JOSIAH HARMAR was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 10 November 1753; was educated at Robert Proud's Quaker school; was appointed a captain in the 1st Pennsylvania Battalion, October 1775; entered the Continental Army as a captain in the 3d Pennsylvania Regiment, October 1776; served as a lieutenant colonel successively in the 6th Pennsylvania (1777), 7th Pennsylvania (1780), 3d Pennsylvania (1781), and 1st Pennsylvania Regiments (1783); was brevet colonel of the 1st Pennsylvania, September-November 1783; served with General Washington's forces during the campaigns of 1778-1780, and with General Greene's division in the South, 1781-1782; carried the United States government's peace treaty ratification instruments to Paris, 1784; married Sarah Jenkins, 1784; was designated lieutenant colonel commandant of the First American Regiment, 1784; was the senior officer of the United States Army 12 August 1784-4 March 1791; established the posts and commanded the troops on the Ohio frontier, 1784-1791; witnessed the signing of the treaty of Fort McIntosh, 1785; was brevetted brigadier general, July 1787; was present at the signing of the Wyandot and Six Nations treaties at Fort Harmar, 1789; was defeated while on a punitive expedition against the Miami Indian villages along the Maumee River, 1790; requested and was exonerated by a court of inquiry for the expedition's failure, 1791; retired from active service, 1792; served as adjutant general of Pennsylvania, 1793-1799; entered the mercantile business in Philadelphia; died in Philadelphia on 20 August 1813.


The Artist

Raphael Peale (1774-1825) was born in Annapolis, Maryland, and studied art under his celebrated father, Charles Willson Peale. By age twenty-five he had established himself as a professional painter of miniatures, working in oil and watercolor on ivory, vellum, and paper. He also painted still life subjects, several of which are in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His miniature of Brevet Brig. Gen. Josiah Harmar, on loan to the Department of State from the Hon. Robert and Mrs. Newbegin, is on exhibit in an inlaid Hepplewhite cabinet in the James Monroe Reception Room of the department's headquarters building in Washington, D.C. It is reproduced here through the courtesy of Ambassador and Mrs. Newbegin and the State Department's Fine Arts Committee.

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 Portrait: Image currently unavailable
 
Josiah Harmar
By Raphael Peale
Miniature watercolor, 3" x 21/2", ca. 1790


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