Powhatan Green Garrett

  General Notes:

Powhatan was also known as Poet.
Laurel Oak Cemetery
aka: Windsor City Cemetery
T43, R24, S12 - Windsor Township
Smith Street (Hwy E), Henry Co, MO
384 known burials from 1853 to 2005
Landowner: Laurel Oak Cemetery Association
Directions: On the southeast side of Windsor. Six blocks SW of downtown Windsor on Main Street (Hwy 52), then SE (left) on Jefferson Street to end at Smith Street (Hwy E), south (right) on Smith.
Notes: Most artistically planned cemetery in Henry County, Missouri. Laid out in circles and curves.


In 1843 the Garrett family went to Missouri and stayed. Jarrett Bolden and William Starling returned to Rockingham Co., N.C. Other Garretts returned occasionally for visits.


Below is Clara Garrett Fountain's transcription from a microfilm copy of the family history notes from Grady Garrett, p.9822-9835; typed exactly as was handwritten. This transcription is a copy of a letter from Powhatan Green Garrett [in Missouri], son of James Garrett and Elizabeth Sims, to his nephew, James Price Garrett [in Rockingham, NC - father of Grady Garrett], son of William Starling Garrett and Mary Ann Eliza Price. "Jimmie" had notified his "Uncle Poet" of "Walter Trent's death". Poet is reflecting on our mortality and then responds with some family history facts. For clarity, there are attempts, within parenthesis, at minor clarifications edited by Bo Hagen. Portions of the letter have been copied into the notes for individuals who have been referenced herein.

R. F. D. 15
Windsor, Missouri
March 2, 1906
[page 9822]
Dear Jimmie,
I set myself to try in my poor way to drop you a few lines in answer to your good letter of the 25 of Feb which was gladly received yesterday bringing us the sad news of Walter Trent's death. Oh death is a sad thing for all of us poor helpless mortals something that is as common as the rising and the setting of the sun but still something that we cannot comprehend or get used to when it comes near home and takes off our dear ones. We lost our dear little boy which was as dear to us as life itself and I felt that I could not stand or bear to give him at the time but today I would not call him back if I could to suffer in this world of trials and troubles for years and at last have to go. He died at the age of ten months and ten days so I felt that the dear little fellow is now basking in the arms of his blessed Savior who said while on earth that of such is the Kingdom of heaven. Our Savior also said that except ye become as little babes you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven. Dear Jimmie do you not think that he meant by that that we all have to get to the point that we give up

[page 9823]
all self and lie passive in his hands and put all of our trust in him and ..... to say with the past ..... in my hands I bring myself to thy cross, I cling just as your poor old sinful ........ today perfectly helpless. All the hope that I have is in what my blessed Savior has ....... and nothing that I have or ever can do. I have been real sick all of the time since I last wrote to you -- have the grip. Sunday two weeks ago I felt that my time was about up -- have been confined in the house all of the time since -- not able yet to do anything at all -- not even make fired in the stove. Sister Sue has been poorly too all this winter. We, like you, have had an uncommonly mild winter but awfully changeable and damp and more mud than I ever saw before, I think, though we are apt to think the last the worst as it is manifest in our minds. Our land is now soaking wet -- nothing done in the way of farming. I doubt if we get to sow any oats this spring at all. It is clear today but the wind is blowing a storm from the south which is almost sure to bring falling weather of some kind. This is a terrible time on people that have to move. [Everie?] (Mason Everett) Perry (son of his sister, Mary Garrett Perry) has not moved to his new house yet and he cannot until the roads get better. They tell me that the roads are impassable even for horse-backers. Our mail man comes afoot with the mail. He has a 25 mile route

[page 9824]
cannot see how he makes it on foot. Bobbie [Robbie] walked with him from our box to Tom Perry's the other day and carried his mail sack for him that far and Bobbie said that he was about broken down carrying it the quarter of a mile. Our mail box is at the same place and I never pass that gate at the creek willow thinking of you as you were when I saw your dear face for the last time and maybe forever but right then I fully expected to see you again in Windsor but fate had it otherwise. I am real sorry to hear that Susie [Sinlie?] , and Mr. Loftis are all in delicate health (Susie is Jimme Garrett's sister). It does seem to me that Susie would have been much better off to have staid [sic] single than to have tied herself to that poor old man with a house full of helpless children but you know that Soloman says that the things that are, are that that shall be. I often think of what Susie said in one of her letters to Addie's girls (Addie is Poet's sister) that you took on terribly about her marrying an old man with a house full of children (Susie's husband, Robert Loftis had 6 children from a previous marriage) but she was satisfied and would not swap places with you right then. "Well," says I, "poor foolish girl if she is satisfied." All of the rest had ought to be but I feel sure that the poor girl is having things that she knew nothing of in her younger days. She was raised to know nothing of want all of her life -- had a good kind mother and father to provide for all of her wants. Of

