Patterson C. Harrison

Patterson C. Harrison was born April 21, 1840, in Franklin County, Lockbourne, Ohio. He served in Civil War, 1861-1864, Co. E 81 Reg., Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and fought in Battle of Atlanta, Georgia. He was a census taker of Hamilton Township, Franklin County, in 1870. He married Harriett Catherine McLean, February 24, 1870, and had one son Charles McLean Harrison, Sr. April 6, 1871. He and wife and infant son came north in a wagon and team of horses and forded the Maumee River at Otsego and purchased 80 acres of land in Liberty Township on a muddy wagon track leading to the river which is now Route 109. The land formerly belonged to the Foncannon family. Here a baby girl, Binnie Harrison, was born in 1873. On April 6, 1874, he was elected councilman in the Village of Liberty Center. In November, 1874, wife Harriett died with spinal meningitis and was returned home by way of railroad to Lockbourne, Ohio, for burial by her father Dr. Robert Gibson McLean, who rode horseback on Crockett here to care for her. Patterson Harrison and son Charles returned to Liberty Center in the early 1880's where he worked as a carpenter and as foreman on Toledo, Columbus and Southern R.R., building crossings and bridges. Son Charles boarded with Mace Varner and Mr. Mires of the Liberty Press and went to Liberty Center Methodist Church and as a boy drove a spring wagon for the Rodgers livery stable to haul passengers from Colton and Liberty Center to Texas, Ohio, for the mineral bath.

[Photo, p. 230a] Patterson C. Harrison

Charles Harrison Sr. was well known for his love of horses in and around Liberty Center, his closest friends being Charles Wright and Milton Whiteman. They supplied farmers with good animals to do their work and the city of Toledo with good reliable fire horses. He also trained horses early in life and gave exhibitions of training mean and wild horses for admission of twenty-five cents on Girty's Island, west of Napoleon. He settled in Toledo, Ohio, with wife Cornelia Rose Brown from Brunnersburg, Defiance County, to raise his family of six sons and a daughter, the youngest of which Charles McLean Harrison now resides on the Patrick Henry Farm along the Maumee River, east of Napoleon and is the author of this story. His family consists of daughter Rosanne Fisher, Stryker, Ohio, and son Harold Harrison, Grand Rapids, Ohio, and wife Emma and four grandchildren.

[Photo, p. 230b] Harriet (McLean) Harrison

[Photo, p. 230c] Charles and Binnie Harrison

Charles Harrison has carried on the love of horses and ponies and has a 6-pony hitch, which he exhibits at fairs and parades as a hobby and is driven by Harold Harrison.

[Photo, p. 230d] Uncaptioned. Two men on a wagon with a team of horses in town in probably a parade.

Submitted by Charles Harrison