John Milton Harney (1789–1825) was an American physician and poet.
He was born in Delaware on 9 March 1789. He studied medicine and settled in Kentucky. After the death of his wife in childbirth, he took work with the New York Enquirer.[1]
He then travelled to Europe, accepted a naval appointment, and spent several years in South America.
On his return he edited a paper, the Savannah Georgian.[1] He became a Catholic, joined the Dominicans, then beginning their mission in Kentucky.
He died at Somerset, Kentucky, on 15 January 1825.[2]
He was the author of a number of poems printed in various magazines. In 1816 he published anonymously Crystallina; a Fairy Tale, in Six Cantos.[3] Works published posthumously were The Fever Dream, from his time in Savannah, Georgia, and "Echo and the Lover".[1]
He was the elder brother of William Selby Harney;[4] their father, Thomas Harney, was an officer in the Revolutionary War.[2]
He married Eliza Cooper, daughter of Judge John Rowan. She died in 1815.[5]