James Garrard
James Garrard was an American farmer, Baptist minister and politician who served as the second governor of Kentucky from 1796 to 1804. Because of term limits imposed by the state constitution adopted in 1799, he was the last Kentucky governor elected to two consecutive terms until the restriction was eased by a 1992 amendment, allowing Paul E. Patton's re-election in 1999.
After serving in the Revolutionary War, Garrard moved west to the part of Virginia that is now Bourbon County, Kentucky. He held several local political offices and represented the area in the Virginia House of Delegates. He was chosen as a delegate to five of the ten statehood conventions that secured Kentucky's separation from Virginia and helped write the state's first constitution. Garrard was among the delegates who unsuccessfully tried to exclude guarantees of the continuance of slavery from the document. In 1795, he sought to succeed Isaac Shelby as governor. In a three-way race, Benjamin Logan received a plurality, but not a majority, of the electoral votes cast. Although the state constitution did not specify whether a plurality or a majority was required, the electors held another vote between the top two candidates - Logan and Garrard - and on this vote, Garrard received a majority. Logan protested Garrard's election to state attorney general John Breckinridge and the state senate, but both claimed they had no constitutional power to intervene.
A Democratic-Republican, Garrard opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts and favored passage of the Kentucky Resolutions. He lobbied for public education, militia and prison reforms, business subsidies, and legislation favorable to the state's large debtor class. In 1798, the state's first governor's mansion was constructed, and Garrard became its first resident. Due in part to the confusion resulting from the 1795 election, he favored calling a constitutional convention in 1799. Because of his anti-slavery views, he was not chosen as a delegate to the convention. Under the resulting constitution, the governor was popularly elected and was forbidden from succeeding himself in office, although Garrard was personally exempted from this provision and was re-elected in 1799. During his second term, he applauded Thomas Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana from France as a means of dealing with the closure of the port at New Orleans to U.S. goods. Late in his term, his Secretary of State, Harry Toulmin, persuaded him to adopt some doctrines of Unitarianism, and he was expelled from the Baptist church, ending his ministry. He also clashed with the legislature over the appointment of a registrar for the state land office, leaving him embittered and unwilling to continue in politics after the conclusion of his term. He retired to his estate, Mount Lebanon, and engaged in agricultural and commercial pursuits until his death on January 19, 1822. Garrard County, Kentucky, created during his first term, was named in his honor.
Early life and family
James Garrard was born in Stafford County, Virginia, on January 14, 1749. He was second of three children born to Colonel William and Mary Garrard. Garrard's mother died sometime between 1755 and 1760; afterward, his father married Elizabeth Moss, and the couple had four more children. William Garrard was the county lieutenant of Stafford County, by virtue of which he held the rank of colonel and was in command of the county militia. The Garrard family was moderately wealthy, and the Stafford County courthouse was built on their land. During his childhood, James worked on his father's farm. He was educated in the common schools of Stafford County and studied at home, acquiring a fondness for books. Early in life, he associated himself with the Hartwood Baptist Church near Fredericksburg, Virginia.On December 20, 1769, Garrard married his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Mountjoy. Shortly thereafter, his sister Mary Anne married Mountjoy's brother, Colonel John Mountjoy. Garrard and his wife had five sons and seven daughters. One son and two daughters died before reaching age two. Of the surviving four sons, all participated in the War of 1812 and all served in the Kentucky General Assembly. A number of his grandsons served in the Civil War, including Union Generals Kenner Garrard and Theophilus T. Garrard. Another grandson, James H. Garrard, was elected to five consecutive terms as state treasurer, serving from 1857 until his death in 1865.
Garrard served in the Revolutionary War as a member of his father's Stafford County militia, although it is not known how much combat he participated in. While on board a schooner on the Potomac River, he was captured by British forces. His captors offered to free him in exchange for military information, but he refused the offer and later escaped.
While serving in the militia in 1779, Garrard was elected to represent Stafford County at the Virginia House of Delegates, and he assumed his seat for the 1779 legislative session. His major contribution to the session was advocating for a bill that granted religious liberty to all residents of Virginia; passage of the bill ended persecution by citizens who associated with the Church of England towards followers of other faiths and countered an effort by some to establish the Church of England as Virginia's official church. After the session, he returned to his military duties. In 1781, he was promoted to the rank of colonel.
