[Preface] [Orville's Worlds] [Family] [Young Orville ] [To New York] [To London, and back] [The Second Marriage, 1913 – 1917] [The Third Marriage, Rehabilitation] [The Met Years, Two careers 1920-1924] [Photogallery]

Family

In Anglo-Saxon tradition, the Harrold name appears in both English and German families, sharing a range of spellings (Harold, Herald, etc.). Orville’s particular lineage arrived in America with Richard Harrold in 1681, among Penn’s followers to Philadelphia. They were thus English-born Quakers (Society of Friends), some of Orville’s relatives continuing to be so into modern generations. Richard Harrold and his offspring continued an associated with three other families (Beals, Beeson, and Mills) that have intermingled down through the Indiana lineage to the present.

The original group arrived from England between 1681 and 1701, including a Sarah (Harrold) Mills, who was likely an aunt or cousin of Richard’s. Richard Harrold married Mary Ann Beals in 1710 at the Concord Meeting House (of Friends) in Nottingham, Pennsylvania. Mary had been born there to John Beals, the original Beals immigrant. Most Indiana Harrolds can trace their way back to those original Harrolds and Beals by at least one path, and probably several. Two of Richard’s and Mary’s daughters married two Mills brothers (sons of Sarah Harrold Mills). In the next generation, four Harrold brothers and sisters married four Beeson brothers and sisters (descendents of Sarah Harrold Mills through Mary Mills). 

Orville Harrold’s grandparents, Miles and Malinda Harrold, were both descendents of the original Richard and Mary, and were descendents of John Beals by two independent paths. Orville and his first wife, Effie Kiger, were both great grandchildren of Catherine Harrold and Valentine Gibson, by two independent paths. There appear to be at least three marriages between Gibsons and Kigers. Catherine Harrold and Valentine Gibson were both descendents of the original John Beals by independent paths. These families braided together over eight generations. Every generation contained brothers named John and Jonathan. In Orville’s lineage, only his grandfather Miles, and the original Richard (son of a Jonathan), were not named John or Jonathan.

Little of all that is remarkable; close groups have maintained intertwining families since the beginning of history, and Quakers tended to marry within meeting. In this case, the intertwining continued over a long-term migration from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, up through Tennessee and Kentucky, on into Ohio and Indiana. That migration occurred over several generations, creating periodic separations that later converged in Indiana. The ultimate attractor was America’s Northwest Territory, comprising Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In addition to supporting land grant colleges through leases on government lands, the Northwest Territory charter banned slavery, which philosophically attracted southern Quakers to fresh new farm country. While Quakers occasionally held slaves, Quakers were generally opposed to slavery as an affront to intellectual freedom, so that many left southern states during the early 19^th century.

Two different traditions relate how Richard Harrold arrived in Pennsylvania. One is that he came with his father, Jonathan, while surviving details make more believable that he arrived at Salem, New Jersey aboard the ship Henry and Ann with John Mills Sr., who was married to Sarah Mary Harrold. While Richard was likely an infant or toddler then, he reportedly sawed lumber for Philadelphia homes with John Mills before marrying Mary Ann Beals. Richard and Mary died in northeast North Carolina.

As prime Pennsylvania land became increasingly scarce, Quakers moved to the Cane Creek section of Rowan County, in eastern North Carolina. This became the largest Quaker settlement in the state, Beeson, Harrold, Mills, Gibson, and Hiatt families being there by 1752. While Jonathan 1 and Catherine Hiatt were born in Pennsylvania, they married at Hopewell Meeting, Virginia, in 1745, and owned land thereabouts, before arriving in North Carolina in 1752. By 1770, Jonathan 1 and a Valentine Gibson (two generations previous to the Valentine Gibson mentioned above) were both Rowan County “Overseers”, being minor officials in charge of local roads. They were joined in North Carolina by Macy, Starbuck, Coggeshell, and other families from Nantucket, where limited family stocks had resulted in their “breeding idiots”. Joining Deep River Monthly Meeting by 1785, these new families are thus marrying later with Harrolds in Delaware County, Indiana. As this original Rowan County was huge, Jonathan 1’s grave has successively occupied Surray, Stokes, and presently Forsythe Counties.

Meanwhile, Jonathan 2 and his future wife, Charity Beeson, had both been born in Virginia, before marrying and raising their family in North Carolina. This North Carolina generation, including Jonathan 3, constituted the beginning of the northern migration, which became so extensive that several monthly meetings were discontinued. Their children were born in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, many eventually joining the White Water Monthly Meeting in Wayne County, Indiana. The family of Orville’s first wife, Effie Kiger, was intermarrying with Gibsons no later than this migration period. By the 1820’s, most of these families were living in Indiana. Orville Harrold, Effie Kiger, and the author’s family were born in Delaware County, Indiana, among the farms south of Muncie.

At about age 10 (ca. 1920), the author’s father heard Orville sing at a relative's house in Muncie. Living by an electric "traction" line running from Muncie down to New Castle, Father walked up the line from his farming village to pick up a young girl relative on a nearby farm, and they rode on up to Muncie, where she played piano for Orville' singing.

The question lingers of whether Orville is related to 20^th century opera composer, Jack Beeson, born in Muncie, Indiana. A connection is likely, and clues probably reside in William W. Hinshaw’s Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, published in 1936.

This question also regards a New York singer and voice coach named Jack Harrold, who died in 1994. He sang with the New York City Opera, and in Broadway musicals, The Unsinkable Mollie Brown and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It was stated during his lifetime, and in an obituary, that he was the son of Orville Harrold. Jack Harrold was born to a New Jersey postman, where Orville never lived, and even himself declared that he was not related to Orville. (stated in a phone conversation with Orville’s granddaughter, and any possible family tie would go back many generations)

While early Quakers were rigid about maintaining life and family within meeting, Quaker thought is based on knowing from within, so that Quakers tended to become increasingly freethinking and non-dogmatic, blending through marriage and assimilation. Orville’s family were practicing Methodists. Orville seemed to have little sense of his genealogy, perhaps relating mostly to his mother’s maternal family, which had a musical tradition.

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[Preface] [Orville's Worlds] [Family] [Young Orville ] [To New York] [To London, and back] [The Second Marriage, 1913 – 1917] [The Third Marriage, Rehabilitation] [The Met Years, Two careers 1920-1924] [Photogallery]