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BIOGRAPHIES Pike County IL
Enoch W. Garrison was born in Posey county, Ind., Dec. 22, 1818. He is a son of Elijah Garrison, who landed his family in this county long before railroads were thought of and when the Indians and wild animals roamed at large, and the wolves made the night hideous by their constant howling. He located in Montezuma tp. Enoch W. hunted coons where Milton now stands, and on one occasion a panther chased their dogs from the hunting grounds. He was deprived of educational advantages, as there were no schools in the first settlement of this county. In a few years, however, came the days of subscription schools and teachers with ox gads in their hands; he attended school for a short time in a log cabin where Milton now stands. He has been married three times, and is the father of 8 children, of whom 4 are living; William, Lewis A., Hannah L. and Enoch W. Mr. G. is engaged in farming and stock-raising, and resides on sec. 2, this tp.; has been a hunter all his life; hunting and trapping in winter and farming during the summer.
History of Pike County 1880
Marriages in Pike County IL
'Enoch W. Garrison was, like his great great uncle, Daniel Boone, a famous hunter. He was a hunter all his life; farming in the summer, and in winter pursuing his hunting and trapping, often going on long hunting excursions during other seasons of the year. He stalked the deer and wild turkeys by the streams and in the woodlands of eastern and southeastern Pike county, and hunted coons where Milton now stands. On one occasion a panther chased his dogs from the site of modern Milton. He was a crack shot and stories were told in the pioneer settlement of his hunting prowess, even as they were told of his famous kinsman, Daniel Boone. In the art of "barking off" squirrels, he was reputed to be almost as expert as the great Boone himself.
"Barking off" squirrels is perhaps best described by the celebrated naturalist, John James Audubon (Ornithological Biography, pages 293-4), who once observed Daniel Boone in a skillful demonstration of this acme of the hunter's art. Says he:
"Barking off squirrels is a delightful sport, and, in my opinion, requires a greater degree of accuracy than any other. I first witnessed this manner of procuring squirrels whilst near the town of Frankfort (Ky.). The performer was the celebrated Daniel Boone. We walked out together, and followed the rocky margins of the Kentucky river, until we reached a piece of flat land thickly covered with black walnuts, oaks and hickories. As the general mast was a good one that year, squirrels were seen gamboling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale and athletic man dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle which, as he was loading it, he said had efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six-hundred-thread linen, and the charge sent home with a hickory rod. He moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so numerous it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these animals which had observed us and was crouched on a branch about 50 paces distant, and bade me mark well the spot where the ball should hit. He raised his piece gradually, until the bead (that being the name given by the Kentuckians to the sight) of the barrel was brought to a line with the spot which he intended to hit. The whip-like report resounded through the woods and along the hills in repeated echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece of bark immediately beneath the squirrel, and shivered it into splinters, the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the explosion of a powder magazine. Boone kept up his firing and before many hours had elapsed we had procured as many squirrels as we wished."
Enoch W. Garrison, it is said, could imitate with fidelity the various calls of the wild. His wild turkey gobbling, said to have been as perfect as that of the best Indian gobbler, lured many a wild turkey within range of his deadly rifle. He was able to point out many places where he had shot a young deer and slung it across his shoulders, sometimes toting the carcass for miles to his home to replenish the family larder with venison steak. He recalled having often seen as many as a half dozen deer feeding in a group, and knowing their favorite haunts and their accustomed watering places, he often lay in wait until he was able to bag a deer to his liking. He remembered having seen in the early days of his settlement here as many as a half dozen coons in a single tree; the wild bee he followed to its lair in some hollow tree trunk, thereby securing sweetening for the family table.
Fifty-six years ago, this grandson of the Boones, relating his pioneer experiences in Pike county, told of his lack of educational advantages, almost as meager as those of his illustrious kinsman, Daniel Boone. There were no schools, he said, when his family settled in the county. In a few years, however, came the days of subscription schools and teachers with ox gads in their hands; he remembered attending school for a short time in a log cabin where Milton now stands.
Enoch W. Garrison resided for many years on the SW sub-division of the NW fractional quarter of Section 2, Pearl township. Like his brother, Zachariah A., he was three times married. On December 14, 1839, he married Harriet Watters, a sister of Cyntha A. Watters, to whom his brother, Zachariah, was later married. This first wife died September 29, 1860, aged 39 years. Her son, Joseph R., died February 14, 1847, aged four days; another son, Silias (Silas) W., died August 19, 1845, aged one year and eleven months. Markers stand in Green Pond cemetery to these two great grandsons of the Boones, and also to the mother Harriet, wife of Enoch W. Garrison.
