♂John Harvey

John Harvey (about 1757 – 1819) was a patriot of the American Revolution, recognized as such by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who is said to have been born in England and to have died in Clermont County, Ohio. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Beauchamp Harvey (1788–1859).

Life

His parents are not known. The Daughters of the American Revolution give his birth as 1757 in England, and a family pedigree chart compiled in 1994 says the same, naming his father only as another John Harvey, born in England, with no dates or place; no record confirms either. One family tree gives the county as Essex, but nothing supports it.

A summary of the society’s database entry describes him as a private of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, who served in the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment^W under Colonel Richard Humpton^W. No service record or pension file for him has yet been examined. A history of the society in Illinois, published in 1925, records that his descendant Mabel (Wilkinson) Schneck, later regent of the Mount Carmel chapter, joined “on the Revolutionary record of her maternal ancestor, John Harvey”, and the society’s database lists her membership first under his name.

He married Jane Beauchamp (1760–1821) in 1784, the year given in the lineage of a later application to the society. Two sons are known: Beauchamp, born in 1788, who was given his mother’s maiden name as his first name and who gave Maryland as his birthplace in the 1850 census, and Joseph, born in 1791.

The society gives his death as 1819 in Clermont County, Ohio. The exact day often given, 3 May 1819, is found only in a 1947 application to the Sons of the American Revolution and in a family tree that agrees with it. Court papers of 1817 and 1818 in Pickaway County, Ohio, that name his son were once taken for his estate, but they are lawsuits; no estate for him has been identified.

Notes

The 1947 application, filed in Texas by a descendant of another branch, gives a John Harvey who died on 3 May 1819, with a wife named Jane, a father, Blassingame Harvey (born about 1735), and a mother, Willey Britt, and names as its patriot not John but his grandfather Charles Harvey. The index to that application names an Edward Hamilton Harvey, whom one family tree lists as a son of John beside Beauchamp. The Daughters of the American Revolution, by contrast, make John himself the patriot and have him born in England, a poor fit for the son of a father born in America about 1735. Either the two accounts describe one man, or two John Harveys who both died in 1819 with wives named Jane have been joined into one; no record yet settles which. Another family tree names a different mother, Drusilla Paulet. No record confirms any of these parents.