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An Update by Cecil Calder Garrason of Garrison-Williams-Dobson by A. T. Outlaw of Kenansville, North Carolina |
| It is important that you read this article in conjunction with the Update
because this paper makes
references to pages and footnotes in the other. I suggest you print both and read them side-by-side. To
access the Update click on this link:
CCG's Update of ATO. You will be given a choice of reading it
on line, printing it or downloading it. If you print it you may want to do so on both sides of your paper
because it is 19 pages long.
The named paper has been in the works for more than ten years. Please note how heavily documented it is. That shows how serious I am about it. As a result, I do not entertain any claims that my James Garrason (c1778-c1812) was a son of Ephraim Garrason (died 1792) of Duplin Co, nor can I tolerate any claims that Ephraim was a son of Christopher Garrison (born 1730/1). There is proof that the Ephraim-James connection is false. There is no proof the Christopher-Ephraim connection is true. I am as stubborn about these two claims as anyone who believes the opposite. The crux of this situation is that I can prove the first claim and they cannot prove the second. The two men mentioned in the paper - D P H Garrison (late, of Godfrey, GA) and Albert Timothy Outlaw (late, of Kenansville, NC) - were of the old school who did not think it necessary to document anyting they wrote and did not demand documentation from anyone who shared "information" with them. DHP (whose parents named him Doctor Herschel Pierce Garrison) didn't know diddly about genealogy. He was born in the 1840s, never finished high school, but probably was a honest man because he believed every story and legend he was ever given. Outlaw got upset if anyone asked him for proof of his work. Apparently he and DHP did not analyze anything they read or wrote. If they had, they would not have accepted all the mis-information they put together as truth. Outlaw seems not to have done detailed research in his own office (Register of Deeds, Duplin Co), a position he held for years in Kenansville. Kenansville is a small town today. Only one federal highway (US-117) passes through the county and one interstate (I-40). Neither pass through the town. In the '30s when Outlaw was concocting his mis-information, things must have been really slow. I doubt that any of the county or state roads were paved then. I imagine him spending hours on the courthouse porch with his chair leaning back and his feet resting on the railing, occasionally spitting a tobacco-colored wad of sputum out into the yard, gossiping with people passing by. The only time his office would be busy was when court was in session. Frugal farmers didn't come into town until something really important happened. DHP and his family did little if any original research, but rather just copied what someone offered them. I have files and files the ancestors of Christopher Garrison and his wife Phebe Vanderbilt with more names in their charts than in my own. I doubt that any of DHP's family even know that Phebe Vanderbilt was a great-aunt of the Commodore. That's an idea I have because in most the mis-information they distribute, including the most recent, there is no mention of Christopher's wife and no mention of his or her ancestors other than his parents, a part of Christopher's baptism record that DHP acquired in the 1920s or 1930s. One member of DHP's family, David Harrison Garrison, made a speech at the north Georgia family's reunion some 30 years ago. He had heard of the French de Garrissons and Isaac Garrison of that family who settled where the village of Garrison is located on the east side of the Hudson opposite West Point. With complete disregard for several records that prove Christopher's father, Isaac, was a son of Lambert Garrison, he claimed that Isaac was a son of the Isaac of Garrison, NY. Let me summarize Outlaw's paper. 1. There is no known record of Christopher Garrison on Staten Island after the baptism of his second daughter in 1766. However, that does not prove he moved to North Carolina. [See page 3 and the appropriate notes in my paper.] To get quite specific, there is no proof the Christopher Garrison who married Phebe Vanderbilt was actually a son of Isaac and Maria (Christopher) Garrison. Their son Christopher could have died a child and the bridegroom could have moved onto Staten Island from some other place. 2. There was a Christopher Garrison of the same generation who lived from the 1760s in Monmouth Co, NJ, which is just across the Raritan Bay from Staten Island. Unfortunately, NJ Archives contains no records which name his wife or children. [See page 2 and notes.] 3. There is no proof that Christopher Garrison ever lived in North Carolina. Research by more than seven genealogists in NC Archives, NC State Library and various counties failed to find ANY Christopher Garrison at ANY time in ANY part of North Carolina. This means that even though he supposedly arrived there with a large and young family he had to support, he never did anything to leave a record such as paying taxes, buying or selling land, serving in the military, being listed in the 1783 Tax List or the1786 State Census, witnessing any document that has been printed, leaving an estate, voting, serving on a jury. [See page 2 and notes.] 4. There is no proof that Christopher Garrison ever lived in South Carolina, where supposedly he was aged and living with his supposed son Jedediah Garrison. Census records of 1790 and 1800 do not include enough males in Jedediah's home for one to have been Christopher. 5. There is no proof that Christopher Garrison ever lived in Georgia. The only mention of him is in a memorial written in the 1880s by a granddaughter of Jedediah Garrison, Jane (Meaders) Quillian, after her mother died. The writer was so ill-informed that she gave all dates for her mother's birth, the removal to Georgia, etc. as 20 years EARLIER than records show they occurred. Some descendants believe she was referring to one of the Christopher Williams of NC but they cannot prove that Jedediah's wife, Jane Williams, was a daughter of either of two Christopher Williams. [See page 2 and notes.] Why won't anyone consider the possibility that Jedediah Garrison named his son Christopher for Christopher Columbus? 