My Genealogy Hound

Harvey C. Barham, another of the prominent citizens of Nevada County, residing in Redland Township, owes his nativity to Tennessee, born in Henry County, December 14, 1845, a son of James Monroe aad Lucy Jane (Greer) Barham, natives of Kentucky and Illinois respectively. The mother is now a resident of Albany Township, Nevada County, and is sixty-two years of age. They were married in Henry County, Tenn., and lived there until 1847, when they came to what was then Ouachita, but now Nevada County, and here made their home. In 1862 the father entered the Confederate service, serving first as captain of militia, and afterward as major, and engaged in the battles of Pine Bluff, Pilot Knob and others. He was killed at the Granby mines, Mo., in 1864, by some Kansas bushwhackers. Socially he was a Mason, and politically, a Whig. Mrs. Barham is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. There were born to their union ten children, eight of whom grew to maturity, and six now living, the subject of this sketch being the eldest, viz.: Harvey G. (our subject), Mary A. (wife of D. C. Coyens, a farmer of this county), Rev. William Robert (a minister of the Missionary Baptist denomination, and a farmer of this county), Charles F. (a dentist of Dallas, Tex.), Henry M. (deceased, was thirty years of age at his death in 1886, and previous to that time was a farmer and miller), Lucinda (deceased wife of Elija Matthews died in this county, in 1874, in her twenty-first year), Lewis Greer (is a farmer of this county), and Lucy Helen (is living at home with her mother). In December, 1863, our subject, then a youth of eighteen years, joined Monroe’s regiment of cavalry, and served in that regiment until the surrender at Rocky Mound, La., participating in all the battles of the Missouri Raid, Pilot Knob, etc. At this battle he received a wound in the left shoulder by the bursting of a shell. At the close of the war he was without means, and on his father’s death, he being the eldest child, the duty devolved on him to provide for the support of his mother, brothers and sisters. Accordingly he set to work, and as the result of his industry and good management, he has been quite successful. In 1868 he married Miss Elizabeth, daughter of M. E. Arrington, of this county, a native of Alabama, born in 1849, and the fruits of this union have been twelve children, all living. He and wife are both members of the Missionary Baptist Church. Mr. Barham is liberal in his political views, and votes for what he considers to be the best man irrespective of party. In 1882 he was elected justice of the peace, and has since served in that capacity to the satisfaction of all law-abiding citizens.