He is a warm advocate of education, and has given his children the best advantages. He is generous and enthusiastic in disposition. Politically a Democrat, his first presidential vote was for Gen. Cass. He is a Knight Templar and a Mason. Mrs. Harsh was born in Obion County, raised in Memphis, and was first married in 1871 to James K. Polk, a nephew of ex-President Polk, by whom she had one child, James K. Polk. She is a member of the Christian Church.