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Notes on the Remarkable Rev. Charles Garner Sr.: Part One
Philip Ruth, Research Coordinator
March 6, 2023
I became acquainted with Charles Garner Sr. through my research into the life and relationships of Adeline Lawson Graham. Finding two of Charles’ daughters described in a 1909 newspaper article as Adeline’s “nieces” drew me to a deeper inquiry into the Garner family. I eventually identified Charles as the son-in-law of Adeline’s half-sister Mary Ann Gilmore, by virtue of his 1868 marriage in Bellefonte to Mary Ann’s daughter Mary Rebecca. Along the way, I learned that the Garners were Bellefonte residents from the late 1860s through Charles’ posting to the Tyrone AME chapel in 1891. During his decades in the Centre County seat—spanning a period in which the County’s Black population reached its numerical zenith—Charles made quite a name for himself, as well as for his namesake son, Charles Garner Jr., the first Black graduate of Bellefonte’s High School.
The date, location, and circumstances of Charles’ birth have not been firmly established. His daughter Julia Melissa told the person filling out Charles’ death certificate in 1924 that her father had been born in Pennsylvania on August 12, 1845, and had lived 79 years, 11 months, and 25 days before dying on August 7, 1924 in the Garner home in Danville, Montour County. As computed by a birthdate calculator, someone dying on that date at that age must have been born on August 13, 1844 (rather than the stated August 12, 1845). Julia Melissa also reported that Charles’ father was a Pennsylvania native named Joseph Garner, while the identity of Charles’ mother—or at least her name—was not known. Did that mean Charles had little or no memory of his mother, perhaps because she had died when he was young? Or had the adult Charles referred to her so rarely that she was unknown to his children?
Charles consistently informed federal census enumerators that his mother had been born in Pennsylvania. He was less consistent in reporting his father’s place of birth. In 1880 he told a census enumerator that his father was a native Virginian. Two decades later, Charles claimed that his father had been born in Maryland. He acknowledged in 1910 that his father’s birthplace was “unknown.” Then, in his final opportunity to officially address the matter for census purposes, he reported in 1920 that both of his parents had been born in Pennsylvania. That leaves the impression that Charles knew little of his parents’ origins, perhaps because he had lost touch with them at an early age.
An obituary for Charles published in the Danville Morning News more specifically located his birth in Berwick, Columbia County. That assertion was repeated in an obituary for his daughter Julia Melissa, and again in the marriage record of Charles’ son Daniel. A Findagrave entry for Charles, on the other hand, maintains that he was born in Clinton County, abutting the northeast side of Centre County. That contention jibes with a note included in one of Charles’ military records (discussed below), following his enlistment in the Union Army in 1863 as a substitute for a resident of Lock Haven, Clinton County.
Only one household recorded on federal census schedules across central Pennsylvania in 1850 resembles Charles’ reputed birth family. Enumerated in Washington Township, Lycoming County, roughly seven miles south of Williamsport, the household comprised Black 36-year-old laborer and Pennsylvania native Joseph Garner, his 28-year-old, Pennsylvania-born partner Deanna, and the couple’s son Charles. The latter was said to be ten years of age, implying his birth around 1840. If this son of Joseph and Deanna Garner was future AME pastor Charles Garner Sr., and he was truly ten years old in 1850, the birth year ascribed to him on his death certificate (1845) must have been off by a few years.
The Garner family enumerated in Washington Township in 1850 was one of only two Black families recorded in that municipality, the other being that of farmer Bennett Tann and his wife Dinah. A decade later (1860), the Tanns were the only Black residents enumerated in Washington Township (as recounted in this article, the Tann family remained in the township until 1869, then took advantage of the Homestead Act and moved to Rutland, Montgomery County, Kansas, where they became neighbors of the family of future author Laura Ingalls Wilder). Why were no Garners enumerated in Washington Township in 1860? That question remains unanswered. Unfortunately for anyone researching Charles Garner’s boyhood, no entries for him or his parents have been located in 1860 federal census records.
