My Genealogy Hound

HON. ANDREW E. HARVEY was born in La Porte, Ind., October 5, 1847, and is a son of Andrew E. and Prudence (Owen) Harvey, the former of whom was a native of Virginia and the latter a native of Georgia. Mr. Harvey comes of Southern ancestry on both sides, his father’s family originating in Maryland, and his mother’s in Georgia. He comes of the staple stock of these two states, the founding of these two families in this country dating back to colonial times. On his paternal side he is of English descent, and on his maternal side Welsh. His paternal grandfather, Archibald Harvey, was a Marylander by birth; his maternal grandfather, Asa Owen, was a Georgian. Two of his great-grandfathers served in the colonies’ war for independence, and gave up their lives on the battlefield for the cause of freedom. Mr. Harvey’s father also served his country with credit in one of her great wars — that of 1812. He was a pioneer settler also, and carried the arts of peace into the country which he had helped to deprive of its hostile inhabitants. He settled where La Porte, Ind., now stands, in 1832, when that entire region was but sparsely settled, and died therein 1852. He followed the peaceful pursuits of agriculture throughout life, and achieved a fair degree of success. He never aspired to public position, preferring the paths of private life to the more uncertain honors and pleasures of a public career. He led an industrious, upright, useful life, and was greatly esteemed by all who knew him. Mr. Harvey’s mother was born in Liberty county, Ga., a descendant of an old and respected family of that state. She was a woman of many excellent qualities of head and heart, and bore her husband the companionship he sought with her hand, for many years, standing side by side with him and helping to fight the battles of the pioneer, and establish in the wilds of the West the institutions of peace and the arts and industries of civilization. She also died on the old homestead at La Porte, Ind., where her remains rest beside those of her husband in the old family burying-ground.

The subject of this notice was reared on the old home place at La Porte, growing up, as did most lads of his day, dividing his time between his attendance at the district schools, and boyhood pursuits. He finished his education at Oberlin college, Ohio, and started West shortly afterwards in search of his fortune, making his first permanent stop at Atlantic City, Iowa. Having selected law as a profession, he entered upon a course of reading under Col. W. B. Hamlin, and was admitted to the bar; but before entering upon the practice, he joined Col. Hamlin in 1871, in an expedition to Florida and engaged for over two years in surveying government land in that state. Returning West in 1873, he came to Nebraska and settled in Arapaho city, Furnas county, where he at once entered upon the practice of his profession. March 10, 1873, he took a homestead one mile northeast of Arapaho, which he improved and which he still owns. In 1878 he took a pre-emption claim in the same county and during the intervening years, and following the latter date, he gave his time and attention to the practice of the law and to the improving of his claims. He thus became one of the first settlers of Furnas county and as such he was identified with the growth and development of that county during all the uncertain stages of its history, giving it the best fruits of his labor, toiling unceasingly with head and hands for the upbuilding of its interests. There is but little in Mr. Harvey’s personal appearance, and still less in his fortunes, to indicate the fact, but he knows, nevertheless, what the lonely bachelor life of the plains means. He has been in daily contact with the aboriginal red-man; he has hunted buffalo, deer and antelope where his farm in Furnas county now is; he has passed through the grasshopper scourge, the dry years and the seasons of hard times, and he knows all the ups and downs of the pioneers and is acquainted by experience with their many ingenious ways and means of getting on amid privations and hardships.

In 1876 Mr. Harvey was elected to the Nebraska state legislature, representing Furnas, Gosper and Phelps counties, being the first man elected from these counties under the constitution of 1875. He took an actiye part in the legislature and representing, as he did, a large territory, his duties were of a varied and exacting nature. He served on a number of committees, the two important ones being constitutional limitations and county lines and boundaries. He was a member of the legislature during the somewhat noted Hitchcock-Saunders senatorial contest, and was elected on the issue between these two aspirants for senatorial honors, being sent as a Saunders man, for whom he voted in accordance with the will of his constituents. In 1878 Mr. Harvey was appointed deputy treasurer of Furnas county and served in this capacity for two years, being elected to the office of treasurer in 1880. He served as treasurer for two years and in 1883 moved to Orleans, Harlan county, where he formed a partnership with the Hon. Geo. W. Burton in the banking business. In May, 1885, the private banking house of Burton & Harvey was merged into the First National Bank of Orleans, of which Mr. Harvey became cashier, holding that position till January, 1890, when he resigned and was at once elected vice-president, which position he now holds. In addition to their banking interests, Messrs. Burton & Harvey have been engaged for years in an extensive real estate and loan business and during this time have brought Eastern capital to the amount of two and a half million dollars into southwestern Nebraska and northwestern Kansas, and have been largely instrumental in developing this locality. Mr. Harvey has become so absorbed with business enterprises that he has not given any attention for some years to his profession; yet he has not relinquished his hold upon it. He pursues its studies with as much zeal as in former years, and as absorbing as his duties of a different nature have become, he has not and can not quite forget that he is still a lawyer. Mr. Harvey has what not every member of the profession is credited with — practical sagacity. He has shown an ability to handle not only other people’s business successfully, but his own as well. He has never neglected his own affairs to chase political honors, and yet there is not a more popular man in the entire Republican valley. He has met his obligations as a citizen and official with faithful exactitude and he is remembered by his appreciative fellow-citizens for these things. He is kind and accommodating, plain and approachable, and because of these qualities he makes friends easily and holds them well. In politics he is a republican and is a stanch supporter of the principles of his party, and when occasion demands he gives to his party his untiring efforts, being its eloquent champion on the stump and its efficient worker at the polls.

Mr. Harvey married November 18, 1874, taking as a companion Miss Clara B. Hovey, a daughter of P. E. Hovey of Arapaho, Furnas county. Two children have been born to this union — Edward and Glenn.

In his pleasant home at Orleans, surrounded by his wife and two boys, Mr. Harvey finds more of the real pleasure of this life than he has ever found in the achievements of business or political success, signal as his achievements in these two fields of endeavor have been.