THE NAME OF HARRINGTON is an honored one in Pike county history. More than a century ago the first Harringtons
came to the region of Griggsville. This noted family, along with many others that have been enumerated, is associated
with Boone traditions here in the great valley. The Harrington family, as did the descendants of Darius Ingalls,
intermarried with the Elledge family in an early day. It was in the year 1848 that Samuel M. Harrington, noted
Pike county pioneer, married Charity Elledge, granddaughter of that Charity Boone who was a niece of Daniel and
a daughter of his brother Edward.
The name of these Harringtons brightens the pages of American history since the landing of the Pilgrim fathers.
Their glorious patriotism blazed at Lexington. Two of them, Jonathan, Jr., and Caleb, were assembled there with
a handful of Minute Men when rolled the first guns of the Revolution. They had heard "a hurry of hoofs in
a village street," and had seen "a shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark," as Paul Revere,
escaping the British guard, sped ahead of the redcoats, announcing their coming. These two Harringtons, Jonathan
and Caleb, were closely related to Samuel Harrington, the grandfather of Pike county Samuel, who married Charity
Elledge.
Jonathan and Caleb Harrington and their kinsman, Jonas Parker, were among the seven patriots who fell at the first
fire of the redcoats at Lexington in the dawning of an April morning in 1775. History tells us that it was a warm
early-spring morning; the trees in the village were burgeoning and in them the bluebird and the robin were all
a-twitter. The grass on the village green was a month ahead of its time. Then, in that peaceful dawning, the drum
beat, summoning to arms; the redcoats were coming, as Paul Revere had announced.
Says an account of that historic dawning, April 19, 1775: "When they (the redcoats) reached Lexington at dawn,
they found a small company of Minute Men gathering on the village green. Riding up, Pitcairn (Major Pitcairn of
the British) shouted, ‘Disperse, you rebels! Lay down your arms!' ‘Too few to resist, too brave to fly,' they hesitated.
Discharging his pistol, he cried aloud to his troops, ‘Fire!' It was a murder, not a battle. Only a few random
shots were returned by the patriots to the volley which followed."
Says Bancroft: "Jonas Parker, the strongest and best wrestler in Lexington, had promised never to run from
British troops; and he kept his vow. A wound brought him on his knees. Having discharged his gun, he was preparing
to load it again, when he was stabbed by a bayonet, and lay on the post which he took at the morning's drum-beat.
So fell Isaac Muzzey, and so did the aged Robert Munroe, who in 1758 had been an ensign at Louisburg. Jonathan
Harrington, Jr., was struck in front of his own house on the north of the common. His wife was at the window when
he fell. With blood gushing from his breast, he rose in her sight, tottered, fell again, then crawled on hands
and knees toward his dwelling; she ran to meet him, but only reached him as he expired on their threshold. Caleb
Harrington, who had gone into the meeting-house for powder, was shot as he came out, Samuel Hadley and John Brown
were pursued, and killed after they had left the green.... Seven men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded; a
quarter part of all who stood in arms on the green."
Thus, at the very outset of the War for Independence, we see two Harringtons and a Parker lying on the village
green at Lexington, with their stunned neighbors in the village gazing upon the grassy field, red "with the
innocent blood of their brethren slain," crying unto God for vengeance. And we hear Samuel Adams, with the
voice of a prophet, unmindful of his own danger, exclaiming, "Oh, what a glorious morning in this!" foreseeing,
as did Columbus in the tempest, that the storm which had swept the village green that morning but carried him more
swiftly towards the undiscovered country of which he dreamed.
And here, on this eventful day which saw the first patriot dead of the Revolution stretched upon the blood-stained
sward, we see another crowding onto history's pages, one whose family is destined to become linked with that of
Harrington, a man by the name of Putnam, whose name is perpetuated in Pike county in that of George Putnam Harrington,
the father of Mary Ellen Harrington who married Dr. Clyde B. Ingalls, a former mayor of Pittsfield. This man, "Old
Put," later known to history as General Israel Putnam, hearing of his fallen friends, the Harringtons, at
Lexington, "left his cattle yoked in the field and without changing the checked shirt he had on mounted his
fastest horse, and the next morning was at Cambridge, having ridden 100 miles in 18 hours." So quickly flew
the news that patriot blood had been spilled on Lexington Green.
