City man was father of state's recognition of Labor Day
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By ROD STETZER rod.stetzer@lee.net
Friday, August 31, 2007 10:40 PM CDT
His gravestone in Chippewa Falls isn’t marked with his name.
Nearby is an attractive marker with the family name of Harmon. But the gravesite on row 56 of Forest Hill Cemetery at 514 E. Columbia St. simply says: “Husband of Bertha Harmon, died Jan. 21, 1921.”
It’s a modest resting place for the guy who, by at least some accounts, made sure you would get a day off or at least get holiday pay on Monday.
Most Wisconsin workers can direct their thanks to John Charles Harmon, a man whose time in Chippewa Falls changed the way the state looks at the working man and woman.
In a way, he was just passing through Chippewa Falls. J.C. Harmon was born in Ashland, Ohio on June 16, 1845, moved to Wisconsin when he was only three and died in Puyallup, Wash.
Along the way he chased work in the lumber industry, where he became a success.
But it was in Wisconsin where he got married, started a family and began a business.
And it was in Chippewa Falls where he got into politics, riding a Democratic sweep into office and helping to change the way you spend the first Monday of September.
Early days
Harmon’s family moved from Ohio to Beaver Dam, Wis. in September 1848.
“In the fall of 1871, John moved to Eau Claire, where he stated working in the woods,” writes his relative, Eleanor Warner of Everett, Wash., near Seattle. He worked for the Valley Lumber Company, according to the Jan. 21, 1921 obituary printed by the then-Chippewa Herald-Telegram.
“From Eau Claire, he moved to Chippewa Falls, where he built his home on 923 Mansfield St. (West Hill) and it is still in use,” Warner wrote.
Actually, he lived at the house at 924 Mansfield St., according to research done by Roger Howard of the Area History Center in Chippewa Falls. The center is operated by the Chippewa County Historical Society.
He married Bertha Raddis on Oct. 23, 1873, and the couple had two children: Cora and Frank. A third child, Mary, died in infancy.
But his time with Bertha was short, as she died in 1881. She was only 27 years and three months when she died.
Time of change
J.C. Harmon because a well-known man around Chippewa Falls.
The Daily Independent, a forerunner of The Chippewa Herald, noted in its personal mentions column of April 14, 1892: “J.C. Harmon has gone to Hayward.” It was common for newspapers of the time to keep track the comings and goings of residents, even on not-to-distant trips.
But Harmon wanted to go to places other than Hayward. He had Madison in mind.
So the fall of 1892, Harmon ran as a Democrat for the first district Assembly seat. He ran against Republican Charles P. Barker and candidates from the People’s Ticket and the Prohibition Party.
It was a good year to be a Democrat. Incumbent President Benjamin Harrison was unpopular because of his stance on tariffs. The man he beat four years earlier, former President Grover Cleveland, was the Democratic nominee.
So on Nov. 8, 1882, John Charles Harmon was elected to the Assembly with 882 votes. He trounced Barker, who had 597 votes, and the minor party candidates.
The working man
Everett said Harmon introduced his Labor Day Bill No. 421 A in February 1893.
That’s something Ken Germanson of the Website Wisconsinlaborhistory.org, can not confirm. And Germanson said he did not know if Harmon was the primary or one of many sponsors of the state’s Labor Day bill.
But Germanson said it wouldn’t be unusual for someone in the logging industry to be concerned about workers.
“In that area (of Wisconsin), there was a lot of populism and radicalism among those working in the logging industry,” Germanson said.
A short notice that ran in the Herald-Telegram after Harmon’s death labeled him as the “Father of Labor Day.” It said he employed a large crew of men who held him in the highest esteem.
The article said Harmon introduced the Labor Day bill “for the purpose of affording all laboring classes one day of rest and recreation, the day to be declared a legal holiday.”
Harmon’s desire for a Labor Day holiday was ahead of most of the rest of the nation.
The first Labor Day was celebrated in New York on Sept. 5, 1882 and Harmon’s legislation became law in May 1893.
Congress didn’t pass legislation making it a national holiday until the next year.
As for Harmon, he left Chippewa Falls for Washington in 1899. While there he served on city councils in that state for several terms.
“He had not been in good health for the past 10 years and his death followed a third stroke of paralysis,” reported his Jan. 21, 1921 obituary in the Herald-Telegram.
“The deceased is kindly remembered by many of his oldtime friends here,” the obituary says.
And if you have the day off on Monday, you may want to kindly remember John Charles Harmon, too.
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