Charles’ presence in Williamsport on September 4, 1863 was documented through his signing of an agreement there to serve “as a Soldier in the ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for the period of THREE YEARS.” He had not been drafted (at the professed age of 19, he was a year younger than the minimum draft age specified in the recently passed Enrollment Act of 1863), but had volunteered to serve as a substitute for draftee Robert Washington, a Black resident of Lock Haven. Charles signed the agreement with an X, apparently unable to write his name. The main body of the document (reproduced below) reads as follows:
Number 40.
Substitute Volunteer Enlistment.
State of Pennsylvania
Town of Williamsport.
I, Charles Garner, colored, born in the state of Pennsylvania, aged 19 years, and by occupation a _____, do hereby acknowledge to have agreed with Robert Washington colored, Esq., of Lock Haven, Clinton County, Pennsylvania, to become his substitute in the military service, for a sufficient consideration paid and delivered to me, on the Fourth day of September, 1863; and having thus agreed with said Robert Washington, I do hereby acknowledge to have enlisted this Fourth day of September, 1863, to serve as a soldier in the army of the United States of America, for the period of Three Years, unless sooner discharged by proper authority; I do also agree to accept such bounty, pay, rations, and clothing as are, or may be, established by law for soldiers. I do solemnly swear that I will bear true and faithful allegiance to the United States of America; that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whomsoever; and that I will observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles of war. Sworn and subscribed to, at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, this 4th day of September, 1863, before me John Hepburn, Justice of the Peace.
Charles R. Garner (his mark)
A certification appended to the agreement cited Charles’ height as 5 feet 4½ inches. That measurement would be bumped up half-an-inch in a “Company Descriptive Book” entry for Charles recorded a few days later, which further specified his occupation as “laborer” and his birthplace as “Clinton, Penn.”
The man for whom Charles substituted had been drafted as “Rob Washington (colored)” in Lock Haven a few weeks earlier. In the draft register compiled in May and June of that year, Washington had been identified as a 25-year-old “colored” waiter, born in Virginia. How much he paid Charles to take his place in the army does not appear to be a matter of record.
Charles must have departed Williamsport soon after signing the Substitute Volunteer Enlistment agreement. Four days later (September 8, 1863) he mustered into service at Camp William Penn, in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, becoming a private in Company K of the 6th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops. He must have impressed his superiors, as he was promoted to sergeant only eight days after mustering in. Among the approximately 120 members of Company K were at least two Bellefonte residents: Edward Mills, a younger brother of Company F private Lewis Mills (and thus an uncle of future Bellefonte barber William H. Mills); and Jacob Williams, about 25 years of age, son of Bellefonte African Methodist Episcopal Church trustee John Williams.
A timeline of the 6th United States Colored Infantry Regiment’s two-year history is laid out in a Wikipedia article. The regiment’s activities during the middle months of 1864 are recounted there as follows: “The unit participated in action at Bailor’s Farm on June 15, 1864, before taking part in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. . . . The 6th [Regiment] served in the trenches around Petersburg up to June 18 and then did fatigue duty at Dutch Gap Canal until August 27, 1864. From there, the regiment moved to Deep Bottom and later participated in heavy action during the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm at Fort Harrison on September 29 and September 30.” The events of September 29—a monumental day in the life of Charles Garner—were recounted by Samuel Bates in his 1871 History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865, as follows:
On the 29th of September, General Ord, in command of the Eighteenth Corps, attacked and carried a long line of intrenchments below Chapin’s [sic] Farm. At the same time, General Birney advanced from Deep Bottom, driving the enemy on the New Market Road, back to the heights. In this movement, the Fourth and Sixth Colored [regiments] had the advance, and gallantly pushed the enemy, until he had arrived at his intrenchments forming the outer defences of Richmond. Here a halt was ordered, and preparations were made for an assault. The enemy was strongly posted and was in heavy force; but at the signal to advance, the Sixth went gallantly forward in the face of a withering fire which thinned its ranks at every step. In its course, it was obliged to cross a small stream, and then an open field; but without wavering, it pressed on until more than half its numbers had fallen, and nearly all its officers were lost; when, seeing the fruitlessness of further pushing the charge with so weak a force, the signal was given to retire.
