Problem solved. This being the first time I used timer1, I mistakenly or accidentally set the T1CON, T1OSCEN bit enabling the oscillator. I also set RB7 as output to control a data selector for 2 frequencies at RB6. The result was clock pulses being sent out on RB7, (not mine) so when the programmer was sending data to RB7, RB7 was talking instead of listening so the PIC and programmer were butting heads and would not reprogram. The book didn’t explain this so it is probably not a logical configuration under any circumstances. Oscillator enabled, EXT CLOCK, not synced, on T1CKI pin.
I got all 3 chips erased with the Oshonsoft program, bit cleared and everything is working fine again.