Harriet Atkins Bruce
Relatively little is known in the Taggart Family about Grandmother Harriet Atkins Bruce. A principal reason was her death at an early age, one month before reaching twenty-four. We are indebted to Hazel M. Hilbig for copies of four family group sheets on Harriet's family. Two are attributed to Carol Ivins Collett; two are unattributed.
We are also indebted to Lela G. Johnson for additional information. She has also shared her thoughts and ideas, as well as shown us priceless mementos of her Great Grandmother Bruce.
In his History of Peterborough, New Hampshire (Richard R. Smith Publisher, Inc., Rindge, New Hampshire, 1954, Vol. I, p. 195), George Abbot Morison included "... George W. Taggart... and wife Harriet Bruce..." among those citizens who were converted to Mormonism in Peterborough.
Harriet, a native of Peterborough, New Hampshire, was born March 20, 1821. She was the third child in a family of eleven...three girls, of whom she was the eldest, and eight boys. All but one of the eleven lived to maturity. It appears that Harriet was the only one in her family to join the Mormon Church, (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), being baptized in 1842 at age twenty-one. The exact date or by whom is not known. George, her future husband, was baptized the previous year in December.
The house in which Harriet was most likely living at that time has become known as the "Bruce House" and is listed among the old houses in Peterborough (Morison, op. cit, Vol. II, pp. 733-781). Built in 1801, it was purchased in 1834 by Harriet's father, Peter Bruce, when she was in her early teens. The Bruce house, when compared with other houses in Peterborough of the same period and earlier, suggests a family of comfortable middle-class means. This was probably the house that George came to when courting Harriet.
As was customary for girls or young women in those days, Harriet had made a "sampler", showing her ability at embroidering. Harriet's included the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 1 to 10, her name -- Harriet Bruce, and an abbreviation for Peterborough.
The introduction of Mormonism to the citizens of Peterborough was outlined briefly in the last issue of the Newsletter (Vol I. No. 2, p.9).
Harriet was among those attracted to the new religion. Was it the meetings of those early Mormon missionaries that she first met George? Or had they met previously? Had they separately investigated the new religion? Or was their investigation made jointly? Had he influenced her decision to join? Or she his? Had this new religion brought them closer together? We wish we had answers to these and similar questions, but we do not.
Harriet and George were married on May 7, 1843, in Peterborough. Was this, as it seems, a marriage of true romantic love and strong attraction for each other? This is suggested by their wedding portraits, which having survived one hundred forty years, are in the possession of Lela G. Johnson.
These beautiful portraits, done on porcelain and mounted in delicate glass-covered oval-shaped metal frames, attest to the fact that Harriet and George were a handsome pair, and that they had deep sentimental feelings and cared about preserving the memory of what for them was a very special time.
We can only imagine the trauma Harriet and George must have experienced so soon after their marriage in moving from Peterborough to Nauvoo. Left behind were family and friends and the home they loved, with its wooded mountains and hills and its lush, lake-dotted countryside.
Nauvoo indubitably was beautifully situated in a large sweeping bend of the Mississippi, but it was on the frontier, overhung with hatred for the Mormons and with mob violence, persecution, and sometimes death. This was the Nauvoo that Harriet and George "gathered up" to in June 1843 in pursuit of their new faith. The Church meant a great deal to them, and they were ready to make whatever sacrifice to help it grow and prosper.
Harriet's love for the scriptures was evidenced by the small leather-bound Bible she carried to Nauvoo. It carries her name - H. A. Bruce - inscribed in beautiful penmanship. Many of its pages are watermarked, said to have come from a mishap while crossing the Mississippi. Harriet's Bible and "sampler" are also in the possession of Lela Johnson.
Under less than ideal circumstances, including a lack of proper food, Harriet and George became the proud parents of a daughter. She was named Eliza Ann, apparently out of a desire to honor Harriet's mother, Eliza French.
Harriet's and George's life together in Nauvoo, unhappily, was to be short. Baby Eliza was only five months old when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed (June 27, 1844). Harriet, in apparent poor health, felt insecure and threatened.
Harriet died on March 10, 1845, although the specific cause is not known. The conditions under which she had lived in Nauvoo had obviously taken their toll.
In a Patriarchal blessing, Harriet was promised a large family and posterity. Though Eliza Ann was her only child, her descendants number literally in the thousands.
Harriet's father, Peter Bruce, was the second child in a family of seven boys and one girl. Her mother, Eliza French, was an only child. According to Maude Taggart, a New Hampshire relative now deceased, Harriet's father was a soldier in the War of 1812.
Her grandfather, Kendall Bruce, a native of Marlborough, Massachusetts, was a practicing physician as early as 1793. He later moved with his family to New Hampshire. thence to Canada, where he engaged in the lumbering business, and then to Vermont, where he died. Harriet's widowed Grandmother Bruce, died in Peterborough.
