Thomas Harbert III | The HARBERT Family of Harrison County, West Virginia

The following information was obtained from "Joy Veinot's Genealogy Home Page" ...

[http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/v/e/i/Joy-A-Veinot/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0509.html]

Thomas lll Harbert (son of Thomas ll Harbert and Hannah Jacobs) was born October 23, 1794 in Harrison County, West Virginia, and died November 23, 1869 in West Liberty, Putnam County, MO. He married Elizabeth D Hueston on May 07, 1814 in Champaign County, Ohio, daughter of Paul Hueston.

Notes for Thomas lll Harbert:
In the 1850 Federal Census, Thomas was said to be 57, which would mean he was born in 1893, rather than 1791. However, the handwriting is not exact, so it may have been a 9, instead of a 7. So according to this source, he could have been born either 1791 or 1793.

Thomas' wife was Elizabeth, born in 1893, and the children were listed as Mitchel, 30 (born 1820), Eleanor, 22 (born 1828), Hannah, 19 (born 1825), Esicar, 11 (born 1839), and James, 8 (born 1842).

Thomas J Harbert and his family are listed in the 1850 Fed Census, as living in Champaign County Ohio. Thomas may have been Thomas' son. Other sources list Thomas J as a son of Thomas and Elizabeth.

The following interesting family information is from the Harbert Family Website and was written by Richard or Dick Harbert:

Thomas Harbert III served in the War of 1812 near Urbana, Ohio. He decided to move from Virginia and make his home in Ohio when he married Elizabeth Huston on May 7, 1814. Thomas and Elizabeth lived next to Elizabeth's parents, Paul and Eleanor Huston, in Champaign County. The Hustons had moved to Ohio in 1805 and lived in the Military District of the county near Buck Creek. On October 9, 1821, Paul and Eleanor gave title to a sixty-acre parcel of land in Champaign County to Elizabeth and her husband, Thomas. This property was adjacent to the Huston's farm. Eleanor could not sign her name on the land sale agreement; therefore, she made an "X" for her mark. For the next 30 years the Harberts farmed and raised a family of eight children on this farm near Texas, Ohio. The Harbert children were: Paul, Thomas, Mitchell, Polly Ann (Mary), Rebecca, Josiah, Ellen, and Hannah (Susan).

In January 1850, Josiah Harbert married Martha Jane Goul in Champaign County, Ohio. By this time there were 269 families living in Union Township. All the good farm land was developed and the Harbert children were interested in finding inexpensive land on which they could establish farms. It is believed that brothers Josiah and Mitchell went to Missouri shortly after Josiah's marriage and found very low priced land in the extreme northern part of the state. Mitchell met Elizabeth Caul in Missouri and they were married in 1852. Mitchell returned to Champaign County and encouraged all the Harberts and their families to move west. Over the next five years, the Harbert families traveled, one-by-one, first down the Ohio River; then, they went up the Mississippi River to Alexandria, in Clark County, Missouri; and finally, they traveled by wagon 120 miles to their new location in Putnam County, Missouri.

Thomas Harbert was sixty-two years old in March 1854 and they were raising their grandchildren, Issachar (Essie) and Jimmie; but, he and his wife, Elizabeth, decided to join with their childrens' families in this immigration to a new land. Elizabeth’s mother, Eleanor, a widow for thirteen years had passed away two years earlier in December, 1852. Paul Huston Harbert, his wife, Sarah A. Gutridge , and four young children; Thomas J. Harbert, his wife, Mary A. Clark , and their two young children; Josiah Harbert and his wife, Martha Jane Goul; Rebecca Jane Harbert, her husband, Henry Smith, and one child; Mary Ellen Harbert and her husband, Joseph C. Valentine ; Hannah (Susan) Harbert and her husband, James Goul; and Mitchell Harbert moved from Champaign County, Ohio, to northern Missouri.

In 1855, Josiah laid out a town named West Liberty at a location west of where he had built a mill on Lucust Creek. West Liberty was the name of the mill town just north of Champaign County, Ohio. The new town consisted of three blocks, each containing eight lots, each lot 80 x 100 feet in size. Main Street ran east and west, and was sixty feet wide. South Street ran south from and formed a T with Main Street, and was eighty feet wide. Josiah was appointed postmaster at West Liberty in 1855. The first store was started by his father, Thomas Harbert. Thomas, Josiah and wife, and Henry Smith and his wife, Rebecca Jane Harbert, were the first members of the West Liberty Methodist Episcopal Church organized in about 1856. The first meetings were in their homes and later they met in the schoolhouse.

Thomas Harbert died in West Liberty in 1869 at the age of 78. His wife Eleanor continued to live in West Liberty until her death in 1878.