SAMUEL GARRETT

History of the American Negro, South Carolina Edition (in a biography of Samuel's grandson, Casper George Garrett) indicates that Samuel's parents had been brought to Laurens County, S.C. from Virginia as slaves.



Samuel Garrett is described in the 1870 Federal census for Laurens County as a 53-year old mulatto, married to Nancy, a 56-year old Black woman. Eight children are listed in the household (though the presence of two very young children suggests an extended family):
Deela - 24-year old mulatto female
John - 19-year old Black male
Stobo (note the incidence of this name in Nannie Allison's account of Dublin Hunter)-17 year old Black male
Hannah- 14-year old mulatto female
Jane-12 year old mulatto female
Beauford-4-year old mulatto male
Dublin-a one-year old mulatto male; and
an indecipherable name listed as a 12-year old mulatto male.
Not listed in the same household, were two sons, Ike Garrett and a second Samuel Garrett.

According to the 120th Anniversary program for Flat Ruff Baptist Church (in Laurens County, S.C.) Samuel and Nancy Garrett were among the original families that organized the church in 1868. Nancy is credited with having named the church.



Can you help to identify descendants of the children listed in Samuel Garrett's Household in the 1870 census? The 1900 census for Laurens lists a 47-year Black male named Stobo Garrett, who would have been the same age as the "Stobo" listed in the 1870 census as living in Samuel's household; however, I have yet to prove a familiar relationship (beyond the circumstantial evidence of three "Garrett" family names appearing in the list of his children (Stobo, Jr., Fletcher, and Hunter). This Stobo Garrett was married to Mary, and had five other children (John, Janie, Sarah, and two indecipherable female names).

Can you help to identify the slave-holding family that brought Samuel Garrett's parents from Virginia to Laurens County? Historically, "slaves often retained surnames identified with early owners, and they and their descendants carried them...from owner to owner." (See The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925, by Herbert G. Gutman, Vintage Books (1928).) Hence, my operating assumption is that Samuel Garrett's parents were owned by "Garretts." According to Ancestors and Descendants of Edward Garrett, Laurens County, South Carolina, a privately published text compiled by Corinne Putnam Mehringer (found in the Laurens Public Library) "[a]t least four [white] Garrett men received Royal Land Grants in...Laurens County...before the Revolutionary War." Of these men, Edward Garrett (1733-94, husband of Ann Owsley) is a likely candiate, not only because most of the white Garretts from Laurens County seem to descend from Edward and Ann Garrett, and because they migrated to the county from Fairfax County, Virginia in the right time period (1866), but also because they settled in the Warrior Creek area (west of the city of Laurens, in the same vicinity as our homeplace). Another clue is provided by the will of John Hunter II, referring to a track of land "lying on the waters of Warrior Creek" "butting on lands of Wm. Garrett and Samuel Garrett"--note that Dublin was owned by a Hunter and one family story tells of a sale of Dublin (or a descendant) to a white Garrett. No "Samuel Garrett" is listed as a child of Edward Hunter, but this could have been a son of Edward's brother "Silas."

I have seen a document listing six slaves owned by Edward Garrett, III in 1858: Four "negro boys" named Zac, Dick, Alfred, & Wash; and two girls named Larcy and Caroline. None of these names match identified members of my family.