John Harbein
An older chronicle in referring to John Harbein, who died at his home in Alpha on June 8, 1873, and who at the time of his death was regarded as one of the wealthiest men in Greene county, notes that "throughout his life Mr. Harbein was a quiet, unostentatious Christian gentleman. He was a strict, prudent and successful business man, and to his energy, influence and enterprise the development of Greene county is largely due. He shrank from public notice and, though many were offered, never accepted a public office, but was always one of the foremost to aid in the advancement of public interests. Though a private citizen, he was widely known. His influence was cast in the direction of progress. Having the advantage of a good education, he was a friend of schools and looked upon them as being the hope of our republican institutions. He was a great tourist and a polished gentleman; a man of liberal views and a lover of his country."
John Harbein was born in Washington county, Maryland, January 17, 1804, first-born of the six children born to Daniel and Elizabeth (Reber) Harbein, and was the first of these children, two sons and four daughters, to answer the final summons. The Harbeins are of Huguenot stock, the ancestors of the Greene county family of this name having been driven from France to lands where they might worship according to their faith. One branch of the family settled in Algiers, on the river Shelif, where a small town now bears their name. Two other families of the name came to the American colonies, one settling in North Carolina and the other in Berks county, Pennsylvania. The head of this latter branch of the family was Peter Harbein, great-great-grandfather of John Harbein. He had fled to Switzerland from France and was there some time before completing his arrangements to come to America. During the voyage over a son, Peter, was born. This Peter, junior, was reared in Berks county, Pennsylvania, and there married and made his home. One of his sons, Abram Harbein, was the father of Daniel Harbein, father of John Harbein.
In 1827 John Harbein married Hettie Herr, of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and in October, 1828, came to Ohio with his wife and established his home in Beavercreek township, this county. buying there the farm on which stood the log house of Owen Davis, in which the first court held in Greene county was convened following the formal organization of the county in that same cabin in 1803. On that place, the site of the old Owen Davis mill, he erected in 1833 a new mill and there began the successful operations that for so many years marked him as one of the foremost factors in the general business life of the community, and there he and his wife reared their family of eight children and spent the remainder of their lives, John Harbein's death occurring, as noted above, in the summer of 1873. The house he erected there at Alpha is now occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Hattie M. Miller, widow of Hon. John M. Miller, further mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918