Notes |
- 1850 Jefferson Co (Taylor Bayou Settlement) Census: Living in residence 11/11. Residence 9/9 was Leonard Hayes. Obviously related, but not sure this is where he fits into Garner family.
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Military service: Between 10-5-1835 and 12-4-1835, Texas Revolution, Battle of Bexar. First s heriff of Jefferson Co., TX He was a Captain in the Texas Rev. and Member of 4th Congress of Republic of TX.
In 1885 David Harman, a descendant of James Taylor White gave a fascinating affidavit about his experiences as a very young soldier in the Texas Revolution. Following is an excerpt from the affidavit:
At the first call for Volunteers in the Municipality of Jefferson in 1835, I volunteered in Capt. David Garner's Company. The Company was mustered at Claiborne West's House on Cow Bayou in the municipality of Jefferson (now in Orange Co.).
We were ordered (as I understood) to San Antonio, and on our way to San Antonio we went by San Felipe. There being dissensions in the Council, then in session, we were detained sometime I can't remember how long, awaiting the results of the council (my neighbor Claiborne West being a member).
GARNER, DAVID HESS (1807-1864). David Hess Garner, soldier, sheriff, and Republic of Texas congressman, son of Bradley and Sarah Rachel (Harmon) Garner, Sr., was born in St. Landry or Rapides Parish, Louisiana, in 1807. His father was a native of Maryland who moved to Louisiana about 1790 and fought in the battle of New Orleans. David moved to Texas in 1825 with four of his seven siblings, Jacob Harmon Garner, Isaac Garner, Anne (who married Claiborne West), and Sarah (Mrs. John) McGaffey, and settled at Old Jefferson (the site of present Bridge City) on Cow Bayou.
To help resist Antonio Lp?ez de Santa Annaqv in 1835, Capt. David Garner organized a compan y of volunteers. Armed with flintlock muskets and Bowie knives, his group of nineteen men, including his brother Jacob, set out for San Antonio. They arrived at the camp above Bexar on November 16, 1835. On December 4 Garner and his men were mustered into the company of James Chessher and Willis H. Landrum. Garner participated in the siege of Bexar under Gen. Benjamin R. Milam, which resulted in the capture of Gen. Martn? Perfecto de Cos. He was discharged from the army on December 13, 1835. On January 22, 1838, he received a headright certificate for a third of a league of land in Jefferson County. For his service at Bexar he received a donation grant of 640 acres. On December 14, 1838, he receive d a bounty certificate for 320 acres for service from October 5 to December 13, 1835.
On September 18, 1839, Garner married Matilda Hampshire in Jefferson County. They became th e parents of eleven children. The 1840, 1850, and 1860 census list Garner as a farmer and stock raiser. He was elected sheriff of Jefferson County in 1839. He was elected representative to the Fourth Congress of Texas (1839-40) and served one term. He was again elected sheriff of Jefferson County in 1843 and was reelected to the office in 1845. In 1855 he moved his family to old Indianola, where he continued to engage in the cattle business.
During the Civil War Garner, now too old to serve in the army, supplied the Confederate troops with beef. When his son Jacob Hampshire Garner, who had served in the Thirty-third Cavalry, returned home, he found his father penniless, though loaded with Confederate money and still a patriotic citizen of Texas. Garner died in old Indianola on April 10, 1864. His gravestone bears the Masonic emblem. His wife was a devoted Methodist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: James Cox, Historical and Biographical Record of the Cattle Industry (2 vols., St. Louis: Woodward and Tiernan Printing, 1894, 1895; rpt., with an introduction by J. Frank Dobie, New York: Antiquarian, 1959). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).
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Pioneer Reminiscenses of Jefferson County
by T.J. Russell
February 11, 1906
To the Journal:
One of the early settlers in southwest Texas was David Garner, who left many children an d whose descendants to the third and fourth generation are numerous and are among the best ci tizens of the county, and have filled many important positions in offical life and in privat e life and business.
At this late date but little can be learned of his early history. However, this much is known , that he was a resident of Louisiana in 1825 on Bayou Beouf, but whether in the Parish of Ra pides or Avoyelles is unknown. He at that time had a wife and grown children and was engage d in planting and raising stock. It was in 1825 that John McGaffey married the oldest daught er Sarah, and w___ at a later date of nine years located his headright league at Sabine Pass , this county.
David Garner at a later date moved to Texas and died and was buried in her sacred soil. H e raised a family of several children of whom were Sarah, married John McGaffey; Rachel, wh o married Benjamin Johnson; anther daughter who married Claiborne West, who later lived on Co w Bayou, Orange County, Below the railroad crossing and near the place where Larkin R. Thoma s lived at a later date, and who represented Jefferson County in the Consultation at San Feli pe de Austin in 1834, where the first movement foe the independence of Texas was made. His so ns were Jacob, who lived in Sabine Pass and was injured somewhat during the great storm and o verflow there October 12,1886, and died soon after. He(Jacob) left behind him several childr en, all of whom are numbered among the useful citizens and much respected . First Leonard, de ceased, who lived on Johnson Bayou, Louisiana, and was a minister of the gospel; Milton, no w in Beaumont, who raised several children.; a daughter Anna, who married Allie Brock, a prom inent citizen of Beaumont; Bradley, now in the city. The daughters were Anna, married John Mc Call, now dead, she is still at Sabine Pass; Alice, married a Mr. Garrett, who is dead, she r esides at the Pass.
Bradley Garner a son of David Garner Sr., was drowned in Sabine Pass over sixty years ago , while on a visit to see a sick sister in Louisiana; Isaac, who moved away from here befor e the Confederate War, is dead; David Garner was at one time in the early days sheriff of th e county and subsiquently moved to west Texas.; he married a Miss Matilda Hampshire, sister o f Captain Lovan Hampshire of Taylor's Bayou. A full history of all the mambersof the family c annot be given now, but all of them have led exemplary, christain lives, free from any charge s of unlawful violence upon the persons and property of others.
The McCall brothers were natives of Pennsylvania and were raised in what was known as th e Rapp Settlement, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, situated on the south bank opof the Ohi o River. The settlement was a community of people who held all property in common and often a ssisted those who had lived there but had gone away, when in distress . The writer hereof, i n behalf of John McxCall , after the diasterous flood at Sabine Pass in 1886, made applicatio n to the society for assistance. for him, to which a generous gift was made.
David Garner at one time, during the thirties lived in the place known as the Big Woods, C alcasieu Parish, Louisiana, near the present site of Edgerly. It was there that his daughte r Rachel married Ben Johnson, later of Sabine Pass. Of his daughter who married Claiborne Wes t, but little of the family history is known. West kept a small settlement store in an earl y day on Cow Bayou. In 1836 he contributed largely to the equipment of soldiers going to th e front to fight President Santa Anna at San Antonio, and subsequently moved to Gonzales Coun ty and died there at an advanced age. In 1839 he was one of the fifty seven men reported a s a compitent juryman in the county. He was a prominent man in the affairs of the public in t he county, was looked up to as an authority in many respects.
Of David Garner's descendants no one has ever been indicted by a grand jury. among his gre at great grandchildren is the child of Allie Brock, Esq. There are several others, among the m the grandchildren of Hon. B.J. Johnson of Sabine Pass.
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