Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - Charles F. Harvey

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SOURCE: History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford,
Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed 
Publishing Co., 1889.
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Charles F. Harvey, insurance and claim agent, and attorney at law, at 
Van Buren, Ark., was born in Prussian Saxony, Germany, in 1825, and is 
the son of William Harvey, a native of Saxony before its cession to 
Prussia. He served in the army of Napoleon I, and was with him in his 
disastrous Russian campaign, being present when Moscow was burned, and 
present in two of his great three-day battles. He immigrated to the 
United States in 1833, landing at Baltimore, Md., and crossing the 
Alleghany Mountains settled at Pittsburg, Penn. Six weeks after he 
lost his wife, she dying of cholera, which raged there at that time. 
About 1840 he moved to Harrison County, Ind., and died in Clark 
County, of that State, in 1878, at the age of seventy-seven years. He 
was a farmer by occupation and the father of seven children. Two died 
in Germany, two in this country, and three are still living, our 
subject being the fourth. He was brought to America when about eight 
years old, and his early education was confined to about nine months' 
attendance at a public night school. He lived with his father until he 
was twelve years old, when he was apprenticed to a manufacturer of 
window blinds at Pittsburg, and after serving out his apprenticeship 
he went to Nashville, Tenn., in 1843, and was a clerk in a store while 
there. In the fall of 1844 he went to St. Louis, and finding no steady 
employment at his trade, learned house and sign painting, and worked 
at that business there until 1846, when he enlisted in Col. Easton's 
regiment of volunteers to go to the relief of Gen. Taylor in Mexico, 
and served under his command until discharged. On his return to St. 
Louis he and his partner, Alexander McGrew, fitted up a flat-boat to 
find work during the winter along the lower river, and about twenty-
five miles above Vicksburg their boat was wrecked in a great storm, 
and they barely saved themselves with their trunk. In 1849 he came to 
Louisville, Ky., and engaged in painting, and in 1854 lost his health,
and the following year engaged in photography, traveling in the hope 
of regaining his health. In 1860 he came to Van Buren, where he has 
since lived. In 1866 he conducted a general store in connection with 
his photograph gallery, until 1881, and since 1868 has been interested 
in the insurance business, representing the Hartford, of Hartford, 
until they withdrew from the State at the beginning of the Brooks and 
Baxter war. Since then he has represented the Phoenix, of Hartford; 
New Orleans, of New Orleans; Pelican, of New Orleans, and Dakota, of 
Mitchell. He has served as justice of the peace for eight years or 
more, with credit, and since 1886 has been prosecuting claims against 
the Government. He is a Democrat in politics. In 1873 he married Miss 
Sallie M. Davidson, of Fayetteville, Ark., who was born at Monmouth, 
Ill., and died in Van Buren in October, 1873. In 1879 he wedded Mrs. 
Mattie G. Malone, a native of Alabama, who with himself is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Van Buren, of which church 
he is a steward and trustee. In 1869 Mr. Harvey was elected by the 
Arkansas Annual Conference a lay delegate to represent it at the 
General Conference that met at [p.1153] Memphis, Tenn., in 1870 and 
was again elected a lay delegate by the same conference in 1877 to 
represent it at the General Conference held at Atlanta, Ga., in 1878. 
Mr. Harvey is a Mason of the Council degree. 

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