San Diego County Biographies
 
DAVID HARROD

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


San Jacinto, another of the men deserving of note for having jeopardized his 
life in the defense of his country and to perpetuate its free institutions, was 
born in Monroe County, Ohio, February 19, 1832. His father, John Harrod, was 
born in Knox County, Ohio. His mother's maiden name was Matilda Harris. They had 
five children living, of whom our subject was the second child. He was raised on 
a farm, worked in the summer and attended school in the winter. When he was 
fourteen years of age he lost his parents, and at nineteen be went to learn the 
carpenter's trade, and has been a builder and contractor most of his life. June 
12, 1861, he enlisted for three years in Company E, Twenty-sixth Regiment Ohio 
Volunteer Infantry. He went to the front, and was in the battle of Stone river. 
After this he was taken sick, and exposure and poor treatment nearly served him 
as it did many another poor fellow. From this sickness he was long in 
recovering, and has never fully recovered from the effects of it. In March, 
1863, he was honorably discharged on account of disability. When out of the 
service and with better care he recovered slowly, and began to do what work he 
could.
        The following April he was married to Miss Frances Wood, a native of 
Holmes County, Ohio, born in 1833. They removed to and settled in Cass County, 
Michigan, and he conducted his business there for a year, when he lost his wife, 
March 27, 1864. He then went back to Ohio, and in 1866 was married to Mrs. 
Keziah Means, widow of John Means, who bad been a farmer there. She was a native 
of Ohio. They continued to reside there until 1884, when they came to California 
and settled at Los Angeles, and in October, 1885, they came to San Jacinto and 
bought and built a home when the town was first laid out. He was made a Master 
Mason in 1864, and belongs to the G. A. R., J. A. Addison Post, No. 121, of 
which he is Chaplain. He and his wife are Protestant Methodists. Mr. Harrod was 
Justice of the Peace three terms in Ohio, and was elected one of the first 
trustees in San Jacinto. He is in every way a good citizen of the country for 
which he has all his life suffered so much.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  360