After almost forty years in Ohio some Garrisons were getting restless. Their families were increasing in numbers, their farms were not, and they needed more land. They and the inter-related and neighboring Camp families decided it was time to move west. In 1850 Joseph J. Camp, then 23 years old, the second son of Zephaniah Camp and grandson of Lemuel Garrison, Sr., went to Peoria County, Illinois, to scout prospects. In Millbrook Township he found level, fertile farm land at a reasonable price. Millbrook is in the northwest corner of Peoria County, 22 miles northwest of the City of Peoria. He sent word back to others and two years later Robert Garrison and family moved. They spent their first winter in Knox County; then they moved to French Grove in Peoria County and resided on a farm for a year. In 1855 Robert purchased land in Section 15, Millbrook Township.
Other Garrisons followed. Robert’s sister Rebecca, wife of Daniel Camp, settled in Millbrook. Robert’s brother Ephraim settled across the Spoon River in Stark County. Another of Robert’s sisters, Charlotte married to William Moore, settled in Rock Island. About 1857, Lemuel Garrison Jr., then almost 70 years old , joined his son Robert and other Garrisons and Camps in Millbrook. In 1860 Census of Peoria County, the following Garrison and Camp families were living in Millbrook near each other: Robert, Lemuel and Andrew Garrison, and Daniel, Arvin G., Lemuel and Joseph Camp.
The emigration west continued. Robert Garrison’s son, Thomas Benton Garrison, married his second cousin, Rebecca Jane Camp, in 1872; and moved to Buffalo County, Nebraska, buying land there starting in 1903. Nor did the emigration stop. There are no Garrison nor Camps farming in Millbrook today. They all left. Their descendants, always looking for more land, a better living, following tradition continued west. They are now up and down the West Coast, and as far as Hawaii. Many have even migrated back to the Midwest and East.
Lemuel Garrison, Jr., was born about 1788. in New Jersey, the son of Lemuel Garrison, Sr. Lemuel Jr. had five brothers—Parsons, Jeremiah, Arwine, Benjamin, and Edward; and four sisters, of whom only Prudence and Mahala are known. He died in Millbrook Township February 23, 1872, and is buried in the Elmore Cemetery on the banks on the Spoon River.
According to family legend, four Garrison brothers fought in the War of 1812. They were Parsons (pronounced Passons), Germy (Jeremiah), Wine (Arwine) and Lemuel Jr. It has been an old family story that Lemuel gave out on a march and Parsons carried him for four days to keep up with the rest of the company. Other stories (now lost) told of Parsons strength.
War of 1812 rosters list Lemuel, Persons (sic) and Jeremiah Garrison but not Arwine. In Captain William Humphrey's and later in Captain Sutton's Company were Parsons and Jeremiah and other Garrisons—John, David, Hezekiah and Benjamin; and in Captain William B. Fordyce's Company was Emanuel (sic), but no where is there Arwine. More importantly, The National Archives has a file of Lemuel Jr. 's War of 1812 Bounty Land and Widow's Pension records. It says he enlisted September 4, 1813, at Lebanon, Ohio in Captain William B. Fordyce's Company in Colonel Henry Zumalt's 2nd Regiment of the Ohio Militia and served as a private until March 4, 1814, when he was honorably discharged at Lower Sandusky.
So the family legend has some validity. But it appears more likely that the four Garrison brothers in the War of 1812 were Parsons, Jeremiah, Lemuel, and Benjamin, and not Arwine. Arwine was only ten years old in 1813, too young. Parsons would have been about twenty-seven, Jeremiah about twenty-six, Lemuel twenty-five, and Benjamin twenty-three years old. It is likely that in passing, the family legend replaced Benjamin with Arwine by mistake. Also, since Lemuel was in a different Company than the others, he may not have been the one that gave out and had to be carried four days by Parsons.
Another family legend concerning the War of 1812 was Josiah Biggs. He married Mahala Garrison, Lemuel Jr.'s sister, in 1816 after her first husband, Elias Porter died. This legend says that Josiah helped row Captain Oliver Hazard Perry from the sinking Lawrence during the September 10, 1813, Battle of Lake Erie. This appears to be an exaggeration. Captain Perry was rowed from the Lawrence in one of its cutters using a crew from his ship. According to prize money records, Josiah Biggs was a private on the two-gun schooner Scorpion. While not immortalized in famous paintings of Perry being rowed to the Niagara to continue the fight and win the battle, Josiah did get $214.89 in prize money.
