Harlan Robinson Jessup, Jr. (1933-2025) crossed over on June 15 at his home in Topsham, Maine in the company of his loving family. Harlan was loved and esteemed throughout his life due to his positive outlook, abundant interests, gregarious good nature, productive projects, and intelligent storytelling. He died on Father’s Day, appropriately, given his strong devotion to family.

Harlan was born in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania to Eva Mae Murray and Harlan R. Jessup, Sr. of Swarthmore. He graduated from Swarthmore High School after a few years of attending schools around the country where his father’s Navy career took the family. He and his two younger sisters grew up enjoying family vacations with relatives along the banks of the Patuxent River and at their grandparents’ cabin in Wallingford, Vermont. Harlan graduated from Dartmouth College and Tuck School of Business with degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration. He was especially fond of the adventures and friendships that he gained through the Dartmouth Outing Club. He fulfilled his ROTC commitments by joining the Navy as an engineer and lieutenant on the U.S.S. Fiske, a radar picket destroyer, which gave Harlan a chance to see the wide Atlantic and several ports in the Mediterranean Sea.

Just before departing on one of the Navy cruises, Harlan met Shirley Hemphill of Spring Lake, New Jersey. They made a dashing couple and were married on November 24, 1956. Shirley and Harlan raised four children, James, Jennifer, Benjamin and Susan, in upstate New York in their early years, and then settled in Newtown, Connecticut.

After four years in the Navy, Harlan began his professional career with General Electric as a shop foreman and then as a management consultant. The consulting business had him traveling across the nation as well as abroad, too far away from his growing family, so he decided to start a new venture closer to home in Newtown. He became the sole proprietor of Jessup Earthways, a sporting goods store specializing in people-powered sports such as backpacking, canoeing, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing. This specialty was not sufficiently supported by his customers, and he returned to GE for a reliable paycheck.

In 1990, after retirement from GE, Harlan again struck out on his own, this time as a genealogist. His own family history inspired relentless research. As the volumes of material grew, he found overlap with many Connecticut families and found clients who could support this passion. He was a contributor and sometimes editor to the Connecticut Ancestry Journal from 1996 through 2017.

He liked to “prove” that our many cousins were ultimately related to Adam and Eve! Harlan inherited over 80 letters and diary entries from his ancestors from the Shenandoah Valley who served in the Civil War. He transcribed these with commentary describing the context of the times, authoring the book The Painful News I Have to Write in 1998.

Throughout his life, Harlan pursued many hobbies and pastimes, often shared by family members. Outdoorsmanship came easy to him as did vegetable gardening, beekeeping, backyard silviculture and Appalachian Trail maintenance. Through those activities, along with an appetite for home-cooked meals (always with desserts), he remained healthy and cheerful. He was an avid reader and loved reading aloud to the children and grandchildren. He had a flair for acting in community theater, in church plays, and as a supreme leader of the interactive “Lion Hunt” story at family reunions! He was dedicated to his church community where he sang joyfully in the choir, rarely missed the Saturday morning men’s breakfasts, and occasionally rose to the pulpit as a guest speaker.

Harlan was preceded in death by his parents, Harlan and Eva, and by Shirley, his wife of 65 years. He is survived by his sisters, Kathie Harvey of Greenville, NC and Martha Webster, of Baltimore, MD, and by his four children and their families, Jim Jessup of Huntington Beach, California, Jennie Kelly of Valdez, Alaska, Ben Jessup of Middlesex, Vermont, and Susan Caldwell of West Gardiner, Maine. His seven loving grandchildren, and many cousins, nieces, nephews, kith and kin will remember him with affection.

Harlan’s family wants to thank the staff of The Highlands who provided care and kindness in his final years. A service will be held at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brunswick, Maine, on September 27, 2025, where his ashes will be returned to the earth.