Kentucky: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 5th ed., 1887,
Franklin Co.

CAPT. LEWIS E. HARVIE, a native of Frankfort, Ky., was born October 9,
1825, and is the youngest of two living sons born to John and Margaretta
(Hawkins) Harvie.  His brother, John, now a citizen of Frankfort, was born
in 1816.  His father and mother were natives of Richmond, Va., and
Lexington, Ky., respectively.  One of his great-grandfathers, Gabriel
Jones, was the first, and, to his death, the most eminent lawyer of the
Valley of Virginia, a member of the Virginia Convention that adopted the
constitution of the United States, as also the friend, kinsman and executor
of Lord Fairfax.  His grandfather, John Hawkins, was a Virginian by birth,
but represented Fayette County, Ky., in the Legislature in the beginning of
the State government, as he had been previously one of its representatives
in the Virginia House of Delegates before Kentucky became a State.  Later
he became clerk of the circuit court of Scott County.  His grandfather,
John Harvie, was mayor of Richmond, Va., in 1786.  In 1777-78 he was a
member of the Continental Congress from that State, and one of the signers
of the Articles of Confederation under which most of the Revolutionary war
was fought.  This office he resigned to accept the highly responsible
position of organizer of the land office department of Virginia and was
its first register.  He and a Mr. John Walker were appointed by the
Virginia Convention of 1775 or 1776 commissioners, with extraordinary
powers, to continue the war or make peace with the Indians, which resulted
in the successful treaty at Fort Pitt.  The father of Capt. Lewis E.,
John Harvie, was born in Richmond, Va., in 1783, immigrated in 1813 to
Woodford County, Ky., and to Franklin County in 1818, ant the same year
was elected by the Legislature as a director of the State Bank of Kentucky.
In 1820 he was elected by the same body as the bank's president and was
annually, for eight years, re-elected to the same position, refusing at
the end of that time to further serve.  Few men in the State were better
known that Mr. Harvie, he being for years at the head of its greatest
banking institution, a very wealthy citizen and one of the largest real
estate owners in his day.  His high sense of honor, great generosity,
public spirit and rare personal and moral courage were the most
characteristics of the man.  He opposed whatever is low, dishonorable and
degrading among men, and with unswerving principle exemplified in his own
life that which is elevating an ennobling.  In 1835 he was appointed by
Gov. James T. Morehead a member of the first board of internal
improvements in the State.  He also served as a member (Whig) of the
Legislature from Franklin County in 1835, but was not a politician in any
sense and did not seek the place.  Capt. Lewis E. Harvie was educated at
Frankfort under the celebrated teachers B. B. Sayre and Kean O'hara, and
afterward at Centre College, from which he graduated in 1843.  He then
read law with Hons. Charles Morehead and W. D. Reed, later with Judge
Thomas B. Monroe, and afterward graduated at the law department of Harvard
University in 1846.  He began practice in Frankfort, but soon abandoned
it on account of ill health and other business and duties.  For while,
in 1852, he edited the political department of the St. Louis Daily
Intelligencer, but soon abandoned that also on account of ill health and
failure of his eyes.  In the late war he took sides with the South, going
out in 1862 and returning with Maj. Gen Buckner, as one of his aides,
with the rank of captain.  During Gen. Bragg's celebrated campaign was in
the battle of Perryville.  He subsequently served at different times upon
the staffs of Maj. Gen Robert Ransom, Brig. Gen. G. W. Custis Lee and
Gen. Beauregard.  Before the close of the war he was tendered, by President
Davis, a colonel's commission, which for good, and to himself highly
honorable reasons, at his own request was never actually issued.  He
surrendered with Gen. Lee at Appomattox.  Capt. Harvie has always been very
bold and decided in his views upon political and other public questions.
He was among the very first men in the State to publicly oppose the
doctrines of Know-nothingism, contributing no little to the overthrow of
that party in Kentucky in 1856.  As a later period he also did as much, or
more, no doubt, than any other man to effect the suppression of Kukluxism
in the State, for years endangering his life and wrecking both-popularity
and fortune to attain that end.  He was chairman of the State executive
committee in 1860 that supported Douglas for the presidency.  He was a
personal friend and admirer of Breckinridge, but supported Douglas strictly
from principle.  He was also a member of the State Central Committee of
the Union Democratic party that issued the celebrated Armed Neutrality
Address.  It was upon his motion and persistent advocacy, warmly supported
by ex-Gov. Archie Dixon (present but not a member of the committee), that
the clause calling upon the State to arm itself was finally, after a long
struggle, agreed to be inserted in the address.  He was the last to
repudiate its provisions and when they were broken he took the course in
the war as stated.  At the request of the Southern rights members of the
Legislature (session 1861-62) he prepared for them an address to the
people of Kentucky, which was carefully examined by a committee of their
own number (appointed and returning to Frankfort for the purpose),
approved without change, duly signed by the committee in their own and
the names of their Southern associates, and directed to be published in
pamphlet form and quietly distributed in all parts of the State.  For lack
of funds to defray the costs of publication, and timidity on the part of
some of the signers the address was never published.  Had it been printed
and fully circulated among the people it would, without doubt, have either
created a general armed uprising of the Southern men (such was its object)
or else made certain the arrest and imprisonment of almost every man at
all prominently connected with that party in the State.  This interesting
historical fact has never hitherto been made public.  Although Capt.
Harvie has never held nor sought civil office, nor asked nor received any
compensation whatever for his numerous public services, he has not been
idle in his efforts to develop the resources of his city, county and State,
supporting by his votes, means, time, speech and frequent contributions to
the press, such enterprises as promised material or moral benefit to
either.  At the same time he has been the uncompromising foe to oppression,
corruption and jobbery in their every form, proceeding whence or from whom
they might.  He was the author of the new turnpike system of Franklin
County under which it has so greatly developed within comparatively recent
years, drawing up and with the aid of his friend, Mr. John N. Crutcher,
having had passed by the Legislature the bill authorizing the whole system.
With the active co-operation of Mr. Crutcher, Mr. R. C. Steele and a few
other friends, he was among the first to give the system practical effects
by the construction of the Frankfort and Flat Creek Turnpike, and
enterprise at the time generally believed financially and topographically
impracticable.  He initiated, in 1875-76, the first public movement for
the repair of the five dilapidated locks and dams on the Kentucky River,
for the extension of the slack-water to the mountains, and for improvement
of the other principal water-ways of the State, contributing largely by
his personal efforts and public utterances first and last to the creation
of that sound public sentiment which demanded, and in the end has partly
achieved, these improvements as great public necessities.  But he had no
hand nor direct agency whatever in securing any of the appropriations by
Congress for these purposes.  His mother died in 1831.  She was a highly
cultured lady of decided poetical tastes and attainments, noted for her
pure Christian character, profuse charity, and gentle, refined manners.
Few or no families in the land can claim descent from a longer or higher
line of distinguished ancestors, British and American, or number among
their near blood relations and family connections by marriage, more men of
National and State eminence, (Presidents, United States senators and
congressmen, the first chief justice of the Union, commanders in chief of
its armies, governors of States, and legislators) than can the Harvie,
and this particular Hawkins, families of Kentucky and Virginia.

Harvie Hawkins Jones Walker Morehead Reed Monroe Crutcher Steele
=
Scott-KY Woodford-KY VA

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/franklin/harvie.le.txt