6. There is no proof that Christopher Garrison was father of any of those named by Outlaw, DHP or their successors. The list they provided is simply a compilation of all Garrasons/Garrisons found in the Indexes (Indices) of the major record books in the courthouse at Kenansville. In fact, DNA Test Results in 2006-7 prove conclusively that Ebenezer Garrason and Jedediah Garrison were brothers but could not have been sons of Christopher. See the Christopher Myth. 7. A study of records for the names given in Outlaw's list proves that some of the children could not have been fathered by Christopher Garrison, christened 1730/31, married between 1752-56. They include Ebenezer (bought land in 1771 so born by 1750), Thomas (bought land in 1765 so born at least by 1744), Jedediah (witnessed deed in 1771 so was born at least by 1750) and James (witnessed Ebenezer's deed in 1771 so born by 1750). [Note: See page 14 and notes.] 8. Relationships between those "children" in Outlaw's list can be proven for only three of them. Ephraim's will named his brother Thomas Garrason as co-executor. Elizabeth (Garrason) Merrill's husband, Joseph Merrill, named as his executor, his brother-in-law Thomas Garrason. [See pages 6, 13 and notes.] In neither case was that Capt Thomas who bought land in 1765. 9. A family tradition still told in a branch of the family in Telfair Co, GA suggests another sibling, the older Darius Garrason (c1772-1838). Thomas (note 8 above) named a son Darius Garrison (the spelling his branch used) who moved to Telfair Co. It is still told in that family that when the younger Darius and other men went into Savannah to get provisions not available on the frontier where they lived, he would stop by to visit his Uncle Darius in Effingham Co. [See page 7 and notes for more data that further suggest Darius and Elizabeth (Garrason) Merrill were siblings.] 10. Courthouse records suggest yet another sibling. In 1797 John Garrison left 70 pounds in trust for his child(?), Catherine. After the death of her first two guardians (Henry Maxwell and James Middleton, Sr), Thomas Garrason was appointed as such in 1805. [See page 7 and notes.] 11. Thomas Garrason, born 1764, was not Ephraim's son, he was his brother and co-executor. Guardianship records (kept in Outlaw's office but he overlooked them) prove that Ephraim's children, Polly, David and Thomas, were ALL STILL MINORS in 1803 and another Thomas (undoubtedly Thomas, their uncle) was one of their guardians. [See page 6, 13 and notes.] So, it can be concluded that Ephraim married only once and his wife was Joanna Middleton. 12. This is pure SPECULATION but it is possible that Ephraim, Thomas, Elizabeth, John and Darius, above, and perhaps some other Garrisons listed as children of Christopher, were actually children of Thomas Garritson and his wife Jane Ferris of New Castle Co, Delaware. That couple disappeared from the Delaware records in the mid-1760s at the same time that one Thomas Carrison (note spelling from deed book) bought land in Duplin Co, NC. [See page 6 and especially footnote 26.] Later, in the tax list of 1783, one Jane Garrison was listed there, her name on the list just five away from that of Ephraim Garrason. Thomas of Delaware (bp 1730) was son of John and Elizabeth (Peterson) Garritson and John was son of Paul and Elizabeth (Harris) Garritson. Paul, his brother Henry (both born in Netherlands by 1659) and their mother Elizabeth (Hendricks) Garritson were immigrants to Delaware. [See also Peter Stebbins Craig, JD. The 1693 Census of the Swedes on the Delaware. Winter Park (FL): SAG Publications, 1993. p104f.] While it proves nothing, note that the names Thomas, John and Elizabeth appear in both families. Thomas of Delaware's mother, grandmother Garritson and great-grandmother Garritson were all named Elizabeth. It is said that early settlers of Wilmington, NC were from Wilmington, DE. 13. Ephraim Garrason did not have a son named James. Examination by me and others of the original will that was signed by him and now missing from NC Archives found the name abstracted as "James" by Olds to be "Jonny", Ephraim's wife. [See pages 11-12 and notes.] Another copier read it as "Jenny". 14. It has been proven that the writer's James Garrason was a son of Ebenezer Garrason (died 1801) of Duplin Co. [See page 4 and notes.] That would make Levi Garrason (1804-1884) a grandson of Ebenezer and that could explain why he named his first and only son Ebenezer Benajah Garrason. 15. DHP not only accepted spurious material, he modified some data that could be proven to accommodate what he wanted to believe. The 20-year error made by Jedediah's granddaughter (see item 5 above) made him estimate Jedediah's DOB as the 1730s (actually Christopher's) so he pushed back Christopher's DOB to about 1700 and Isaac & Maria (Christopher) Garrison's DOBs a generation earlier. This allowed Christopher to more easily fit into the hogwash about 5 brothers who came from Scotland (of all places). [See page 15 and notes.] He had the ignorance and temerity to record those dates in a modern family Bible which now is in the IGI and was included in a volume of Family Bible Records published by the GA DAR. He must have thought that Christopher's christening 1730/1 was an adult baptism. The Dutch Reformed Church practiced infant christening like the Methodists do. [See page 4 and notes.] In closing let me say that I know some viewers will be upset by reading what I have written. I don't apologize because the shoddy genealogy performed by both the men I named above has done such a disservice to the truth about the Duplin County Garr*sons that there can be no recovery. Anyone who wants to express their feelings are welcome to email me. Please put "Outlaw Update" in the subject of your mail. 
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