"Old Put" at this time was already celebrated in New England song and story for his physical prowess
and daring. His adventure in the wolf's den was known throughout the colonies, which credited him with going alone
into a cave where a savage wolf had sought refuge and slaying the creature by the light of a torch. In the French
and Indian war he had served with Rogers' Rangers; he had been captured by the Indians and the fire for burning
him alive had been lighted by his savage captors when he was saved by the intervention of a French officer, Melang.
His grandnephew founded the New York publishing house of G. W. Putnam.
General Israel Putnam was a close relative of Zadoc Putnam, whose daughter Abigail married Samuel Harrington of
Pike county, who married Charity Elledge, a granddaughter of the Boones. Abigail was born in Massachusetts Colony,
September 15, 1775; Samuel Harrington in Grafton, Mass., August 3, 1769. They were married in Massachusetts in
1791. Abigail's father, Zadoc Putnam, built the first wagon in Worcester county, Massachusetts, and it is related
that over 200 men came from long distances to behold the spectacle of one pair of wheels following another.
Zadoc Putnam was one of the largest landowners in New England. He at one time owned an entire New England village,
in which was one of the best water powers in the state of Massachusetts. He was a skilled worker in wood and many
in the colonies were proud possessors of chests of drawers which he fashioned from the native timber. His daughter
Abigail was mistress of the "wheel" and loom and a true daughter of the Puritans.
Samuel and Abigail (Putnam) Harrington remained residents of Massachusetts throughout their entire lives; the former
died October 5, 1802, and the latter in April, 1871, at the advanced age of 96. To them were born four children,
two of whom, Charles and Martin Harrington, became early settlers in Pike county, Illinois. Abigail Harrington,
after seven years of widowhood following the death of her first husband, married as her second husband Captain
David Trask of Leicester, Massachusetts, by whom she became the mother of five additional children, one son and
four daughters.
Charles Harrington, son of Samuel Harrington and Abigail Putnam, came to Griggsville, Pike county, (Ill.) in 1853.
He had been born in that part of Grafton, Massachusetts, known as New England Village, November 17, 1795. In 1811
he went to Rodman, New York, where he remained three years, engaging in the woolen business. His woolen factory,
with two others, was burned, supposedly by a jealous Canadian. He then taught school for a time and located in
Guilderland, N. Y., where he formed a partnership with Charles Mason in the woolen goods manufacturing business.
He remained there until his removal to Pike county, Illinois, in 1835.
Charles Harrington became a noted preacher in the early days of Pike county, supplying numerous weak and destitute
churches at various times. He has been described as an eloquent and convincing speaker. He was a member of the
Baptist church for 47 years and an ordained minister of that church for 29 years. He was called to the pastoral
charge of the Perry Baptist church, remaining with that charge a number of years. Upon the organization of the
Quincy Baptist association in 1843, he was elected Moderator and held that position for 11 years. In 1853 he was
elected county judge of Pike county, running as a Whig and defeating Richard M. Atkinson, his Democratic opponent,
by 41 votes, the count standing at 1222 for Harrington and 1181 for Atkinson. He served as county judge until 1857,
when, running for a second term as a Republican (the old Whig party in 1856 had given way to the new Republican
party of Lincoln) he was defeated by the Democrat, Alfred Grubb (the "Little Bay Horse") by a majority
of 169 votes.
Judge Harrington was one of the boldest and most fearless champions of temperance that the county has known. "A
living tongue of flame," said one who once heard his consuming excoriation of the liquor traffic. His efforts
in the cause of temperance when a young man, as well as his activity and zeal in religious matters after he professed
the faith, led the church in Schenectady, New York, of which he was first a member, to see his aptness, and they
therefore granted him license to preach.
