Josiah Harmar was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 10 November 1753; was educated at Robert Proud?s Quaker school; was appointed a captain in the 1st Pennsylvania Battalion, October 1775; entered the Continental Army as a captain in the 3d Pennsylvania Regiment, October 1776; served as a lieutenant colonel successively in the 6th Pennsylvania (1777), 7th Pennsylvania (1780), 3d Pennsylvania (1781), and 1st Pennsylvania Regiments (1783); was brevet colonel of the 1st Pennsylvania, September?November 1783; served with General Washington?s forces during the campaigns of 1778?1780, and with General Greene?s division in the South, 1781?1782; carried the United States government?s peace treaty ratification instruments to Paris, 1784; married Sarah Jenkins, 1784; was designated lieutenant colonel commandant of the First American Regiment, 1784; was the senior officer of the United States Army 12 August 1784?4 March 1791; established the posts and commanded the troops on the Ohio frontier, 1784?1791; witnessed the signing of the treaty of Fort McIntosh, 1785; was brevetted brigadier general, July 1787; was present at the signing of the Wyandot and Six Nations treaties at Fort Harmar, 1789; was defeated while on a punitive expedition against the Miami Indian villages along the Maumee River, 1790; requested and was exonerated by a court of inquiry for the expedition?s failure, 1791; retired from active service, 1792; served as adjutant general of Pennsylvania, 1793?1799; entered the mercantile business in Philadelphia; died in Philadelphia on 20 August 1813.