The Family Moves to the City of Portland

While the Harmon family enjoyed the rural location of their Gorham home, Robert found his work as a hatter more prosperous than his farming, and the family moved sometime between 1831 and 1833 to the city of Portland, where he could give his full time to his trade. They first lived in a house on Spruce Street on the growing western edge of the city. Later they moved a few blocks down the hill to 44 Clark Street, for according to the city records it was there that Robert Harmon the Hatter lived in 1844.1BIO 22.2

When the family moved to Portland the population of the city was thirteen thousand. Business was good and growing. The city itself was situated on a peninsula jutting out into Casco Bay. When the Harmons moved there, the hills were virtually uninhabited, the main part of the city being concentrated in the center of the peninsula, which is about three miles long.1BIO 22.3

Ellen's mother, Eunice Gould, had grown up in Portland and came from a highly respected family. The city directory of 1834 shows seventeen Goulds, including a hatter, a hat store owner, and a widow named Sarah Gould. The name Sarah was given to Ellen's favorite older sister.1BIO 22.4