[page 9825]
course I do not doubt but what the man that she has is as good to her as he is able to be but kindness alone will not make a living. My mama said that ....... [kindness] killed a cow one time. I am glad to hear that you and family are well. I would love to see your nice lovely house in Salem. I saw the town but only from the train when I passed through there in the fall of 1900 -- spent half a day in Roanoke. That is a beautiful city -- everything looked so clean and tidy. I walked all up and down the railroad track and crossed a high bridge that was over the railroad tracks but I was lost so that I did not know east, west, north, or south but saw the town all the same and I well remember the old yellow negro woman that went for me rough shod for spilling on the depot floor. Yes, Jimmie, there is nothing like having plenty of good kind neighbors in the world and it does seem to me that was I like you and had that lovely house in a nice town in a good healthy climate and plenty of this world's good to do me that I would spend the remainder of my days right there. You are now too old to take up a start afresh. The best fortune that one can have in this world is a contented mind. You know all the ways of your country and people while you know nothing at all of ours and you are ..... too old to break up and try new country's new ways and new people. I will put Missouri today against

[page 9826]
any place in the world for pure pride and lowdown selfishness too much ….. land is ….. all of the time. Farms that would have sold the fall that you were here at $60 per acre are selling now for $100 -- some farms selling now for $200 per acre. The country seems to be full of money but I look for a crash soon of some kind but ….. but the Lord knows what the end will be. I look for trouble in that …. mess. The first thing that we know we will be at war with the whole world. These United States have gotten too big and I feel that the Lord will set them back in some way ere long. The world today is full of pride and false religion. The dollar is ruling the world today. Stop the dollar and you will stop about all the religion in the world today. Well, Jimmie, I am too weak to write more today so will stop and if able will write a little more tomorrow and maybe tell you all that I know of our ancestry which is very little. I, like you, would like to know more than I do. Saturday morning the 3rd. We are all up this morning but I have a slight headache and still feeling very weak but will try to write a little more for fear that I get to feeling worse. We are again into a blizzard. The wind turned to northwest last night and blew a storm all night and still blowing this morning -- had a fall in temperature of about 40 degrees since yesterday but still

[page 9827]
not so very cold -- stands this morning at 32 above zero, but feels like it might be at zero. The wind is the trouble and it is full of fine icy snow. This is one of Missouri's greatest faults -- so much high wind and sudden changes from cold to hot, wet to dry, and that is the trouble with all of this western country. Well, Jimmie, I will now tell you what little that I know of the Garrett family. I do not remember of ever hearing our father saying anything of his family but one brother Joe that he said died on a boat on the Mississippi River and was buried on the bank of that river and remember hearing him say that Joe was his favorite brother. He had four or five older brothers but if any sisters I never heard of them. I have heard my mother say that old Grandma Garrett died at the birth of father. Therefore father knew nothing of his mother but through hearsay. I was at grandmother's grave in 1854. She was buried on the bank of a creek that ran between our old homestead and your Pa's. The grave was fenced in with chestnut rails that were then almost washed away and carried off by hornets and wasps and I was told that those rails were the same that were put there at first and if so they had been there since from 1785 (or, 1789) in 1854 which would be about 69 (or, 65) years that these rails had lain there which is wonderful. Now I know nothing more of the

[page 9828]
family until after father was grown and began to ….. to mother -- which old Grandpa was very much opposed to and told father that if he married that Sims girl that he would cut him off entirely and would never give him a cent. At that time, mother said, that Grandpa Garrett was well off and had a good many negroes and soon after she and father married he sold out his land and went to Tennessee somewhere near Nashville and that was the last that they ever know of them. So by that means father and mother started out in the world as poor as the poorest and the bad part of it was that father was very delicate -- not able to do hard work at all but mother was real stout. I have heard her say that when brother Tom was a baby that she would take him to the field and tie a sheet to two saplings and put brother Tom in the sheet and hoe corn while father would plough and go to the baby every hour or two, nurse him, then back to the hoe again until noon, then all go to the house, father feed his horse, then help get dinner, eat, then both clean up and both back in the field again and work the same way until night. Brother Tom was born the 25th of November, 1811. In November, 1813, Brother Bole was born. Then they had two but mother still made a hand in the field and kept both babies in the sheet. All ….. days that they could not work in the field father

