Lesson 85: Jack Garrison, 1768–1860
Some background: in 1823 in Concord, Mass., a 544 square-foot farmhouse came into the possession of Peter Robbins, son of Revolutionary War veteran Caesar Robbins. Peter's family lived in one side of the house and his sister Susan's family lived in the other half. Susan's husband, John "Jack" Garrison was himself an escaped slave from New Jersey, settling in Concord, Mass. as a woodcutter and day laborer. He married Susan Robbins in 1812 and moved into the farmhouse with her family in 1823. He would forever be looking over his shoulder, however, due to the fugitive slave laws of 1793 (and later 1850).
As an escaped slave, Jack was unfortunately illiterate but his children went to Concord schools. Jack was well-known about the town even into his sixties, “with his saw-horse over his shoulder and his saw on his arm.” In 1844 Ralph Waldo Emerson famously delivered a scathing antislavery speech at Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond cabin, in which he mentioned the Robbins family by name. Significantly, the Concord Female Antislavery Society (which included members of Thoreau's family) printed Jack's image to raise awareness of the antislavery movement. This particular image --the basis for my humble ink-and-watercolour illustration-- is one of the only known images of early Concord African Americans.
Today the house stands as a powerful landmark and a testament to the determination of free Blacks to support themselves on the land, and to shape their own destinies.
Visit the Caesar Robbins House in Concord, MA: http://robbinshouse.org/learn