Nancy A. (Lewis) Harwood (abt. 1813 - aft. 1870)

Born about 1813 in New York, United States [uncertain]

Descendants

Died after 1870 after about age 57 in Richland Center, Richland, Wisconsin, United States

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Biography

Nancy "Anna" Lewis is buried with her husband Samuel J. Harwood in Hazel Green Wisconsin Cemetery

The township of Lewisburg, was founded one mile north of Hazel Green, and may have been Nancy "Anna" Lewis relatives. The town declined during the gold rush but Hazel Green flourished.

The families of Essex County New York moved to Wisconsin because of a decline in the mining and ferry industry near Lake Champlain. Hazel Green and Potosi Wisconsin area was the mineral belt, especially for lead. Nancy's husband was a collier, who made char coal from cleared wood, in the mounds of dirt to deprive fire of oxygen allowing a slow burn without reducing the logs to ash. Dangerous work, he was nearly blind by the time they arrived in Hazel Green, his son Helon Mansfield had to be his eyes, covering any collapse or exposure of flame that would ruin the char coal burn process.

Sources

• As written to the family in 1971 by my grandfather, Helon Noel Harwood, grandson of Samuel and "Anna", son of Helon Mansfield Harwood and Nancy "Lavina" or "Viney" Harwood. Because of the multiple Helons in the family my Grandfather was known as Uncle Pat.

• "United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNSQ-MDQ : 17 October 2014), Nancy Harwood in household of Helon Harwood, Wisconsin, United States; citing p. 10, family 73, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 553,233.