Capt. John Harness

A Patriot of the American Revolution for VIRGINIA with the rank of CAPTAIN. DAR Ancestor # A050940

Reports in several historical journals indicate that John Harness was involved as a frontier rifleman in some of the eary skirmishes with Indians in the Ohio River valley and later in Dunmore’s War in 1773 and 1774.

During the Revolutionary war itself most of the defense of the western frontier of Virginia was left to local Militias that were put together and operated for a period of several days or several weeks or months, depending upon the circumstances. That freed the regular Continental Army to fight in major battles elsewhere. It appears from numerous reports that Captain John Harness headed up some of these militia companies that were called up from time to time during the war to defend the western frontier settlers, primarily from British-inspired Indian raids.

The earliest reported involvement of John Harness in the Indian wars can be found in an account attributed to a Dr. Charles A. Turley in "A History of the Valley of Virginia" by Samuel Kercheval, originally published in 1909. Turley describes what has become known as "The Battle of the Trough" which occurred in the Spring of 1756.

Additional sources:

• http://chasreader.home.comcast.net/~chasreader/ps01_099.html
• http://web.mac.com/charness1/Michael_Ernst_Harness,_Sr./John_Harnes...