In the course of that battle, sergeant Charles Garner suffered a deep flesh wound in his left thigh from a minnie ball. He was taken first to Hampton Hospital at Fort Monroe (60 miles southeast of the battle site), then, on October 18, to the Summit House General Hospital in Philadelphia, for surgery. His Summit House admission ticket (reproduced below) indicated that his most recent residence was in Milton, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and that he lived there with his “friend, Mr. Ritchard Bowen.”
Charles’ comrade-in-arms Edward Mills was more seriously wounded at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm. Military service records indicate that Edward was spirited to the Fort Monroe Hospital within hours of that bloody engagement, then remained there for the duration of the war. Among the many other casualties of the two-day battle “on the New Market Road” was Edward’s brother Lewis, a private with Company F (and father of Bellefonte apprentice barber William H. Mills). Lewis’ injury was apparently less severe than his brother’s, as he spent only a few months in the Fort Monroe Hospital before returning to service.
Charles Garner also recuperated over the course of several months to a condition that allowed him to rejoin his comrades. He and other members of Company K were stationed in Raleigh, North Carolina when rebel forces surrendered in April 1865. The companies of the 6th Regiment were then dispatched from Raleigh to Wilmington, North Carolina, where they remained until mustering out on September 20, 1865.
No records of Charles’ actions and whereabouts during the next couple of years have been found. We might imagine that he ended up settling in Bellefonte by 1868 at least partly through the influence of the two Bellefusians with whom he served in Company K: Edward Mills and Jacob Williams. Or perhaps other Bellefonte residents in the 6th Regiment—such as Company F’s Lewis Mills and William Green—urged Charles to seek his fortune in Centre County (look for more details concerning long-time Bellefonte porter William Green in a series of posts focused on his wife Mary Miller Green Delige). Whatever the inducements, Charles Garner found in Bellefonte an established community of free Blacks numbering upwards of 150. He must have been drawn to one of them in particular—Mary Rebecca Gilmore—as they were married in 1868.
We noted in earlier posts that Mary Rebecca was a daughter of Mary Ann Lawson Gilmore, and was thus a granddaughter of Isaac and Sarah Lawson. Mary Rebecca’s death certificate, for which Charles served as primary informant, indicated that she had been born on July 12, 1847, in Lewistown, Mifflin County, to William Gilmore and an “unknowen” mother (in light of many documented instances of nineteenth-century data recorded on twentieth-century death certificates turning out to be less-than-accurate, we should allow for the possibility that the information provided by Charles concerning Mary Rebecca’s origins was based on his understanding and memory rather than historical records). The “July 12, 1847” birth date is more or less consistent with census data recorded in August 1850, when Mary Rebecca and her baby sister Rosetta were enumerated in the household of their grandparents Isaac and Sarah Lawson on Bellefonte’s E. Bishop Street. Mary Rebecca’s age was recorded on that occasion as “2,” implying her birth as early as August 1847 and as late as July 1848. But had she really been transported to Bellefonte from a birth place in Lewistown? That seems less likely, especially given Charles’ notation on her death certificate that her mother’s name was “unknowen” (sic). It is hard to believe that in 1921 Charles no longer recalled the name of his mother-in-law Mary Ann Gilmore. He had lived near her in Bellefonte for nearly a quarter-century, then had served as administrator of her estate following her death in 1892.
That death certificate is our only document identifying Mary Rebecca’s father as “William Gilmore.” I have found no record of a man by that name living in central Pennsylvania during the mid-nineteenth century. Mary Rebecca’s mother Mary Ann, meanwhile, was documented in 1850 living with and working as a domestic servant for the family of Quaker ironmaster George Valentine and his wife Mary Downing. Ten years later (1860), Mary Ann was reunited with her daughters Mary Rebecca and Rosetta in a house in Bellefonte’s South Ward, a short walk from the home of Mary Ann’s father Isaac Lawson, which he now shared with his second wife Milky and daughters Adeline and Julia.
Mary Rebecca Gilmore turned 21 around the time of her marriage to Charles Garner. An index of Centre County marriage licenses indicates that “Mary Gillman” and Charles Garner were married in a “Meth[odist] Epis[copal]” church in Bellefonte on March 26, 1868. We can safely assume the wedding was performed in the African Methodist Episcopal Church that had been standing on Halfmoon Hill since 1860. The newlyweds welcomed daughter Julia Melissa into the world on May 30, 1869.