Lemuel Jr. married Mary Rippy and they had two children—Robert born in 1816, and George W. born in 1817. Mary died about 1820, and in 1823 Lemuel married Anna Betson (perhaps Batson), whose first husband was a Barker. They had three children—Rebecca Jane, Charlotte and Ephraim S. Anna died about 1880 in Gage County, Nebraska, where she was living with her daughter Rebecca Jane and son-in-law Daniel Camp
George married Susannah Beard, Rebecca Jane married David Camp, Charlotte married William Moore and Ephraim married Sarah C. Pratz. All but George emigrated to Illinois in the 1850s. George stayed in Ohio and in 1882 was living in a brick residence on Second Street in Clarksville.
Old Bobby, Robert Garrison was born February 2, 1816, in Ohio. He was the first son of Lemuel Garrison, Jr and one of the more successful Garrisons in acquiring land. He came to Illinois in 1852 and in 1890 he and his children owned 2750 acres of farm land, a colossal amount for the time.
Robert’s mother died when he was four years old and his father remarried when Robert was seven. He grew up in his father’s house with his stepmother Anna and with his brother and his half-brother and half-sisters. His education was from Clinton County subscription schools.
Robert married Rebecca Batson in 1837 in Ohio. Rebecca was the daughter of Nathaniel Batson and was born July 1816 in Pennsylvania. They had seven daughters—Mary, Jane, Ruth, Lucinda, Maria, Margaret, and Susan, and one son—Thomas; all but the last daughter were born in Ohio. Short and stocky, Robert "toiled early and late to develop his land and met with remarkable success in his calling." He was active in politics and used his influence to help Democrats.
What happened to the land? When Old Bobby died in 1892, much of it had already been given to his children. But his estate still contained 1040 acres in Sections 11, 14, 15, and 16, Millbrook. Five of the seven daughters married and in addition to land going to his only son Thomas B, it went to their families—Stubbs, Shockely, Moats, Barnes and Hart.
Photograph taken in 1978 of the house where Robert Garrison
and family lived in the late nineteenth century.
Thomas was born in 1847 in Ohio, the only son of Robert Garrison, and he came to Illinois with his family in 1852. Thomas married his second cousin, Rebecca Jane Camp, in 1872. They had two sons, Thomas Jr and Robert Warren. Either he or his son Thomas was a deputy sheriff in Peoria Country. He and his sons moved to Buffalo County, Nebraska, about 1903. Starting in that year they made twenty land purchases around Elm Creek and Kearney in the next five years.
Thomas' son Robert Warren Garrison died in 1919. His estate was valued at $23,241.60 and included 1000 shares of Elm Creek Land and Cattle Company stock. His father, Thomas, died in 1932. Thomas’s estate was valued at $7,575 and included 500 shares of Elm Creek Land and Cattle Company stock. At his death, his son Thomas, Jr. was living in Oakland, Oregon. His grandsons were Earl Garrison living in Oakland, Oregon and Robert Warren Garrison living in Sioux City, Iowa. His granddaughters were Gladys Peters in New Philadelphia, Ohio, Ruth Leisenfield in Great Falls, Montana, and Marguerite Green in Kearney.
Susan Garrison
The youngest of Rebecca and Robert Garrison's eight children was Susan. She was born in 1853 on the new family farm on the northeast quarter of Section 15, Millbrook Township, Peoria County, Illinois. In 1872 she married a neighbor, Milton Cebury Hart. The Harts were a westward moving family too. They left Georgia about 1805 and settled in Dixon Township, Preble County, Ohio. Milton's father, William Hart, and two other related Hart families moved to Millbrook from 1844 to 1849.
Susan and Milton Hart had nine children who survived childhood. They were raised on the family farm which was located on the Northwest Quarter of Section 14, Millbrook Township. There were four boys: Guy Preston (Jack), Don Pedro (Ped), William Raymond (Tink), and John Harvey, and five girls: Margaret, Myrtle Nellie, Ethel May, Ola Evelyn and Carrie Jane. The boys were all tall except for Jack who was short and stubby like his grandfather, Robert Garrison. Susan, and in later life her daughters, were renowned throughout Millbrook for their superb cooking and large feet (the Hart girls were about 5 feet tall with an 8-1/2 shoe size). As with most farm women at the turn of the century, they cooked about everything from scratch. Even the yeast for bread was made from homegrown hops.
Ethel Hart Douglas related an early childhood experience where she was amazed to see factory made soap for sale at a carnival. To her this was a strange luxury since everyone could easily make their own soap at home. She continued with the following reminiscences.
