Ancestors

John Elisha Harper

John Elisha Harper was born on 30 September 1861 in Coffee County, Georgia, in the first year of the Civil War. He was a son of Jacob Harper and his wife Florida, and his gravestone says so in its first words: "John, son of Jacob & Florida Harper". In the 1880 census he was eighteen and living at home in District 1026 of Coffee County with his father, then fifty-eight, his mother, forty-five, and his brothers and sisters Leaston, Nancy, Elijah, Elisha, Allifare, Sarah and George. His mother died about two years later.

About 1886 he married Sarah Ann Ricketson, a Coffee County girl born in 1867. They farmed in Militia District 748, the country around Douglas. Their children came over twenty-five years: Phoebe about 1885, then Elisha, Oliver, Tommie, Alonzo (called Lunzie), Kiler, Elijah (called Lige), Jacob, Clem, Johnnie, and a last son, Nute. In the 1910 census John was forty-nine and ten of the boys were living at home, the eldest twenty-three and the youngest four.

John Harper died on 7 March 1912, at fifty. Sarah was left with the farm and a houseful of sons, the youngest of them small children. He was buried in the Elam Harper Cemetery, a family burying ground named for his elder brother Elam.

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Cite: Heirology, "John Elisha Harper (1861-1912)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-elisha-harper-1861-1912-7dfe29.