My Genealogy Hound

CHARLES O. HARRINGTON, proprietor of the Harrington House, Carthage, Missouri, was born December 14, 1844, in Seneca county, New York, and is a descendant of some of the oldest New England families, his ancestors on both sides having emigrated to this country over two hundred years ago. The old Harrington homestead at Brookfield, Massachusetts, has descended according to the old English custom from father to the oldest son for many generations. Several of his ancestors fought in defense of American independence in the Revolutionary War, one John Harrington being killed at the battle of Lexington. Ransley, the father of Charles, was married to Mary Hall, of Charlton, Massachusetts, a cousin of Win. Marcy, Governor of New York from 1832 to 1838, and afterwards Secretary of War under President Van Buren, and Secretary of State under President Pierce. His father is still living at Lyons, New York, and is a Methodist clergyman by profession. In May, 1861, Charles was a member of the sophomore class in Genesee College, located at Lima, New York, and enlisted, with several of his fellow students, in Company G, Twenty-seventh Regiment of New York Volunteers. He was a participant in all the important battles, from the battle of Bull Run to the second of Fredricksburg. He was also detailed as a scout, and experienced many “hair-breadth” escapes. He was captured several times, and escaped from Bell Island before being exchanged, swimming the James River in a dark and stormy night; once scaling the palisade at Salisbury, North Carolina, under fire. In September, 1869, he was married to Ida A. Britton, at Des Moines, Iowa, and in the fall of 1870 removed with his family to Carthage, Missouri, where he has since resided. He has always been an active, enterprising man, for the building up of its public enterprises. He was burned out January 16, 1880, including four buildings, and in four months occupied one of the finest buildings in the city. He built the fine, large hotel at the southeast corner of the square, costing some $40,000, known as the Harrington House, and one of the finest west of the Mississippi.