"Once every several weeks was market day in Princeville when dad hitched up the wagon and drove the eight miles into Princeville to buy a barrel of sugar and perhaps two barrels of cider, one of which most likely turned to vinegar before it was finished. Every fall dad would outfit the children with new shoes to wear through the winter. He would return home with a box of store shoes of mixed sizes which were dumped on the kitchen floor. The children would sift through them and trade to get the best fit. Many were the pinched toes and blisters for the next several weeks."
"Wheat and corn were taken to the mill at Elmore to be ground for flour and corn meal to be used in kitchen baking. Fruit trees were purchased from an Elmwood attorney, who as a side business, ordered them from New York."
"Tornadoes were of concern in those days too. Dad always kept an ax and a bucket of water handy and often the family was herded down into the cellar by the appearance of ominous funnel clouds. In case the tornado destroyed the house, the children would have drinking water while father chopped their way out of the cellar."
Milton Hart was extremely envious of his more successful father-in-law, Robert Garrison. In the 1880 Census Robert owned over 2,000 acres of good farm land. The Garrison home was just one-quarter of a mile west of the Milton Hart house. Once, upon seeing a picture of her father (Robert Garrison) that his wife, Susan, had just hung in their home, Milton threw a rock at it, breaking the glass. This picture (shown above) was passed on to daughter Margaret Hart Smith and is now retained by her granddaughter, Judith Smith Chelin. It is approximately 8" by 10" in an ornate gold frame, still missing its glass, and with a very visible scar (from a rock?) in the upper center.
Milton Cebury Hart liked drink, race horses, fights, and evidently women. Sometime around 1901 he was run off the farm by his older sons. We are not certain of what happened to him after that but Ped, before his death, related that he had received letters from his father and that he had visited him once in Ladd, Illinois. It appears he was down and out at the time and asked Ped for money which Ped, being the good natured person that he was, probably did not refuse. Many of his children believe that Milton died in the Cherry Mine disaster of November 13, 1909, which killed 259 coal miners at Ladd.
Susan Garrison Hart died of consumption and heart disease in 1902 at the age of 44. She left nine living children, five of whom were nine to seventeen years old. The terms of her will provided that the farm should remain in the care of Jack as a home for the children until all of them were of age. It is interesting to note that her will said that Susan's husband, Milton C. Hart, talked her into signing over to him the farm she had inherited from her mother. She wanted this to go to her children, not to her husband in the advent she died before he.
Ped Hart dedicated his life to caring for his younger brothers and sisters. He was 25 years old when his mother died and for the next fifteen years he watched over them; he never married. In later years his sisters, then married, all said that they could never do enough to repay Ped for his sacrifice.
Margaret Hart was born in 1876. She was the oldest of the Hart girls and the first to marry. She was the second wife of George Edward Smith and married him in 1895. At the time George was living in Toulon, Illinois, as was his mother, Margaret Jane Mills Smith. His father was Owen Brown Smith, who died in 1891, homesteading near Guthrie, Oklahoma, on land staked during the 1889 Land Rush. Margaret met George at Jane Shockley's house in Lafayette. Jane, sister of Susan Garrison Hart, was an aunt of Margaret's. George and Margaret had three children—Milton Brown Smith, Myrtle Nellie Smith Belford, and George Raymond Smith, none of whom is living. George and Margaret operated the Smith Hotel in Princeville from 1916 until 1963, Margaret by herself after George died in 1941 until her death in 1963 at age eighty-six.
Ohio and Illinois records often show another member of the Garrison clan whose relationship we cannot determine with certainty. Census records show this Lemuel with his family and his two sons’ families living adjacent to Garrisons and Camps both in Marion Township, Clinton County, Ohio and in Millbrook Township, Peoria County, Illinois. This Lemuel may be the son of Jeremiah Garrison, a brother of Lemuel Garrison, Sr.
Lemuel was born in 1815 and married Sarah Hudson in Clinton County, Ohio, in 1835. They had four sons—Lewis, Benjamin, Jeremiah, and James. Sarah died in 1848. About 1850 Lemuel remarried, to Patience, surname unknown, who was born in 1830. From this marriage there were six children—Sarah F., Mary Amanda, Adeline, Martha, Grant, and W. Sherman. The latter two sons being "Civil War Babies", named after famous generals. Lemuel and his family moved from Clinton County to Millbrook in 1856.
Lemuel the "Other" died September 17, 1872, the same year as did Lemuel Jr. (who was perhaps his uncle), and they are both buried in the Elmore Cemetery. Lemuel's second wife, Patience, who died in 1895, is also buried there, as are many of the descendents of both Lemuels. The Elmore Cemetery is located west of the Village of Elmore on Jackson Street one-quarter mile west of Elmore Road, on the banks of the Spoon River.