William Garrett (Tennessee)

[Greg C.]

GARRETT, WILLIAM (ca. 1811-?). William Garrett, a prominent San Augustine plantation owner, may have been one of the first settlers on the Brazos River. He was born in Tennessee about 1811, the son of Jacob Garrett.qv The family may have lived in Arkansas for a time. Sometime in the late 1820s or early 1830s Garrett moved to Texas. He started a mercantile business in Nacogdoches, then moved to the Ayish Bayou District, and eventually settled at San Augustine. His father Jacob and brother Milton later followed him to Texas. William Garrett was listed in San Augustine County records as a member of a militia commanded by Capt. William Kimbroughqv in 1836. In 1838 Garrett submitted a claim to receive one league and one labor of land. Garrett may have been married twice. The 1850 United States Census listed him as aged thirty-eight with five children. The 1860 census showed him to be forty-nine years old, owning 1,150 acres of improved land, and producing corn and cotton. He also produced significant harvests of wheat and barley. He owned 132 slaves. His plantation home was built by slave labor in 1861 and finally completed in 1864. His exact date of death is not known, but he probably died before 1884, when a marriage announcement of his son mentioned the groom's late father, William Garrett. In 1962 the Garrett Plantation Home in San Augustine received a Texas historical marker.

[neferetus]

From the Handbook of Texas Online:


GARNETT, WILLIAM (1812-1836). William Garnett, Alamo defender and Baptist preacher, was born in Virginia in 1812. He immigrated to Texas and settled at Fall-on-the-Brazos, Robertson colony. Garnett may have been one of the men who accompanied William B. Travis to San Antonio de Béxar and the Alamo in February of 1836. Once there, he received a furlough, signed by Travis, and traveled to Velasco. He made Massillon Farley his agent, gave him his papers, and assured him that he would return in three months. He returned to Bexar in time for the battle of the Alamo. Garnett has been described as a man of unblemished character and a great admirer of Travis. He died in the Alamo on March 6, 1836.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Albert Curtis, Remember the Alamo Heroes (San Antonio: Clegg, 1961). Daughters of the American Revolution, The Alamo Heroes and Their Revolutionary Ancestors (San Antonio, 1976). Amelia W. Williams, A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of Its Defenders (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1931; rpt., Southwestern Historical Quarterly 36-37 [April 1933-April 1934]).

Bill Groneman

[neferetus]

TRIVIA: IN the novel, ONE DOMINGO MORNING, preacher William Garnett presides over the San Antonio marriage of Travis' slave Joe to his sweetheart, Silvie.