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Harmon Family History

The Name, Harmon.

 

The early forms in England were, HERMAN and HARMAN.

In New England, where the family first settled, HARMON is used most entirely, while in other parts of the United States, HARMAN and HARMON are used extensively.

The name is misspelled in a number of variations as, Harmond, Hammon, Hammond, Hermon, Herman, and Hannon.

(quote from Artemas C. Harmon, Washington, D.C., 1920)

Harmon

The Harmon Coat of Arms was granted to John Harmon, Bishop of Exeter.  Harmon was born about 1465 at Sutton-Coldfield, Warwickshire, England, and died there in More Hall on October 23, 1554.  He was buried on the north side of the chancel of the church at Sutton where a monument was erected to his memory.  On an escutcheon over the east window of the south aisle of the church are the Bishop of Exeter’s coat of arms, and the same arms are under the King’s arms on the south wall of the north aisle, and on the north wall of the south aisle.  (By William Dugdale, 1730)

 

Visitation of 1574 — Argent on a cross sable, a buck’s head cabossed and four martlets of the first, on a chief azure, a cross flory between two roses or.  (Burke’s General Armory.)

 

The name Harmon has a rich and ancient history.  It is an Anglo-Saxon name that was originally derived from Herman or Hermannus.  The names are really the same; it was a common practice for scribes to record a given name in the Latin style, where use is the masculine suffix.  The personal name meant warrior having derived from the Old French word hermant, or from the Old German words hariman or hereman, all of which meant “warrior”.  This name came to England in the wake of the Norman Conquest in 1066, where William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxon nobility and killed King Harold to take the throne of England.  After the war, there was a wave of immigration into England from continental Europe, especially from France and Germany.

First found in Suffolk where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.

Some of the first settlers of this name or some of its variants were: Charles Harman who settled in Virginia in 1622; Augustine Harman settled in Maryland in 1666 along with his wife, three sons and four daughters; Francis Harman settled in New England in 1635.  (Swyrich Corporation 2006)

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