San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM EDWARD GARRETT
WILLIAM EDWARD GARRETT was
born in Sumner County, Tennessee, September 17, 1832, a son of James and Sarah
(Garrett) Garrett, related, but not closely. The father was a silversmith, but
settled on a farm in Tennessee. Both were natives of North Carolina. The parents of both moved to Tennessee and settled on farms; the father was about seventy
when he died, about 1838; the mother died February 7, 1872, aged about
seventy-four, on both sides were long-lived people. His sister, Parlee Melissa,
now the widow of James Sanford, living in Tennessee, was born in 1819. Our subject was brought up on a
farm and received a limited education. He started in to learn the trade of
blacksmith, but left for California September 27, 1849, by New Orleans and Panama; was detained on the Isthmus until January 8, 1850,
when they left for San
Francisco,
arriving about March 1. They went to mining at San Antonio, in Calaveras County, March 17, 1850, and has followed it to this day; had
twelve men at work as late as 1888, and five in 1889; the mines are now in
charge of his two sons at Bald Mountain, near Sonora.
In 1862 Mr. Garrett bought 160 acres of
land in Stanislaus County, four miles from Modesto, on the Southern Pacific Road. He bought in 1884 two
acres in Ripon for a homestead, which he has elegantly improved, the residence
and grounds costing over $15,000. In 1888 he bought sixty-two acres across the
road from his home place.
Mr. Garrett is a Mason, a Knight Templar
and 32d-Degree Mason, but unaffiliated at present; is a member of Mount Horeb
Lodge, No. 588. I. O. O. F., of Ripon, in which he has passed the chairs. He
has been representative in the Grand Lodge two or three times. He was a Patron
of Husbandry five years, 1873 to 1878. Mr. Garrett came to San Joaquin County in 1876. In the fall of 1878 he moved again into Stanislaus County. In the fall of 1880 he removed back to Ripon, and
for some time his home has been in San Joaquin County. He was married January 8, 1862, to Miss Martha
Fedora Beaumont, who was born in Indiana in 1845, a daughter of George and
Frances (Ellis) Beaumont. Her father was a farmer, now deceased; her mother is
living in Ripon. She was born in March, 1819. Mr. and Mrs. Garrett have nine
children: George Edward, born at Brown’s Flat, Tuolumne County, December 20, 1863, engaged in mining; James was born
in the same place, July 21, 1865, was married to Miss Belle Yancey, a daughter
of T. M. Yancey, who has been sheriff three times. Clara Beaumont, born in the
same place, March 31, 1869; Grace Adelaide, born September 19, 1871; William
Bryant, born March 20, 1874, at Crow’s Landing, Stanislaus County; Albert
Powell Hill, born at Ripon, April 1, 1877; Birdie, born in Ripon, April 6,
1870; Robert B., born near Salida, Stanislaus County, August 8, 1880; Jesse,
born in Ripon, April 26, 1886. After many years of ups and downs Mr. Garrett’s
perseverance and intelligent industry were rewarded with success in his mining
venture. There is probably not in San Joaquin County another man so representative of the real mining
interests as Mr. Garrett, who has experienced every phase of a miner’s life,
its joys, misfortunes and hardships. He is an active man, and richly deserves
the success which has crowned his years of labor.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 357-358. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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