Charles Harrington's zeal as a preacher and as an exponent of temperance perhaps had come down to him from that
"morning star of missionary adventures," his noted 17th century Harrington kinsman in Massachusetts,
John Eliot, known as the "apostle to the Indians." Harringtons are connected, on the maternal side, with
the illustrious Eliots. Bancroft, in his great history, immortalizes this famous Eliot missionary among the tribes,
"whose character shone with the purest lustre of disinterested love." An Indian grammar was a pledge
of his earnestness, followed by a translation of the entire Bible into the Massachusetts dialect. "He lived
with the red men, spoke to them of God and of the soul, and explained the virtue of self-denial; he became their
law-giver. He taught the women to spin, the men to dig the ground." His churches of "praying Indians"
were among the outstanding achievements of early colonial history.
Judge Harrington was married in New York, January 9, 1823, to Hannah Scranton, by whom he had six children — Abel,
Samuel, Daniel, James, Abbie and George Putnam. Mrs. Harrington was born in Stephentown, Renssalaer county, N.
Y., in October, 1801, and died in Pike county, October 25, 1878. Judge Harrington had died at Griggsville, August
15, 1873, beloved by all.
George Putnam Harrington, youngest son of Judge Harrington, was married January 26, 1867; in Pike county, to Louisa,
daughter of Ebenezer C. Maddux; they had six children. Mrs. Harrington died December 18, 1879, and on April 10,
1881, Mr. Harrington married as his second wife Mary Ann Clegg, born in Jacksonville, Ill., April 26, 1845, a daughter
of Abram and Mary Clegg, they becoming the parents of Mary Ellen Harrington who married Dr. Clyde B. Ingalls. George
P. Harrington died October 31, 1909, aged 70; his wife March 20, 1921, aged 75. They are buried in Griggsville.
Samuel M. Harrington, second son of Judge Charles and Hannah (Scranton) Harrington and a grandson of Samuel and
Abigail (Putnam) Harrington, was born in Albany county, New York, April 19, 1827. He came to Pike county, Illinois,
with his parents, in 1835. He was married to Charity Margaret Elledge, in Pike county, June 29, 1848; Rev. B. B.
Carpenter said the ceremony. She was a daughter of William Elledge and Tabitha Beall and a granddaughter of Francis
Elledge and Charity Boone.
Samuel Harrington died June 24, 1875, being survived by his wife and three children, namely Sarah A., who married
William J. Hoss, Charles W., who married Anna Hoss, and Ada Belle Harrington. He left a $14,000 estate at Griggsville,
which was administered by his widow, Charity M. Harrington. Samuel M. resided continuously in the Griggsville neighborhood
until his death, except for a year spent in Colorado during the gold excitement.
Two of the children of Samuel Harrington and Charity Elledge married children of Christian Hoss, an early settler
in the old Shelley neighborhood north of Griggsville. Charles W. Harrington, a son of Samuel and Charity, born
in Griggsville township December 14, 1852, married Anna M. Hoss, Christian Hoss's daughter, August 29, 1875. The
Harringtons located on a farm in sections 11 and 12, Griggsville township; they later moved to Missouri.
Sarah Delia Harrington, a daughter of Samuel and Charity, married William J. Hoss, November 1, 1868, her grandfather,
Rev. Charles Harrington, performing the ceremony. Christian Hoss, long a resident in the Harrington and Elledge
settlement, was born November 21, 1810 and died July 26, 1896; his wife, Louisa, born April 26, 1824, died July
20, 1883. Both are buried in Griggsville cemetery.
Edda Isabel Harrington, another daughter of Samuel and Charity, married Joseph Power, August 8, 1876, when she
was 19. H. R. Walling performed the ceremony at the home of the bride's mother at Perry. Isabel died, leaving a
large family of motherless children who were cared for by Charity Elledge Harrington, the widow of Samuel, in her
last days, Charity spending the closing years of her life in her son-in-law's home. This daughter who married Joseph
Edward Power was usually known as Ada Belle Harrington; on the official record of her marriage her name is recorded
as Edda Isabel.
Mollie Harrington, a daughter born to Samuel and Charity in 1864, lived only to the age of six, her death occurring
August 23, 1870. She is buried on the lot with her parents, in Griggsville cemetery.
Charity Elledge Harrington survived her husband 23 years, her death occurring at the age of 67, August 15, 1898.
