Person:James Garten (2)

James, third son of Elijah Garten, was born August 30, in one of the critical years of American history, 1788. The Federal Constitution had lately been drawn up and by June of that year ten states had ratified it. George Washington was inaugurated President of the United States in the following year; and his salary of $25,000 a year was the highest paid to any man in the republic. America did very little manufacturing. The territory west of the Allegheny Mountains was an unsettled and almost unknown wilderness.

The birthplace of James Garten was on the French Broad River some distance above Knoxville, Tennessee. (Note: It is more likely that he was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia.) However there was no such state at the time as Tennessee was still part of North Carolina. Wild as the country was he received a rudimentary education probably in a subscription school. When twenty-two or twenty-three years of age he married Betsy Sears. It was not long after that he, along with his father-in-law’s family, migrated into Kentucky. A year or two later the two families moved into the new state of Indiana. The Sears family stopped at Orleans, while James Garten and wife came on to near Fayetteville, now Lawrence County, but then part of Orange County. Betsy Sears Garten died bearing twins December 14, 1824. The mother and the twins were all placed in the same home-made coffin and buried in the Shiloh Cemetery near Fayetteville. The husband later secured a suitable slab of stone out of which he made a monument. This stone bearing a crude time-worn inscription marks the last resting place of the noble pioneer mother.

The following were the children of James and Betsy Garten:

Sally Cyrene Garten, born September 2, 1814; John Lowry Garten, born July 15, 1818; Nancy Brock Garten, born Mary 12, 1820; and William Cravens Garten, born August 7, 1822. The oldest was born in Kentucky.

Shortly before the death of his wife, James moved to Springville, Indiana. There he married Lydia, the daughter of John Gray. James bought 160 acres on the edge of the infant town of Springville. His west line was what is now the main street running north and south through the place. The farm was covered with a heavy growth of fine beech, poplar, and other timber. He built a two story hewn-log house, still known in Springville as the “Old Garten house”, on the southwest corner of his farm and overlooking the town. The poplar logs in this building are some of the finest the writer has ever seen. At the foot of the rising ground where the house stands and north and west of it, is the “old Garten spring.”

Having all his life in southern states James Garten believed that he could raise cotton in this new state. He and his neighbor, Zimri Vestal, tried several experiments with the staple crop of the south, but had to give it up. But this failure did not prevent him from being a leader in the introduction of new ideas and improved agricultural methods in his community. Among his achievements was the introduction of the Peacock plow, the first plow with an iron mold-board to be used in the Springville neighborhood, if not in Lawrence County.

In 1835 he, assisted by his brother-in-law, Ephraim Gray, and a few neighbors, drove a her of cattle across Indiana to the thriving town of Chicago. The country between Springville and Lake Michigan was chiefly open range. There were no roads nor railroads, but trails. There were no bridges over any of the streams. But in spite of the hardships of the journey, the venture was quite profitable. The cows cost from $10 to $15 each and they sold readily in the Windy City at $40 to $50 per head.

In 1839 the subject of this sketch moved to Daviess County locating in that part of Madison Township then called Paddy’s Garden, but now known as Farlen. He first bought a preemption right to 40 acres from a man named Nick Feltner. The price was $100 and a yoke of steers. There was a cabin on this land and into it he moved his family while a house was being built.

This cabin was situated near a very fine spring which is about a quarter of a mile west of the present Farlen store. In common with other Hoosier dwellings this cabin contained no windows. This lack was soon supplied by James Garten for he had a pane of glass set in the wall at one side of the big fire place so his wife could see to knit. This window was an innovation to the neighboring settlers. Everybody, far and near, had to come and see it, and there was much speculation as to why a man should be so extravagant.

About this time he sold the 130 acres or so of his land that the town of Springville had not absorbed for about $3200, a good price for that time. He then proceeded to astonish the natives some more by erecting, in 1840, a frame house, the first to be built in Madison Township. There were no saw mills then, so the lumber had to be sawed with a whip-saw.

Did somebody ask how the whip-saw worked? Well, it was like this. Each log as it was to be sawed was rolled upon a low platform. One man stood on the platform and another stood below. These two applied to the log a long crosscut saw. First the log was squared, then one side was lined by a chalk mark, and then the first board was sawed. It took a long time to prepare materials for a house in this way, and this particular house had four rooms and was weather boarded not “boxed”. The shingles were hand-made, and the windows were brought from New Albany.

This house stood until about 1900 when it was torn down by the owner of the land. It stood across the “branch” west from the Feltner cabin. The north end of the building was toward the road. There was a long porch the full length of the house on the east side. The roof on the west side had a long slope. It was never painted, although the part inside the porch was usually kept white washed.

In 1853 wife, Lydia had died. She was buried in the cemetery near the Mt. Olive Church. Today it is known as the 2nd Mt. Olive Cemetery. James then married Sarah Amanda Laughlin in 1854

The farm grew in size, and when Eli Booth bought it in about 1855, contained 320 acres. It was in that year that accompanied by his sons, Zimri and Harve, James Garten moved to Iowa to join the Rhodes relatives. The trip was made in three wagons, and it required several week’s time.

Those familiar with the financial history of the nation know that Jackson upset the U.S. Bank, the paper currency of the country, composed of bank notes generally, was extremely unstable. For this reason the Gartens cashed all their money into gold. The entire amount $5000 Zimri hauled to Iowa and back. During the winter the family spent there this money was never taken from its hiding place in his wagon.

Joe Rhodes of Fremont County, Iowa, was a brother-in-law of James Garten, having married Betsy, the youngest daughter of Elijah Garten. He was unsuccessful in winning his relatives to the new state. In the fall of 1856 they returned to Daviess County, Indiana.

(This ends the history as written by James Edwin Garten)

James and Sarah Amanda Laughlin Garten raised a child, Henrietta Maude Laughlin who was born in 1849 in Daviess County, Indiana. She was the daughter of Sarah. Her father’s identity is not settled. The James Harvey Garten family Bible lists her with the surname of Laughlin, though someone was marked through the name and written “Garten”. Her death certificate lists her father as James Garten. While this is not impossible even considering his advanced age of 71 at the time of her birth, he was married to Lydia Gray at the time. Sarah Amanda Laughlin was living with them at the time of the birth and possibly before. Also living with them around this time was James Garten’s nephew, a son of his sister, Nancy Garton Browning. The nephew was Elijah Garton Browning, a young man of 16 or 17 who was listed as a saddler in the 1850 census. It is much more likely that he was the father of Henrietta. Whatever the truth is here, Henrietta used the surname Garten until her marriage to Harvey Newton Correll of Odon.

Another writing of Grandpa Garten’s relates how James “Jimmy” Garten and wife, Lydia, were asked to leave the Methodist Church because of the parties they had for the neighborhood young people at their house. Apparently dancing was a little too raucous for the Methodists in that area.

James Garten at one time owned much land in what became the town of Clark’s Prairie or Odon. He owned the land in the eastern half, beginning with the north-south street next to the old United Brethren Church in town. He had donated the land for the church building.

James saw two sons, Zimri Vestal and James Harvey, go off to fight for the Union in the Civil War and return wounded. Son, William Cravens, the oldest surviving son with a family to support, paid a replacement to serve his time in the Union army. He watched over the farms of Zimri and James Harvey during their service.

On May 30, 1874 James Garten died. He was laid to rest next to his second wife, Lydia, mother of Zimri V. and James Harvey, in the 2nd Mt. Olive Cemetery east of Odon near Farlen.

1.  
   1930.

   "Ed" wrote several biographies of his ancestors including this one. Notes have been put in the text in parentheses where I have more information than he did when the biography was written.