The Harmon family in Lannon
Posted: Retrospect, Living Sussex Sun, Jan. 4, 2011 1:28 p.m.
Glenn D. Harmon, 1898-1963, served as the second Lannon Village President from 1932-36. He was the grandson of an 1842 pioneer to the Lannon area as he originally applied for a homestead 160 acres on the north side of Good Hope Road about one-eighth of a mile from Lannon Road. Today this area is the Halquist and Lemke stone quarries on the north side of Good Hope.
Earlier Heman Harmon and his family picked up 160 acres on the south side of Good Hope Road that today is the former Walter Heidtman farm, the Monocelli and the Lannon Stone Products quarries of the Dawson family.
Going back to the grandfather, Glenn Harmon, Heman Harmon was born May 4, 1820, in Rupert, Bennington County, VT. He was the second-born of nine children (four sons and five daughters) of a long-time New England dwelling family headed by Benjamin Harmon and his wife Sarah (nee Hastings).
When he was age 7 the family moved to western New York in Cattaraugus County where his father pursued farming. In Heman’s area of Lannon, he acquired a good common school education. After school, he helped his father on the family farm.
At age 2, in early 1842 after the family decided to try their luck in the newly opened territory of Wisconsin, and Heman was chosen by his family to check it out. At Buffalo, Heman boarded a steam-driven side wheeler boat, James Madison, bound for Milwaukee. He arrived May 10 and initially went to Walworth County and then Racine. Then on May 25, 1842, he arrived in Menomonee (Falls) Township and went west to the future Lannon area. He claimed 160 acres at a $1.25 per acre. What he liked about the land was it was heavily wooded, had a source of water from the Fox River and was somewhat flat. His original claim is the Halquist Stone Co. and Lemke Stone Quarries on the north side of Good Hope Road.
In October of 1842, his parents and some of their children arrived on the claim. They took over the 16-by-20-foot log cabin with an oak-shingled roof, pine floors and a large fire place. It was still standing in 1911 when Heman died in it at age 91. It was one of the last pioneer log cabins left in the Lannon area when it disappeared.
Native Americans from the nearby Tamarack Swamp area were frequent visitors to the Harmon home.
After Heman’s father, mother and family came, he bought land south of Good Hope and with a brother controlled 160 acres that today is the Monacelli and Dawson Lannon Stone Products Quarry lands. An 1873 plat map shows that the extended Harmon family now with purchases and sales controlled 200 acres. The Harmons were into the quarry and farming business.
Heman and Abigail had four children. One sone, Demerit, born Aug. 29, 1848, became a member of the H. Harmon & Sons quarry on Good Hope Road which opened in 1874. Another son, John, was the father of Glenn Harmon.
More on this family next week.