The husband had died June 24, 1875, aged 48. Charity, daughter of William and Tabitha (Beall) Elledge, was born
near Griggsville, in Pike county, April 30, 1831. The great snow of 1830-31, which the first settlers reckoned
time from for many decades, still lingering in the Pike county wilderness at her birth. She was one of seven children
in the family of William Elledge and Tabitha Beall, her brothers and sisters including Richard Boone, Leonard Boone,
William Riley, James Alexander, Mrs. Rebecca Jane Ingalls and Mrs. Sarah D. Curry. All died before Charity, with
the exception of Sarah D., who married Riley J. Curry and was living in Montgomery county, Illinois, at the time
of Charity's death. Three of Charity's four children had preceded her in death, her son, Charles W., being at the
time a resident of Missouri. Charity's widowhood was spent for the most part with her son-in-law, Joseph Power,
and, following the death of Mrs. Power, Charity mothered her motherless children.
Charity Elledge early identified herself with the Baptist church but later changed to the Methodist, remaining
a member of that church to the close of her life. Said a tribute to her, published in the Griggsville Press following
her death: "She was regarded by her neighbors and acquaintances as a good, faithful, Christian woman, and
had shown her good spirit by her self-sacrificing devotion to a family of little motherless children." Her
funeral was held from the home of her son-in-law, with Elder J. E. Deihl officiating, and interment was in Griggsville
cemetery.
Charity was generally known in her family as "Margaret"; she signed as Charity M. Harrington, her name
being Charity Margaret. She was one of numerous Boone descendants who bore the quaint name of Charity, which was
the name of her noted ancestress, Charity Boone.
The Harringtons are intimately associated with the old Shelley school district, northeast of Griggsville, where
they owned large tracts of land. The early Benjamin Elledge settlement in section 2 (Shelley district) was later
owned by the Harringtons and is today owned by a Harrington descendant, Mrs. Clarence A. Riley, a daughter of Joseph
Colvin Harrington and Frances A. Wilson and a granddaughter of Martin Harrington, Perry pioneer of revered memory.
The old Elledge preemption is now occupied by the family of Glenn Riley. It lies two and a half miles north and
east of Griggsville. Scarcely a trace remains of the Elledge settlement of a century ago.
The Harrington family is not only associated with Shelley school district but also with the pioneer Shelley family,
for whom the district and school house were named. Abel F. Harrington, an elder brother of Samuel M., the spouse
of Charity Elledge, married Eliza J. Shelley. Abel Harrington was born in Albany county, New York, February 20,
1824. His marriage to Eliza Shelley occurred in Pike county February 7, 1847, she being a daughter of Abel and
Mary A. (Kenney) Shelley. She was born in Naples, Scott county, in 1825, the Shelley family having pioneered in
that part of old Morgan now embraced in Scott county, before settling in Pike.
Eliza's mother, Mary A. Kenney, was born in Lancaster, Pa., May 16, 1801, and came to what is now Scott county
in 1821 and to Pike county in 1829. She was married in February, 1819, to John Hollins. They had two children.
Mr. Hollins died in 1822, and in 1824 his widow married Abel Shelley. Francis Elledge, son of Boone, lived with
the Shelley family and worked for Abel when he first came to Pike county in 1830. The Shelleys had nine children.
William P. Scholl, a son of Boone Scholl, married one of the daughters, Martha.
Abel F. Harrington died at Girard, Kansas, January 9, 1902, aged nearly 78; his wife, Eliza, born August 27, 1825,
died April 29, 1895. Both are buried at Griggsville, a beautiful stone marking their resting places.
Martin Harrington, brother of Judge Charles and one of Pike county's noblest pioneers of a century ago, passed
away at his home in Perry village, January 22, 1891, in his 94th year. He was born in Worcester, Mass., December
24, 1797. In his early life he engaged in the manufacture of scythes, then a profitable business. Possessing much
mechanical ingenuity, he became expert in the manufacture of gun barrels, and as a machinist. He was for some time
in the employ of Samuel and John Slater, the first manufacturers of the spinning jenny, and in 1837, moving his
family to Amsterdam, New York, he there became the first manufacture of turned carriage axle-trees, with pipe boxes,
which business he continued for a period of nine years, with other machine business. Coming to Pike county, Illinois,
in 1836, he identified himself here with agricultural pursuits.