The Garners were thus a family of three when they were enumerated on July 14, 1870 in a rented residence in Bellefonte’s North Ward. Charles was eking out a living as a domestic servant, while Mary “kept house” and took care of baby Julia Melissa. Unlike most of his white neighbors and even some Black residents of Bellefonte, Charles had not been able to accrue any savings, let alone acquire any real estate. He told the visiting enumerator that he and Mary were both able to read, but that only he was able to write.
Charles and Mary Garner built wealth of a different sort over the course of the next 22 years, as Mary gave birth to twelve more children. Ten of them lived long enough to warrant recording on census schedules and/or death certificates:
- Charles Gilmore, born on March 19, 1871 (named partly after his father and partly after his grandmother)
- Mary Jane, on April 6, 1874 (partly named after her mother)
- Joseph, on January 21, 1877 (presumably named after his paternal grandfather)
- John, in or around April 1880
- Adeline L., on December 9, 1881 (likely named after her half great-aunt Adeline Lawson)
- Lydia (Lida) Conference, on October 1, 1883
- James Blaine, on February 9, 1886
- Bessie Melvina, on July 28, 1888
- Estella Rosaline, on September 23, 1889
- Daniel Lancaster, on October 26, 1892
As she would report in 1900, Mary Garner gave birth to 13 children from 1869 through 1892. Sadly (but not surprisingly for that era), three Garner children died in infancy. One of them was John, recorded as two months old on census schedules compiled in June 1880. The names and genders of the two other Garner children who died young don’t appear to be a matter of record.
Just as he had impressed his superiors in the 6th Regiment, Charles Garner quickly earned the respect of fellow citizens in his adopted hometown. That esteem, coupled with voting rights granted to Black men by the 15th Amendment in 1870, put Charles in position by January 1874 to stand for election as Bellefonte’s next high constable. His effort was rewarded in mid-February when he was elected to that position “by a 50 vote majority” (according to a note in the February 19, 1874 edition of Centre Hall’s Centre Reporter, which identified the winner as “C. Garner, negro”). As only 35 Black residents of Bellefonte had gained the right to vote through passage of the 15th Amendment, Charles must have earned votes from numerous white neighbors.
In a historical sketch of Bellefonte’s Police Department penned in 1970, local historian Hugh Manchester claimed that “Charles Garner [was] one of the first African-Americans in a Pennsylvania borough to be elected to public office.” The writer did not explain how he had come to that conclusion. The high constable office to which Charles Garner was elected in February 1874 typically required its holders to enforce borough ordinances, execute warrants issued by local justices, collect fines, carry out arrests, police crowds, and generally maintain the peace. In recent years, Bellefusians had elected a High Constable at each annual election, then paid him a yearly salary of about $30. That was not a living wage, so high constables usually secured other sources of income.
Charles Garner’s service as Bellefonte’s high constable in 1874 was noted in Greevy and Renner’s Directory of Lock Haven, Bellefonte, and Philadelphia & Erie Railroad, 1874-75 (see inset, below). The directory further indicated that Charles was then living with his family in a house along Cherry Alley, above Penn Street, on Jail Hill. The only house-like structure denoted in that location on an 1874 map of Bellefonte (see detail below) stood in the rear of a residential lot owned and occupied by Meshic Graham, the “grandfather” of Bellefonte’s Black barbers. If the Garners were not Graham’s tenants, they were at least his near neighbors.
Charles Garner apparently didn’t run for re-election in 1875. As reported by Hugh Manchester, “on July 9, 1874, [Bellefonte Borough] Council saw fit to appropriate an annual sum of $350 for a paid police force. . . [On] May 18, 1875, Mayor Sternberg . . . prevailed upon Council to enact the Borough’s first ordinance establishing the Police Department. Three policemen were thereupon hired.” Charles Garner was not among the new hires.
I have yet to learn how Charles made his living from 1875 through 1878, nor what he experienced during those years as the father of a growing family in Bellefonte. That gap in his personal timeline may not be filled until more Bellefonte newspapers from that period are digitized. From 1879 onward, however, his activities were frequently documented in newspaper accounts, church records, and legal documents—as we shall see in Part 2 of these “Notes on the Remarkable Rev. Garner.”