Caroline Harrison
Caroline Harrison (Thompson).
Caroline Harrison :
Nick name ( Calle ).
Mother: Ruth Walton
Father: Benjamin R. Harrison
Born: April 18, 1854 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Died: February 3, 1927 in Portland, Oregon
Below is a wonderful story written in 1908 about Caroline Harrison and her father Benjamin R. Harrison as it appears on page 295 in the book, "An Illustrated History of Nobles County Minnesota" by Author P. Rose, published in 1908.
"THE WILD GIRL.” -The history of Nobles county would
be incomplete without a word about
Caroline Harrison “the wild girl,” who
came to Graham Lakes country with
the earlier settlers and there lived the rude
life of the trappers for a few years. Many
stories of her doings - most of them of
imaginative origin - have been told, to
the effect that she was in reality a
wild girl, that she lived alone in the
timber on the lake, and that on one
occasion she drove a party of surveyors
out of the country at the point of a
rifle.
-Miss Harrison was the eldest daughter
of Benjamin Harrison, one of the com-
missioners appointed by Governor Hor-
ace Austin to organize Nobles county.
Her mother died when she was quite
young and Caroline became the com-
panion of her father. Hunting and trap-
ping, living on the frontier and denied
the society of her own sex, she was at
home in the company of the frontiers-
men. She could play the violin, shoot,
trap, chew, tobacco and occasionally
swear. While she was short in stature
she weighed perhaps 180 pounds, and
notwithstanding her weight, could walk
thirty or thirty-five miles in a day, lift
a twenty-five pound sack of shot from
one shoulder to the other, swim a mile
or more without apparent fatigue, and
was in fact an athlete of no mean pro-
portion.
-Her rough manners were the result
of her association, as was demonstrated
when she begin her association with the
neighbor women. She then began to
check her rude habits, and before she
left the county she had given up all
except the violin. She afterward fell
heir to a small sum of money and had
the good sense to use it in obtaining an
education.______________________________________________
Dear Caroline Harrison,
How we wished we could speak to you. You would be the one who could tell the stories behind this Harrison family. Even with as little as we know about your life, it reads like a great adventure story. As a young girl you traveled with your father Benjamin R. Harrison into the frontier lands of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Back then many men felt adventurous just to read about these places in the comfort of their city homes. We know these times in the frontier were harsh and many men died. You had to be strong because only those who were survived. We know that in these times a little girl traveling anywhere alone with her father was an oddity. Little girls stayed home with their mothers and if they were to lose their mothers they went to stay with other female family. Why did your father take you with him in a time that such a thing was unheard of? These early adventures with your father must have given you confidence and strength for the rest of your life. We found out only a little while ago that Ruth Walton was your mother. Who was she? When and where did she and Benjamin marry? When and how did she die?
Benjamin R. Harrison, your father, is a great mystery to us, but not to you. You must have known him better then anyone. You must have known who his parents were, and if he was part of the huge presidential Harrsion family. How did he meet Henrietta and when were they married? Having a step mother so close to your own age we can assume that you and Henrietta must have been like sisters and that you were like a second mother to each of your half sisters and brothers. You knew all the stories, the sisterly quarrels, the hard times and the good times, all the family secrets.
When our newly found distant cousin Sue Countryman discovered where you were buried and we received a copy of your death record, some more of your life was uncovered. From this we learned your full given name was Caroline Rebecca Harrison. You were married to a man named Mario or Marcus Thompson and had one daughter named Rena. We know your husband died sometime before 1900 because on the 1900, Census of Minnesota, Becker County, you are listed as Caroline Thompson and as a widow. You were living with the Stiff family which is the family of your half sister Mary (Stiff ) Harrison.
We know you died at the age of 72 in Salem, Oregon, on February 3, 1927 from influenza and are buried next to your daughter Rena Bortle (Thompson) and half sister Mary Stiff (Harrison) in City View Cemetery in Salem, Oregon.
All of these discoveries have been wonderful, yet we long for your unwritten stories.
~The UnWritten team~
If you would like to learn more about how Caroline Harrison's death record was found go to the "Internet Interview" page.
If you would like to share your thoughts or add a resource, please visit the message board.
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Message Board.______________________________________________
Links of Interest:
USGenWeb Project:
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The USGenWeb Project consists of genealogical research sites for every county and every state of the United States.The Minnesota GenWeb Project:
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From this site you will be able to find many counties including Nobles County Minnesota from there you can find the Nobles County Genealogical Group.______________________________________________
Our Stories:
A timeline of all the example stories used in "The UnWritten".
