Musham, Harry A. (Harry Albert), 1886-1973

Harry A. Musham (1886-1972) retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after ten years of service in 1922. A professional naval architect and engineer, Musham designed fire boats and other ships for use on the Great Lakes. Some of Musham's many technical articles about naval architecture can be found in Marine Engineering and Shipping Review and similar publications. His long-term study of the water levels of Lake Michigan provided valuable information for weather forecasting in the Chicago area. He published The Chicago Diversion and the Levels of the Great Lakes in 1961. Harry A. Musham was also an avid historian who published extensive articles about steamboats and other vessels used on the Great Lakes, ships not unlike those captained by his grandfather. W.H. Musham, Harry's father, had served as Fire Marshal of Chicago during the Great Fire of 1817. Harry A. Musham published an article about the fire, "The Great Chicago Fire, October 8-10, 1871," which appeared in Papers in Illinois History and Transactions in 1941 that included a detailed map of the fire's progress and the famous contention that Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the blaze. Skilled in cartography, Musham also produced The Technique of the Terrain: Maps and their Use in the Field in Peace and War, published in 1944. Musham was a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the Illinois Historical Society, and several other organizations that dealt with his maritime and historical interests. He unsuccessfully pursued the democratic party's nomination to run for U.S. Congress in 1932 and 1943. While serving as chairman of the Fort Dearborn Memorial Commission in 1961, Musham contended that the historical evidence for categorizing the events of August 12, 1812, as a massacre were weak. The self-styled "sentry of the Great Lakes," Harry A. Musham, died in 1972.