[page 9829]
would work in the house ….. and spin, sew, knit in fact could do any of the housework just as well or better than mother. He was a tailor by trade -- he always made all the boys' clothes. He in their first days would spin the ….. for the …. and mother the flax for all of their summer clothing but as soon as Brother Tom and Brother Bole got large enough to reach the spinet they were put to spinning too. All of my brothers were good spinners but me. Your Pa was a good spinner but I have heard mother say that he always hated to do it and would slip out whenever he could. She said that Brother Joe was the best boy spinner that she ever had. There were eight boys and but four girls and two of the girls were among the youngest. They would make the boys work in the field during the day and spin at nights which boys at this age of the world would think ….. papers but they were happier then than now. Your Pa was always the favorite of the family with father, mother, and all of the rest seemed to look on him and the King of the hive. All from him down were made to mind and obey him in all things. We younger ones would just as soon think of disobeying father or mother as him. Brother Will was never much on the work himself but was always a real good hand to have it done by others. That much I feel sure that you have

[page 9830]
learned of him very long ago. Well, the history I have of the Sims family (Poet's mother's family) is not very good but such as I have I will give it to you but would not to everyone. Old Grandpa Thomas Sims was I guess a good old man himself but raised a hard lot of children -- had ….. girls and three boys. He, I have heard mother say, was at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and saw him hand General Washington his sword. I remember hearing old Uncle Mason Fewel gagging old Grandma Sims about the way old Grandpa Sims asked for her. The old man said to Grandma's father, Mr. Wall, "I want Amy." "Well, what do you want with her?" "I want her for my wife." "Well," said the old man, "Damn you, take her." I well remember how ….. old Grandma would blush when Uncle Mason would tell the joke before her. Old Grandpa Sims was a strong old-time primitive Baptist. I have heard mother say he would sit for hours and read his Bible and the tears would run down his cheeks. Well, as I said, poor old Grandpa and Grandma Sims raised a hard lot of children except two -- mother and poor old Aunt Sallie Sneed. I don't know if you ever saw her -- she married a rat and the poor old fellow got drunk and froze to death while we were in that country in the winter of 1853-54. I do not know

[page 9831]
how long Aunt Sallie lived after that but the poor old lady saw no peace during Sneed's life though they lived together a long, long time. I well remember that before we left that country in the fall of 1843 that poor old Aunt Sallie would come to our house begging for meat and the poor woman would take a large side of bacon on her back and carry it home several miles. Poor old Aunt Sallie was a good woman but had no man to help her raise her family; therefore she had to beg. Old Aunt Nancy Lemons (maybe you have seen her) was always a hard egg, had children, at least a child, before marriage, by Uncle Tom Lemons and Grandfather made them marry afterwards. Uncle Dick Sims killed himself drinking and Uncle Jim did too and no doubt but what Uncle Jesse would have killed himself too had he staid in that old country but after coming to this country he quit and did fine until his wife left him and his family and Uncle Wash Lemons's family got to intermarrying and all fell out and broke up. Bob Sims you know married Betty (Betsy) Jane Lemons and Ann Sims you know never married but has children both black and white. I did not see Ann while there the last time and did not want to but did see Betsy Jane and if you want to know just how your old Grandma Garrett looked in her last days go to see Bob Sims's

[page 9832]
wife. She looked when I saw her in 1900 just as much like mother as two blackeyed peas but oh she does not act like her any more than black is like white. Poor old Uncle Jesse Sims had a fine farm of 300 acres and gave it all to a family to care for him in his last days. The farm now, I have no doubt, would bring $50 or $60 per acre. It is in Casw[well]. Co. near the county seat and choice land might bring $100 an acre. So you see what bad stock brings about, so I guess that I have said enough about the Simses but I believe that I will tell you of what I know of one of Grandpa Sims' brother's family. One of our mother's own cousins came to this county in 1854 from KY by the name of James Sims. He had four sons and two daughters and had a sister in Lynchburg, Va. Henry Douglass is a son of Bettie Sims a dau. of old Uncle Jimmie, mother's own cousin therefore. These Simses are the same kin to us as the Walls and Fewels but altogether a different stock of people. Henry is the only one of this Sims stock that was or is worth a hill of beans and I have an idea that Ellen Garrett his wife made the difference in him. One of Henry's boys I think will do well in the world but the other I think too full of Sims to ever amount to much if anything. He now takes run away spells, jumps on the railroad sometimes and is gone for days to no one

[page 9833]
knows where, then back again when his pocket change gives out. So you see that your Pa was right when he told Brother Bob that every family had to have a tail and that I was the tail of ours. So I guess that I happened to get too much Sims in my blood but do hope that the dear old brother was mistaken when he said it, for I do feel that I have made a better show in the world than some of my brothers but I do not thank myself but the blessed Lord for it. I have plenty of this world's goods and have a clear conscience that I have never ….. my fellow man out of one cent knowingly and have given lots to them that were worse off than I. I make it a point never to give to them that are as well or better off than myself. I have had a hard road to travel in this life. Father died when I was 14 years old and left little besides the land after all was sold and divided by 11. There was but $40 apiece five years after his death. Mother, Sister Sue, Brother Bob, and I all went to that country and staid about 18 months. Sister Sue nor I had ever been to school any. She staid at W. B. Trent's and went to school all of the time while I went but nine months -- went four months of the time to a free school at the old log school house where I guess that you all went in after years, then subscribed to a subscription school at Uncle Jimie Trent's old dwelling

