Israel Harding, Jr., was born around 1843 in Indiana to Israel and Nancy Harding. His father died several months before he was born. He grew up and attended school in Wayne, Indiana, and by 1860, he was working as a farm laborer. By 1870, he owned $14,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property. He moved to Mount Jackson, Indiana, in the 1870s. On January 6, 1894, Harding was struck and killed by a streetcar. According to a local writer, Harding was “considerably intoxicated and had been drinking all day,” and he stumbled into the path of the car. “Some of his friends,” however, believed that “he deliberately lay down upon the track with the intention of killing himself.”