Hardin John was an American soldier. He was also one of the first judges in the original Washington County, Virginia.
Background
Hardin John was born on October 1, 1753, in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States, where his grandfather, Mark Hardin, had received grants of land in 1716. According to tradition the Hardins were of Huguenot stock. Martin Hardin, father of John, was the proprietor of an ordinary near Elk Run, and was apparently a man of solidity and strength.
Education
About 1765 the family left Fauquier, ultimately settling at George’s Creek, in the southwestern Pennsylvania wilderness. Here young Hardin learned woodcraft and Indian ways and developed the skill as marksman and hunter.
Career
In 1774 John Hardin served as ensign in Dunmore’s campaign and was wounded on McDonald’s expedition but while still on crutches rejoined Dunmore’s column. At the outbreak of the Revolution he changed his plans for moving to Kentucky, turned to recruiting, and entered the Continental Army as a second lieutenant. He soon joined Daniel Morgan’s Riflemen and rendered conspicuous service with that noted regiment, winning the esteem and confidence of Morgan, who frequently assigned him to enterprises demanding intrepidity and discretion. At Saratoga his conduct elicited the thanks of General Gates, while James Wilkinson is said to have won his brigadier’s brevet by appropriating credit for Hardin’s discovery of the British position there.
Before Hardin resigned from the army, in December 1779, he refused a major’s commission on the ground that his services were more useful in a subordinate rank. In 1786 he removed with his family to Nelson (afterwards Washington) County, Kentucky. A few months later he volunteered under George Rogers Clark for the Wabash expedition, and was appointed quartermaster. In 1788 and again in 1789, when he was named county lieutenant with the rank of colonel, he conducted successful punitive forays against the Shawnees. He was one of the leaders in the ill-starred campaign of Josiah Harmar which resulted in the court-martialing of Hardin and his general. Both were honorably acquitted, while a second court-martial approved Hardin’s conduct as “that of a brave and skillful officer. ”
Despite his experience, eminent military talents, and unquestioned courage, Hardin was better qualified to command a company than a regiment, yet much of the blame for his double defeat upon the Maumee should be laid upon the cowardice of the Pennsylvania militia and the faulty generalship of Harmar. The following June, while with Charles Scott’s expedition, Hardin redeemed his reputation by several brilliant successes. In May 1792 General Wilkinson sent him under a flag of truce to negotiate a peace with the Miami tribes, but at what is now the city of Hardin, Ohio, he was treacherously murdered by pretendedly friendly Indians - as was alleged, for his horse and equipment, although Marshall implies that Wilkinson’s duplicity underlay the murder. A few days before his death he had been commissioned brigadier-general.