On October 29, 1860, Enoch W. Garrison was again married, his second wife being Sarah Bowen. On April 24, 1871, he married Mrs. Nancy Coats who survived him at his death. He became the father of eight children, the latest surviving being William Zachariah, who married Edna J. Butler, April 12, 1873; Lewis A. (Second of the name in Pike county), who married Martha E. Marshall, July 29, 1883; Hannah L., who married Levi Davis, December 26, 1870; and Enoch W., Jr., who first married Laura Butler of Montezuma, August 26, 1877. She died in Buckhorn, March 26, 1884, of spinal meningitis and typhoid, and is buried at Green Pond. Enoch's second marriage was with Fannie L. Long, August 7, 1884. She was a daughter of Thomas S. Long of Pearl Prairie, who was a native of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone resided prior to their removal to North Carolina in 1750. Fannie M. Long's mother was Mary Peacock, daughter of Henry Peacock, an early settler in Calhoun.
Enoch W. Garrison (the elder) was born in Posey county, Indiana, December 22, 1818, nineteen days after Illinois became a state; he died in Pearl township May 8, 1895, aged 76. He was eight years old when he came to Pike county with his parents. He, with numerous other Garrisons, is buried in Green Pond cemetery, in the southern part of Montezuma township, a short distance east of Illinois State Route 100, between Milton and Pearl. Here, on discolored and weather-beaten stones, may be traced the names of many of Boone lineage."
History of Pike County By Jess M. Thompson:
With the Elijah Garrisons came their children, Elizabeth, Zachariah A. and Enoch W., all born in Posey county, Indiana, from which place the family came to Pike county, Illinois. In a wagon, drawn by a yoke of oxen, came these early Garrisons, following John Garrison, who had come the year before. At Joel Meacham's ferry, where now is the town of Montezuma, they paid fifty cents to have their wagon and ox team ferried from the Scott to the Pike county side of the river. Then they drove four miles inland and settled in the then deep timberlands near the site of present Cross Roads school house, south of modern Milton. Indians roamed the region in large numbers; wild game was abundant on every hand. In the forests sang birds that are no longer known and at times the skies were darkened by wild pigeons. The son Enoch, then eight years old, becoming a great Pike county hunter, told in his latter years of the deer and wild turkeys and other wild life that abounded about their early settlement. Elijah and Sally Garrison were both natives of Kentucky. Following their marriage they had settled in Posey county, Indiana, whence they came to Illinois, following her parents and brothers and sister Polly, and his brother, John Garrison, another Christian minister, who was in the Montezuma neighborhood as early as 1825. Settling near the present Cross Roads school house, one mile south of Milton, the Garrisons there built a rude log house; Milton was yet unborn. Here Elijah Garrison acquired directly from the United States the SW quarter and the west half of the SE quarter, and from James Mason the east half of the SE quarter of Section 9 in Montezuma township, a total of 320 acres embracing the entire south half of the section, at the southwest corner of which is now Cross Roads school. In acquiring this property Elijah Garrison entered into a mortgage contract with James M. Seeley, early Pike county sheriff, and in the end, having obligated himself too deeply and having lost heavily in various speculations, he was reft of all his land. He then moved into the Illinois river bottoms, where he died January 30, 1840. His wife Sally, elder sister of Polly Boone Thornton and Jonathan and Lewis Allen, died in 1846. She had administered her husband's estate, the records of her administration being on file in the office of the Pike county clerk. From these records it appears that this widowed daughter of Dinah Boone had a bitter struggle meeting the demands of creditors of her husband's estate. Her son, Zachariah A. Garrison, was her surety as administratrix. In September, 1840, before Probate Judge Parvin Paullin, one of the creditors, Richard C. Robertson, from whom Elijah Garrison had borrowed money at 12 per cent interest, in a petition to the court, represented that Sally Garrison's security was insufficient and that there was danger of the estate being squandered to the prejudice of the creditors unless the administratrix be required to give additional and sufficient security. Whereupon a citation was issued and she was haled into court to furnish additional security or show cause why letters of administration issued to her should not be annulled. She thereupon furnished as additional security her kinsmen by marriage, William and Joseph Gale and Thomas Davis. The above came from Rootsweb World Connect - website of "Kayla"
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