Martin Harrington was first married January 22, 1822, in his native county, to Miss Myra Willard, who died some
years later at Amsterdam, New York, leaving three children. One of these, Charles L., engaged in mining in the
west, was accidentally drowned in Humboldt Bay, California, February 22, 1863, when in his fortieth year. Josephus
W. also spent his last days in California. A daughter, Abby L., married a Mr. Brimblecam and lived and died in
the East.
In 1833, Mr. Harrington wedded as his second wife Miss Catherine Hagaman, a native of New York, and in 1836 they
came west and settled in Griggsville township, Pike county. The year following, Mr. Harrington removed to the adjoining
township of Perry, where he resided until 1870, when he took up his abode in the village of Perry, remaining there,
in honorable retirement from labor, until his death.
Mr. Harrington, by his second marriage had five children: Francis M. married Martha Dutcher of Pike county, and
became a prominent attorney in Kirksville, Mo., after graduating from Chicago Law School; for a number of years
he represented his district in the Missouri state legislature.
Joseph Colvin Harrington, a son of Martin, born in Griggsville township, January 2, 1838, married as his first
wife Miss Frances S. Wilson and they became the parents of two children, Mary C. and John C., the latter of whom
died in 1899, at the age of 21, unmarried. Mary C. married Clarence A. Riley of Perry, at Griggsville, April 5,
1922, she being his second wife. He was born at Chambersburg, a son of Jacob Riley and Frances Browning.
After the death of his first wife, Joseph C. Harrington was married, July 16, 1889, to his first wife's sister,
Mrs. Mary C. (Wilson) Smith. She was of English birth, and was christened Catherine Mary Wilson but was known in
her life as Mary C. She came when quite young to this country, where she was reared and educated.
Joseph C. Harrington died at Turlock, California, February 3, 1913, survived by his widow, Mary C., and by one
daughter, Mary C. Harrington, Jr., who later married Clarence Riley. His estate, a large one, comprising upwards
of $54,000 in personal property and 279 acres of land in Section 2 in Griggsville township, was administered by
his daughter, following the widow's relinquishment. His widow died May 28, 1931, leaving a will disposing of her
property to her niece and step-daughter, Mrs. Mary C. Riley, with special bequests to her nieces and grand nieces,
namely: Mrs. Grace Burd of Perry, Mrs. Bessie Hume of Lewiston, Mo., Frances Reineke, a grand niece, Mrs. Elizabeth
Burd Smith, a grand niece, Katherine Burd, a grand niece, and Bessie Jane Smith, a great grand niece.
Mary E., a daughter of Martin Harrington, became the wife of James Whitaker, a Perry township farmer, November
12, 1865.
Edward John, a son of Martin, married Lucretia W. Reynolds, June 9, 1882. She was a daughter of Aaron and Mary
(Forsythe) Reynolds, natives of Brown county, Ohio, in which county Lucretia was born September 25, 1846. She died
at Griggsville, June 3, 1910, and is buried there. He died May 21, 1920, aged 78. Their daughter, Edna C., married
Jerry F. Carnes of Griggsville, December 1, 1920.
Sarah E., another daughter of Martin, married Hon. William P. Browning of Memphis, Mo., November 15, 1866. Rev.
Charles Harrington performed the wedding ceremonies for both Mary E. and Sarah E.
Catherine Hagaman Harrington, wife of Martin, died April 27, 1875, in the faith of the Presbyterian church.
The Harrington ancestry reaches far back to the original Puritans who came over in the "Mayflower." Among
that highly honored and respected band who landed on the bleak shores of Plymouth, history makes honorable mention
of the Harringtons whose names are engraved upon the rock around which cluster so many traditions of American liberty.
The Harrintons are connected, on the paternal side, with the Brighams, of early Massachusetts history, and on the
maternal side, with the revered Roxbury Eliots. Major Eliot, great grandfather of Judge and Martin Harrington of
Pike county, served with distinction during the Revolutionary struggle.