T. C. (Thomas Chalmers) Harbaugh

Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh was an American poet and novelist, born on January 13, 1849, in Middletown, Maryland. His family moved to Casstown, Ohio, when he was very young, and he was educated there before beginning working life with his father, a house painter.

By the late 1860s, he had turned seriously to writing and became one of the great workhorses of popular fiction. He wrote short stories, serials, and large numbers of dime novels, and sources describe him as having produced hundreds of thrillers under his own name and many pen names, including Capt. Collier. He was also among the writers connected with the Nick Carter detective stories.

Alongside that flood of popular fiction, Harbaugh wrote the poem Trouble in the Amen Corner, the work for which he is most often remembered now. He died on October 28, 1924, and was buried in Casstown Cemetery in Ohio.