Main >> Family & Home >> Family Life--Other

LaBGarrett's Home Page

WELCOME TO LaBGARRETT'S GENEALOGY PAGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN "GARRETT" ROOTS IN LAURENS COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA

dedicated to the memory of the family historians who came before me, Nannie Allison (1884-1979) and Ruth Esther Simons Nicholson (1922-1986)

My Lineage
1. Dublin Hunter (b. circa 1785 in Africa) and unidentified GARRETTs brought to Laurens from Virginia as slaves in the mid-to-late 1700s.
2. Samuel Garrett (1817-?) & Nancy DUBLIN (daughter of the African)
3. Isaac ("Ike") Garrett (1835-1911) & Hannah SIMPSON (daughter of Jim and Lucy Simpson)
4. Wister Lee ("Wick") Garrett (1863-1928) & Frances LATIMER
5. Albert Elton GARRETT (1895-1985) & Mattie NEELY (daughter of John Pickney Neely, 1871-1959, and the former Harriet Dial)
6. Thomas Weldon GARRETT (1933-) & Eva SMITH (daughter of Arnex Smith, 1904-1996, and the former Susie Bell Vance)

I am trying to fill in the blanks and document as much as I can about my GARRETT line's history.
Fortunately, most of my ancestors stayed in and around Laurens County, S.C. (west of the city, in Hickory Tavern and between Ora and Barksdale stations), so (based on documentation, family lore, and oral tradition) we know many basic facts -- for example, DUBLIN purchased his freedom from James Hunter in 1819 (see his deed of manumission in the Laurens County Deed Book K, page 239) and went on to purchase his girl children in 1822 (Laurens County Deed Book 66 11-1822); both Samuel and Ike Garrett are listed with their families in the 1870 U.S. census; and Wick Garrett was a large land owner in Hickory Tavern, whose obituary appeared on the first page of the December 6, 1928 edition of the Laurens Advertiser.

Casper George Garrett (1865-1948) was also in this line. He was a first cousin to my great-grandfather, Wick Garrett, and his biography can be found in History of the American Negro, South Carolina Edition, edited by A.B Caldwell (1919), A.B. Caldwell Publishing Co., Atlanta, Ga.. His parents were a second Samuel Garrett and Martha Hyde. Another first cousin to my great-grandfather was Samuel M. Garrett (1872-1940), who married the former Hattie Hunter. Both Samuel M. Garrett and Casper Garrett are listed on Dublin Clan reunion programs, along with children of Wick Garrett. The only other first cousin identified by Wick Garrett was Wade Garrett. We have yet to identify the parents of Samuel M. or Wade Garrett.

For other details, see my privately published family history The Source of Our Pride, The Garrett, Neely, and Sullivan Families: Two Hundred Years of American History Beginning in Laurens, S.C. (1996), copies of which can be found in the Genealogy Room of the Laurens Public Library; the University of South Carolina Family History Center; the Schomburg Center for Research of the New York Public Library; the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, College of Charleston; the African American Historical Foundation of Laurens, South Carolina; and the Library of Congress, among other places.

I am interested in locating wills, sale bills, or similar documents that might have survived in the hands of the descendants of the family that brought my GARRETT ancestors to Laurens County as slaves -- I hope to identify the parents and any siblings of Samuel GARRETT.

I am also trying to identify members of the DUBLIN CLAN ( MILLS, GARRETT, and HUNTER descendants of the African) -- surviving programs indicate that the DUBLIN CLAN held family reunions in Laurens, S.C. in 1933 (at Bethel Hall Baptist Church) and 1934 (at Flat Ruff Baptist Church).

I am always interested in hearing from anyone with a possible connection to any of the Laurens County names mentioned above.

OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST: