Henry Garrett

  General Notes:

A Henry Garrett is listed in the 1790, 1800, and 1810 Federal Census records of Rockingham County, N.C.
1790: Henry Garrott; Rockingham Co., NC, 1 white male 16 and over, 4 white males under 16, 1 white female including head of household (must be just Henry w/o a wife which agrees with 1906 letter from Poet Garrett), 0 all others, 0 slaves.
1800: Henry Garratt; Salisbury, Rockingham Co., NC. page 482, 3 males & 1 female under 10, 1 male aged 10-15, 2 males & 1 female aged 16-25, 1 male over 45, 1 female aged 26-44, no slaves (looks like Henry has a new wife).
1810: Henry Jarret [Garrett]; Rockingham Co., NC. page 33, 1 male & 1 female under 10, 2 males & 1 female aged 10-15, 3 males aged 16-25, 1 male over 45, 1 female 26-44, no slaves.
1820: The only Garrett (or Jarrett, etc...) listed in Rockingham Co., NC is James Garret: 2 free white males under 10, 0 10-16, 0 16-18, 0 16-26, 1 26-45, 0 45 and older / 2 free white females under 10, 0 10-16, 0 16-26, 1 26-45, 0 45 and older / 1 person engaged in agriculture, no slaves.
These census records appear to indicate Henry was born around 1755 and according to Powhatan (Poet) Garrett's 1906 letter became a widower by 1790. By 1800 he had remarried a younger woman and had several children by her. Henry appears to have died or have left Rockingham Co. before 1820. These facts are consistent, with the exception of slaves, with the description of the family history given by Henry's grandson, Poet (Powhatan) Garrett in a 1906 letter to his nephew, James Garrett. See notes on Poet Garrett (son of James) for the transcription of his entire letter.


In a 1906 letter to his nephew Jimmie P. Garrett, Poet (Powhatan) Garrett relates that his grand father [Henry Garrett] did not approve of his father's [James] marriage to Elizabeth Sims. He writes: "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

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family until after father was grown and began to ….. to mother -- which old Grandpa was very much opposed to [the marriage] and told father that if he married that Simms girl that he would cut him off intirely and never give him a cent. At that time, mother said, Grandpa Garrett was well off and had a good many negroes and soon after she and father married he sold all his land and went to Tennessee somewhere near Nashville and that was the last they ever know of them."

(see notes on his sons, James and Joe)

Henry married Sarah "Sallie" Starling. (Sarah "Sallie" Starling died circa 1789 in Rockingham Co, NC.)