{page 9834]
house ….. of W. B. Trent's I think about a mile. John Price was our teacher. I entered for ten months but only went five -- had to stop to come back home to Missouri in April, 1855, but had to pay for the whole ten months which cost me $15 -- had a sick spell and had to pay Dr. Hairston $15 doctor's bill. So that left me but $20 in the world when I started back to Missouri and after getting back I spent all of that for a saddle and bridle aiming to break wild horses for the use of them. Oh what a fool that I was but I soon tired of that as they would let me ride the same horse but a few times until I would have to take a fresh one. So I bought me a two year old horse and worked seven months for him and his feed, broke him gentle to ride, sold him for $95, then bought me a two year old filly, kept her two years, broke her gentle to ride and she was a beauty and I wanted to keep her but a friend from north Missouri staid all night with me on his way to Texas and fell in love with the mare and told me that if I would sell him the filly he would go back to Randolph Co. and marry and not go to Texas at all. "Well," say I, "That is the rub. I do not wish to part with the filly." He then threw down six $20 gold pieces, then asked me which I had rather have the bay or the yellow. I told him the bay. So he laid

[page 9835]
another $20 on the pile. Still I told him that I had rather have the bay. Then he put one more $20 saying that that was the last. "Well, George," says I, "you have now got me in the tightest place that I ever have been in but I know that I had ought and will take the yellow," but from that day to this I never have owned a finer animal than that and never have hated worse to see one go. I never heard of him but one time since. Well, Jimmie, I will write no more history this time for fear that I will bore you out -- may, if I live, write you more of my history some time but I have now got to the place that I know not minute that I will be called away from time and timely things. I sent your good letter over and let Sister Sue and Bettie read it as they enjoy your letters just as much as I do. They are both in usual health but Sister like myself is failing fast every year now. I got a good long letter from dear Alice Joyce yesterday. She said that all were well. She bragged much on Katie's being so nice and sweet and being so glad to see her -- said she had not seen her for 3 years before. Jimmie, that is ….. . She said that Lulie had brought her a nice horse and buggy. Have a nice letter from Eliza Trent and Joe Garrett too. I have been blessed with many good letters since I have been …. .
I do wish that Anna your sweet wife would write to me once in a while. I would surely love to see you and all of your sweet family again before I have to leave this world. Well, dear Jimmie, this is another long but poor letter and maybe the last …., but the blessed Lord knows. Hoping that the Lord will bless you and yours. I will now, with love to you and your sweet family, bid you goodbye. Your old …. Uncle Poet.

[Poet lived another 8 years]


Biographical Sketch of Powhatan G. Garrett, Jefferson Township, Johnson County, Missouri
From "The History of Johnson County, Missouri,"
Kansas City Historical Co. 1881
POWHATAN G. GARRETT, P.O. Windsor [Jefferson Township, Johnson County, Missouri], is one of the quiet, honest citizens of the township. He was born November 24, 1834, in the state of North Carolina. He came to Missouri with his father when only nine years of age, in the year 1844. His father, James Garrett, was born in 1785, and died in 1848. The subject of this sketch was one of twelve children, eleven of whom lived to be grown, and had families. He is a brother to J.W. Garrett, whose sketch appears elsewhere. Robert fell at the battle of Lone Jack, August 16, 1862. J.W. was also in that fight. Both were on the side of the South. His first teacher was 'Squire Dick Taylor, who taught in a log cabin near Windsor. He was married in 1872 to Miss Mary L. Russell, daughter of William A. Russell. Four children were born, three of whom are living: Annie E., Lillie M., James M., (dead) and Robert A. Mrs. Garrett was born February 5, 1848. Mr. Garrett owns a beautiful farm of 140 acres of fine black limestone soil, in section 29, township 44, range 24. The land is underlaid with excellent coal, and has some living springs. In politics he is a true democrat. He is a faithful and consistent member of the Primitive Baptist church. His beautiful residence is on the southern slope of "High Point." As a man he stands high in his community.

Powhatan married Elizabeth J. Street on 15 Nov 1865 in Johnson, Missouri. (Elizabeth J. Street was born circa 1842 in Johnson Co., Missouri and died circa 1868 in Jefferson Township, Johnson Co., Missouri.)

Powhatan next married Mary Louisa Russell on 20 Oct 1872 in Johnson Co., Missouri. (Mary Louisa Russell was born on 5 Feb 1848 in Guilford County, North Carolina, died on 6 Nov 1932 in Johnson Co., Missouri and was buried in Laurel Oak Cemetery, Henry County, Missouri.)