John Harmon

Harmon's raft carried a household, but the paper that made him a resident came years later. In 1834 he asked for a league of land, listing his wife and five children, and Nacogdoches approved it. The title was issued on May 21, 1835, a date a local history treats as the start of his legal residence. The family had pushed off from Whitman's Landing in December 1827, leaving poor crops and bears behind, and stopped at a spot later known as the foot of Fifth Street. The tract kept his name as the John Harmon League.

What the plaque says

John Harmon Born in 1790 in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, John Harmon lived at Poste de Attakapas, a Spanish fortification at the present site of St. Martinville. A veteran of the state's defensive actions during the War of 1812, he wed Elizabeth Compstock Clarks in 1813. Soon after the birth of their first child in 1816, the Harmons sold their St. Martin Parish land and moved west. Although not much is known about their activities over the following decade, it is known they had settled along the eastern bank of the Sabine River by 1826. The next year, Harmon decided to relocate in this area. He built a massive raft of cypress logs which transported a house, a wagon, a pair of oxen, a horse, a cow, farm tools and supplies, and his family, which numbered five. The Harmon family arrived here on January 1, 1828, and settled along the river until 1830, when they established a permanent home on Adams Bayou (2 mi. W). Their arrival at the present site of Orange marked the beginning of permanent settlement. Later, when the town developed, John Harmon was a saddler, a civic leader, and a prominent landowner. He died in 1874, but his contributions and pioneer spirit remain vital to the area's heritage. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stark Museum of Art — 0.3 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 1.4 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 19 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 21 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• Site of End of the Line Station — steps away
• Atakapan Indians of Orange County — steps away
• The Orange Leader — steps away
• Old Niblett's Bluff, C.S.A. — steps away