For The
The Harvey name can be traced back in history to some extent. We know that John
and Thomas (father and son) were the first and second Governors of North Carolina.
Footprints has no information on this family or any other early American Harvey family.
We have found information on a number of individuals in early American History
and English History which you may want to visit. See
Harvey in History. Hopefully one of our readers will be able to fill us in
on the early family.
The following was taken from one of Max Reed's early letters on his research for the
Thomas H Harvey family. When and from where did the Harvy ancestry start their movement west? A
common misconception is that poor workers in eastern cities, being unable to make a
living in the eastern cities headed for the frontier. According to Westward
Expansion, the cost of moving west was a barrier that few easterners could overcome.
If a prospective pioneer wanted to begin life anew, he must move to the extreme edge of
the frontier, appropriate government land, clear his fields and personally conquer the
wilderness; this required technical knowledge acquired by prior experience. When such skills were lacking, his only choice was to settle in a community already
undergoing development. This was expensive. He would be forced to pay
between $1.25 and $10.00 and acre for land, $5 to $20 and acre to have it cleared, $112
for a split-rail fence, from $100 to $375 for tools, $150 for draft animals, $50 for a
long cabin, $25 for transportation and $100 for food to support his family until his
own farm came into production.
Few eighty-acre farms were established that did not cost their owners at least $1,500
- a sum far beyond the reach of the average eastern workingman whose wages seldom rose
above $1 a day. Even those who sought to become independent farmers by working
first as hired hands in the West found the path difficult; they learned the needed skills
but often found it impossible to save the money to buy a farm from their wages of $150 a
year and keep. So most new areas were occupied by farmers from nearby regions who
had either the frontier skills to begin life anew cheaply or the capital necessary to put
land into production. Thus the west was settled in rolling waves; a farmer
improving his land, selling at large profit and moving on to the frontier starting anew.
With shelter assured, the frontiersmen began clearing his land. Four or five years
of back-breaking labor was needed to clear the ten or fifteen acres necessary to support
a family. During this period the pioneer family lived on grain purchased from near
by farmers, but two good crops would pay for the farm and all improvements.
The settlement of Tennessee began between 1790 and 1795. The influx was so great
that when a site was chosen for the new capital, a central site was chosen at Knoxville
at the mouth of the French Broad river. It was said that during the summer of 1795
immigrants were so thick on the Old Walton Road that they crowded each other from the
highway; 26,000 crossed the Cumberland in two months. By 1796, 77,000 people
lived in Tennessee and the territory was ready to enter the Union as a state.
Monroe county was formed in 1819, and a large land distribution was made in 1820 with the
Hiwassee purchase from the Cherokee. Thomas Harvy bought 310 acres at the land
office in Knoxville and many Harvy families (presumably all related is some way) moved
into Monroe. How these families are related and where they came from is now the
subject of a continuing search.
Please place in the Subject Line: WEBPAGE-HISTORY 
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