John “Jack” Garrison; Racial Inequality Then and Now

40 Years Enslaved, Forever a Fugitive

By 1810, John “Jack” Garrison 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, one of the first of The Robbins House’s residents. Under the threat of both the 1793 and 1850 federal fugitive slave laws, Jack was vulnerable to capture for the rest of his life.

New Jersey’s Gradual Emancipation

In February 1804, New Jersey passed a law providing for the “gradual emancipation of slaves” and became the last Northern state to begin the process of ending slavery within its borders. The 1804 act provided that children of enslaved people born after July 4, 1804 would be freed when they reached the age of 21 for women and the age of 25 for men. People held in bondage who had been born before these laws were passed remained enslaved until 1846 when they were considered indentured servants who were “apprenticed for life”. Slavery did not truly end in New Jersey until it was ended nationally in 1865 after the Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.

Signed with an “X”

Slavery denied Jack an education; he signed his name with an “X” throughout his life, but his surviving children went to Concord schools and were “literate and good students.” In his later years, Jack lived on and off at Concord’s 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 old1.

Symbol of a Cause

As the oldest person in town, Jack received a walking stick from the Town of Concord, and the Concord Female Antislavery Society printed his image on a calling card 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-Americans1; early symbols of the fight for freedom.

Thank you for educating yourself about Concord’s African-American and anti-slavery history.

Works Cited

1 “Jack Garrison – the Robbins House.” The Robbins House, 12 June 2020, robbinshouse.org/story/jack-garrison/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.

2 “John Garrison Right to Equal Employment Conclusion” The Robbins House, 2019, Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.