The Obsession Begins
My father got me started in genealogy as a hobby (obsession?) in the early 1980's. Then in the summer of 1987 we planned to attend our cousin's wedding near Buffalo, New York and decided to make vacation out of it. We would visit Washington DC, George Washington's home, Mount Vernon and stay at the Coll's Sea View House in Cape May, to gather information on our Garrison line who had lived in Middle Township in Cape May County, New Jersey. The main focus of this trip was planned so that we could actually locate the property where our Garrison ancestors lived during the Civil War. We (my dad and I) also made a trip to Turkey Point in Cumberland County, New Jersey. Jeremiah Garrison, my father's 2nd great grandfather was born at Turkey Point, and we also stopped at Dividing Creek Cemetery in Downe Township in Cumberland County along the way.
That trip was extremely remarkable as my father and I found the record of the sale of my father's great grandfather Jeremiah Garrison's property in 1869 to his uncle John Garrison just before they left for Sangamon County, Illinois. We also looked up the deeds for John Garrison as well as their father Abraham Garrison and found that this whole area of Middle Township in Cape May County, New Jersey at that time was known as Garrison Town. Many years later I wrote the Cape May Historical Society about Garrison Town and they did a lot of researching and found that Garrison Town was not an actual town such as Townsend's Inlet or Seaside but rather a descriptive name associated with an area such as Rabbits Row or the Cabbage Patch in Springfield, Illinois. It was called Garrison Town because of all our Garrison relatives that populated that area that is now part of what is known as the Beaver Swamp Fish and Wildlife Management Area.
My father and I chained down the abandoned railroad tracks following the original deed calls to "The Point of Beginning", the place where his great grandparents had actually lived and where his grandfather was born. Where his great grandfather Jeremiah left along with his brothers Robert and Benjamin to fight in the Civil War. While Three of them left, only Jeremiah and Robert came back. This little part of Garrison Town that we retraced and found was scattered with walnut trees along with very tall grass and brush. My father gathered fresh walnuts from the ground to take home with us to plant at the cabin on the Sangamon River across from Petersburg, Illinois. As he bent down to pick up the first walnut he said "grandpa, I'm home!".
This map shows the location and extents of the area known as Garrison Town as defined by the old deeds of the Garrison's living adjacent to each other in the 1870's. The map contains an inset to show where it is located within Cape May County. Garrison Town is contained within Middle Township but the northern boundary of Garrison Town runs along the township line between Middle and Dennis Townships.
On the left is the old railroad tracks we chained down in order to find the location of Jeremiah Garrison's property. On the right is my father John Wesley Garrison Jr. standing on the property where his great grandparents Jeremiah and Mary Anne Garrison once lived.
We found the above structure just north of Jeremiah's property but we were not sure if it was old enough to have been from the 1860-1870's time period. If it was it could have belonged to either Abraham (Jeremiah's father) or John (Jeremiah's uncle). The tombstone is that of Jeremiah's sister Anna Bell Garrison who drowned at the age of 16 in 1871. This would have happened just after Jeremiah and his brother Robert and their families left for Sangamon County.
Picture of me walking through one of the cemeteries we visited in Cape May County.