Portage Sentinel

For the Portage Sentinel.

John H. Harmon—Free Press,

Ed. Sentinel: I read a notice in your paper, a short time since, relative to the connexion of J. H. HARMON with the Detroit Free Press. The subject is worthy of a more extended notice, as it shows what energy, decision, and cool courage will do in "shaping life's rough ends."

In the Canada Rebellion, of 1838, young Harmon, then a slender, effeminate, and unpromising looking boy, entered with all his soul. In the battle of Windsor, on the 4th of December, 1838, he first tried his temper in the struggle of conflicting arms, and by his coolness evinced a courage little corresponding with his slender frame, and age. In the heat of the strife, being unable to drive home his charge of powder and lead, he raised his gun to ascertain the cause, and found a ball had struck the barrel, directly in front, and dented it in about half the thickness of the ball. Appealing to an officer for another gun, on inspection it was found that young Harmon's gun had no less than five marks upon the stock and barrel made by the enemy's balls. He coolly threw it down, and took another, the owner of which had gone to a patriot's grave.

This shows the coolness, the courage, decision and energy that have won him success in subsequent life.

After the defeat of the Patriots, and on their attempt to escape, in open boats, to the United States, Gen. Brady sent the steam boat Erie, with United States troops to capture them: while he, with his Brady Guards and fixed bayonets, paraded with "all the pomp and circumstance of war," on the bank of the river, to receive "the Patriot army," consisting of the remnant of twenty five men which composed the rear guard of that little adventurous band. Young Harmon was among them. As Maj. Paine, who commanded the Erie, landed his prisoners, Brady with his troops surrounded them, and in the most insulting manner told them he would have them all in jail. Young Harmon, with a spirit worthy of Sparta's better days, replied, "if you can show any authority for it we shall go, and not without." This unexpected answer, from a boy, to a General with an army at his heels, called forth a spontaneous burst of cheers from the citizens of Detroit, who seized Harmon, and bore him on their shoulders to the American House, where they boarded him. Being a practical printer, he was engaged, as a journeyman, a few days thereafter, in the Free Press. His own paper can tell his subsequent career.

B.