Biographical Sketch, 1881

Transcription

WILLIAM GARRISON, farmer and stock raiser, Nachusa [Township], is one of the early settlers of Lee county, coming here in the spring of 1845. Mr. Garrison was born in Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, July 22, 1813, and is a son of Mathias and Susannah (Sealey) Garrison. He was reared a farmer and educated to a limited extent in the subscription schools of his native state. At the age of about twenty he started in the business of farming for himself. December 26, 1833, he married Miss Amelia Oman, a native of Columbia county, Pennsylvania. She was born January 31, 1811. In the spring of 1845 he came to Lee county, Illinois, and settled near Dixon, where he entered land and engaged in farming. This he followed four years, when he sold out and bought a saw-mill just over the line in Ogle county, and actively engaged in preparing the material then so necessary for improving the wild prairie with buildings and fences. This he followed about eight years, and then turned his attention to making a permanent home for himself. He bought the N.W. 1/4 Sec. 30, T. 22, R. 10 E., which he has made one of the very pleasant homes of Nachusa township. Mrs. Garrison died December 27, 1870, on the home where she so long lived, after living to see her family all grown and the country that was so wild and desolate all made into beautiful farms and dotted here and there with schools and churches. Mr. Garrison's second marriage was with Mrs. Lucinda Shute, October 15, 1872. She has by a former husband one son, Abram L. Shute. Mr. Garrison is the father of fifteen children by his first wife, nine of whom are living: John, Peter, George L., Hester A., Hannah, Elizabeth E., William H., Harriett E. and Martha J. Mr. Garrison has been identified with the Methodist Episcopal church for many years. When a boy he was converted to Christ, and since that time has been a consistent member of the church. Two of his sons, Peter and William H., served their country in the late rebellion, Peter in the 75th Ill. Vol. Inf., and is now carrying a rebel bullet; William in Cheney's Battery.

Source & Notes

Transcribed from p. 544 of History of Lee County, Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, etc. (Chicago: H. H. Hill and Co., 1881) in June 2010. One of William's sons, John Garrison, is profiled just five pages later. This is a full and exact transcription. I have checked it twice against the original, and it is identical in every character, except for my bracketed insertion ("[Township]").

I did a little bit of checking into William's land-ownership history, prompted by some inconsistencies between this account and a 1914 bio sketch of William's physician daughter, Dr. Harriet Garrison. Harriet's sketch states that, shortly after arriving in Illinois, William "obtained a tract of government land" in Lee County, then left briefly to operate a sawmill in Ogle County before returning to the exact same Lee County plot, where he lived out the rest of his days. William's bio sketch, however, states that he sold the land he'd obtained from the government in order to fund his Ogle County sawmill operation, then purchased an entirely different piece of farmland when he decided to move back to Lee County.

The version of events in William Garrison's sketch--not Harriet's--seems to hold up. A search of digitized land patent records at the Bureau of Land Management's website reveals that, on March 1st, 1847, William Garrison was granted 120 acres in the northeast quarter of Section 35, Township 22, Range 9 East "in the District of Lands subject to sale at Dixon." In William's 1881 bio sketch, however, he was said to have been farming the northwest quarter of Section 30, Township 22, Range 10 East--NOT his government homestead. This seems to confirm the story that he sold his homestead before moving to Ogle County, then purchased a different Lee County tract after closing his sawmill.

Another discrepancy worth noting is the number of children William and Amelia Garrison are said to have had. This sketch says there were fifteen, of whom only nine survived in 1881; Harriet's 1914 sketch states that seven children moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois, where four more (including herself) were born, making eleven kids in all. Only the nine "living" children William's sketch lists are ever named in federal census records (1850, '60, '70, or '80), so I conclude that those children who died--whether there were two or six of them--must have died very young.