Jack Garrison

Caesar Robbins’ son-in-law
c. 1768 – 1860, 92 years

40 YEARS ENSLAVED, FOREVER A FUGITIVE
By 1810, John “Jack” Garrison, Sr. had fled his enslaved life in New Jersey for freedom in Concord. Here he found work as a woodcutter and day laborer for Concord residents. In 1812 he married Caesar Robbins’ daughter, Susan. Defying both the 1793 and 1850 fugitive slave laws, Jack was vulnerable to capture for the rest of his life.

SIGNED WITH AN “X”
Slavery denied Jack an education; he signed his name with an “X.” His surviving children went to Concord schools and were “literate and good students.” In his later years, Jack lived intermittently at the poor farm until his son John could afford to remove him. Well into his 60s, Jack walked about town “with his saw-horse over his shoulder and his saw on his arm.” He lived to be about 92 years old.

SYMBOL OF A CAUSE
Jack received a walking stick from the Town of Concord, and the Concord Female Antislavery Society printed his image on a carte de visite used to raise awareness of the antislavery movement. Jack’s and his son John’s photos are the only known images of early Concord African Americans.

(Photograph of John “Jack” Garrison, courtesy of the Concord Museum, concordmuseum.org)