III. SOME KEY CONCORD ABOLITIONISTS
III.J. The Garrisons:
Edward Jarvis was a physician and social statistician and, late in life, a historian of Concord. He was born and raised here and practiced medicine in town in the 1830s. Jarvis wrote in his manuscript Houses and People in Concord, 1810 to 1820 of the degree to which Jack Garrison and his family formed part of the fabric of community life: "Jack Garrison was a fugitive slave from New Jersey in the early part of this [the nineteenth] century. He married Caesar's daughter. He was a laborer, a wood-sawyer. It was a familiar sight his going about with his saw-horse on his shoulder and his saw on his arm. Both families, Caesar's and Garrison's, were independent. They earned a comfortable living and lived respectably in their homes. They had good houses, well furnished and kept neatly. They had a plenty to eat and to wear. Some of the ladies in the village in their walks called there and now and then were invited to tea. Mrs. Robbins and Mrs. Garrison always received them cordially and, as they were good cooks, they entertained their company in pleasant and comfortable manner. No white laborer's families were more respected. Garrison had two sons and two daughters. These were bright and intelligent and well trained at home. They went to the town school and were all good scholars. They associated on equal terms with the other boys and girls and were always acceptable companions in their plays when they came from school."
Jarvis's assessment of the degree to which the Garrisons were part of Concord life was no doubt somewhat rosy. Nevertheless, they associated on good terms with members of the abolitionist community. The fact that Susan Garrison opened her home to a meeting of the Concord Ladies' Antislavery Society on December 12, 1837 suggests in antislavery a significant bond linking the Garrisons to some of the town's white households.
