Rev.
John Austin Harbaugh
(1882-1922)
Rev.
John Austin Harbaugh was born on July 26, 1882 in Springfield Twp., Fayette
County, PA, the son of Allen E. and Margaret
(Williams) Harbaugh. He was a minister of the Church of Christ, though may
not have been ordained.
John
may have shown an interest in the spiritual aspects of life at a young age. On
Christmas Day 1888, when he was just six years old, his father presented him
with a brand new copy of the New Testament. He marked the book's flyleaf with an
inscription for his son in flowing lettering in blue and red inks (seen here). The book was printed in 1882 in London by the British
Foreign Bible Society.
At age 18, when the federal census of 1900 was enumerated, John was living at home with his parents. He worked that year as a day laborer. He had dark hair and gray eyes.
On Oct. 20, 1909, John married his first wife and cousin, Isabella A. "Belle" Robbins (1889-1913), the daughter of Charles L. and Rebecca (Rowan) Robbins, and the granddaughter of Julia Ann (Williams) Rowan Prinkey.
Belle was a native of Bullskin Twp., Fayette County. According to family notes, she had light brown hair and hazel eyes. They had one son, Charles A. Harbaugh (1912-1913).
They first lived with John’s parents in Mill Run, where they are listed on the census of 1910. That year, John’s occupation was "laborer on odd jobs."
Belle was among 27 local women and men baptized in a local reservoir in May 1911 by a traveling preacher from Milton, PA.
The Harbaughs are believed to have moved circa 1913 to Blue Knob, Blair County, PA. Belle's parents are known to have lived there at the time.
Double tragedy struck in August 1913. Belle died of "a complication of diseases" on Aug. 24, a week after their 11-month-old son Charles died of cholera on Aug. 17. Both mother and son were laid to rest at Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Blue Knob. Later, their remains were believed to have been relocated to the Indian Creek Baptist Cemetery in Mill Run, in the Harbaugh family plot, which today is not marked.
John
was a part-time preacher in the Church of Christ in the Beaver Creek area near
Ohiopyle. He was a staunch Prohibitionist – opposed to the sale and use of
alcoholic beverages.
On Aug. 3, 1918, at South Connellsville, Fayette County, John married his second wife, Daisy Estelle Glover (1897-1976), the daughter of Samuel and Armanda Glover of Markleysburg, PA. They lived at Beaver Creek, Fayette County, and had two children – Harold Harbaugh and Dorothy Miller-Leasure.
Heartache
struck
again in 1922 when 40-year-old John came down with a deadly case of typhoid
fever. He died of its effects on Oct. 24, 1922. He was buried at the Indian
Creek Baptist Church.
Daisy later remarried, to her husband’s brother William Judson Harbaugh, in 1923. They went on to have three more children of their own -- William Gradon Harbaugh, Genevieve Umbel-Frazee and Alberta Beatty.
Son Harold moved to Wellington, Lorain County, OH. He worked for the maintenance department of Ohio Fuel Gas Co. In about 1956, he and a co-worker were overcome by gas fumes while working in a ditch to repair a gas main. They both passed out, and might have died, if it were not for a rescue led by co-worker Rudolph Poszgai. The story made headlines in the Wellington News-Tribune.
Grandson Donald C. Harbaugh was a guest speaker at our National Minerd-Miner-Minor Reunions in 1993 and 2003. Both times, he read aloud the family history written in 1913 by his great grandfather, Allen E. Harbaugh.
Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2007 Mark A. Miner