Biography - CALEB GARRETT
Caleb
Garrett, son of Isam and Mary (Puckett) Garrett, was born in Clinton county,
Ohio, on the 6th of July, 1816. In 1819 the family moved to Randolph county,
Indiana, and, in 1823, to Vigo county, in the same state, where they
remained until the final removal to Illinois. Whilst in the former state,
the residence of the family was generally on the Fort Harrison prairie and
about four miles south of Terre Haute. Caleb was about seven years old when
the family resided near the latter place. He was educated at a subscription
school; his father being a man of education, he progressed under home
instruction and learned rapidly. In 1830 his mother died in Vigo county,
Indiana, and for several years thereafter Mr. Isam Garrett and his two sons,
Caleb and Nathan, kept house for themselves. In these days Caleb drove an ox
team for L. H. Scott; he worked in the corn field for twenty-five cents a
day, and made fence rails at from twenty to thirty cents per hundred,
averaging one hundred and fifty for a day's work. He went into the printing
business at the office of the Western Register in Terre Haute under Judge
Amery Kinney and John W. Osborn, the proprietors of the office. Mr. Garrett
returned to farming for a while, and also worked as a carpenter and builder
under Dr. Thomas Parsons, and having finally resolved to think and act for
himself he returned to his favorite pursuits, farming and stock-raising,
making success in them the object of his future life. He was for several
years a tenant of Chauncey Rose, the well-known millionaire, for whom at the
outset he worked at the ordinary occupation of a farm hand, during which
time he made thousands of rails at the then usual very small compensation;
and here began between the two men a warm personal regard, which was only
terminated by the death of Mr. Rose. In 1833, in the company of George
Jordan, the father of I. L. Jordan, of Tuscola, and of Levi Westfall, an
uncle of R. E. H. Westfall, of Garrett township, and also with a Kentucky
friend, Mr. Garrett passed through this portion of Illinois, partly to
indulge his love of adventure and partly to look up a location for a future
home. The trip began at Terre Haute, by Baldwin's store, in Edgar county,
Sadorus Grove, and into Springfield, Beardstown and Quincy, then a wild,
sparsely settled country. Mr. Garrett returned to Terre Haute by way of
Meredosia, on the Illinois river, to Springfield and Decatur. From 1833 to
1839, pursuing his natural bent for exploration and adventure, he followed
flatboating down the Wabash, the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans.
The boats, made generally by the owner, were from eighty to one hundred and
twenty feet long, and were laden to the gunwale with corn, pork and other
produce. In 1840 he started from Terre Haute bound for New Orleans per
steamer, and upon reaching the Wabash rapids they were run upon the rocks by
a drunken pilot. Garrett and two others hired a skiff, and, crossing the
river to Mt. Carmel, Illinois, they chartered a hack and repaired to
Evansville, at which point they took the large river steamer Louisiana with
two companions, one bound for the mouth of the Cumberland, the other for the
Tennessee. After a tedious voyage he arrived at New Orleans, took a
steamship and passed out to the gulf, and after a very stormy passage
arrived safely at Galveston. He went thence to Houston, and there failing to
get a conveyance, started on foot through Texas. He arrived at a house where
he was offered and accepted the use of a pony. The next day he was presented
with a horse by a Dr. Heard, and proceeding got into the vicinity of hostile
Indians. He became for the nonce a Texas ranger, in which capacity he
experienced considerable fighting with the Indians. In Travis county, Texas,
Mr. Garrett married Miss Irene Puckett, a daughter of Thomas Puckett. With
her he left Texas in an ox wagon loaded with pecans and dry hides. Thev
arrived at Houston and took a steamer to Galveston, and thence to New
Orleans, and by the Mississippi to Evansville, Indiana, landing March 5,
1841; they shortly alter arrived in Vigo county, that being the county in
which his wife was born. Mrs. Irene Garrett has always been remarkable for
an open-handed liberality toward her less fortunate neighbors, which
dispensed generally from her own private means earned her the blessings of
the poor. In Vigo county Mr. Garrett returned to farming and stock-raising,
during which time, about 1842, he was elected to the Indiana state
legislature, and at the succeeding term was re-elected. In 1845 he made his
second trip to Illinois, and in 1846 bought land in the west part of Tuscola
township, near the present farm of William Brian. He finally sold this land
and located in the forks of the creek on section 3, township 15, range 7. He
also selected one hundred and sixty acres of land, being lots 2 and 3 in the
northeast quarter of section 3, township 15, range 7, and hewed a set of
walnut logs for a home. In 1856 Mr. and Mrs. Garrett revisited Texas,
including a long trip in a carriage by Price's Springs and Brazos Falls in
Cherokee county, where he examined lands; thence to Palestine and Marshall,
from which place they went forty miles to Shreveport, Louisiana, thence by
steamer to the mouth of Red river, and by a similar conveyance to
Evansville, Indiana, reaching home November 8, 1856, which was then Coles
county. He then began improving his lands with orchards, barns and
dwellings. Mr. Garrett's lands in Garrett township at one time covered
nineteen hundred acres. In 1875 he sold these lands and reinvested in
Tuscola township, having concluded to settle in Tuscola City. He was the
first supervisor of Garrett township, which had been instituted with the
other townships in 1868, and he was also a member of the first grand jury in
Douglas county. Mr. Garrett always took a deep interest in all the public
affairs of Douglas county.
Extracted 09 Jun 2019 by Norma Hass from the Historical and Biographical Record of Douglas County, Illinois, published in 1900, pages 200-202.