Resettlement in Kentucky
Following the revolution, Garrard faced the dual challenges of a growing family and depleted personal wealth. Acting on favorable reports from his former neighbor, John Edwards, Garrard and Samuel Grant headed west into the recently created Kentucky County. By virtue of his military service, Garrard was entitled to claim any vacant land he surveyed and recorded at the state land office. Beginning in early 1783, Garrard made claims for family and friends, as well as for himself. Later in 1783, he moved his family to the land he had surveyed in Fayette County, which had been created from Kentucky County since his last visit to the region. Three years later, he employed John Metcalfe, a noted stonemason and older half-brother of future Kentucky Governor Thomas Metcalfe, to build his estate, Mount Lebanon, on the Stoner Fork of the Licking River. There, he engaged in agriculture, opened a grist mill and a lumber mill, and distilled whiskey. In 1784, he enlisted in the Fayette County militia.In 1785, Garrard was elected to represent Fayette County in the Virginia legislature. He was placed on a legislative committee with Benjamin Logan and Christopher Greenup to draft recommendations regarding the further division of Kentucky County. The committee recommended the creation of three new counties, including Madison, Mercer, and Garrard's county of residence, Bourbon. On his return from the legislature, Garrard was chosen county surveyor and justice of the peace for the newly formed county. At various times, he also served as magistrate and colonel of the county militia.
Although some historians have identified Garrard as a member of the Danville Political Club, a secret debating society that was active in Danville, Kentucky, from 1786 to 1790, his name is not found in the club's official membership records. Garrard's biographer, H. E. Everman, concludes that these historians may have mistaken Garrard's membership in the Kentucky Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge for membership in the Danville Political Club. The groups had similar aims, were active at about the same time, and had several members in common. Other notable members of the Kentucky Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge included Isaac Shelby, Christopher Greenup, and Thomas Todd, all future Kentucky governors or gubernatorial candidates.
Garrard's Mount Lebanon estate was designated as the temporary county seat of Bourbon County; the county court first convened there on May 15, 1786, and continued to meet there for many years. In 1789, the Virginia legislature established a permanent county seat named Hopewell, and Garrard was part of the committee chosen to survey the area for the city. He and John Edwards were among the new settlement's first trustees. Upon Garrard's recommendation, the city's name was changed to Paris in 1790. Soon after, he resigned as county surveyor to focus on more pressing needs of defense for the fledgling settlement. At his behest, the Bourbon County Court expanded its militia from one battalion to two at its meeting in August 1790.
Religious leadership
As early as June 25, 1785, Garrard and his friend Augustine Eastin attended meetings of the Elkhorn Baptist Association. In 1787, he helped organize the Cooper's Run Baptist Church near his estate. He was chosen as one of the church's elders and served the congregation there for ten years. Soon after its formation, the church joined the Elkhorn Baptist Association, and in 1789, it issued Garrard a license to preach. Although he owned as many as 23 slaves to work on his vast agricultural and industrial works, Garrard condemned slavery from the pulpit, calling it a "horrid evil". Whites and blacks participated equally in worship at Cooper's Run.Garrard and the other elders of the church started numerous congregations in the state, including one as far away as Mason County. In 1789, Garrard and Eastin began working to reunite the more orthodox Regular Baptists in the area with the more liberal Separatist Baptists. Garrard's former church in Virginia had been a Regular Baptist congregation, and Garrard was considered a Regular Baptist despite his clear advocacy for religious toleration and his open expression of liberal views. Although he never succeeded in uniting the two factions, he was chosen moderator of the Elkhorn Baptist Association's annual meetings in 1790, 1791, and 1795 in recognition of his efforts.
From 1785 to 1799, Garrard served as a trustee of Transylvania Seminary. In 1794, the Baptist and more liberal trustees united against the orthodox Presbyterian members of the board to elect the seminary's first non-Presbyterian president. That president was Harry Toulmin, a Unitarian minister from England. Toulmin's daughter Lucinda would later marry Garrard's son Daniel. As a result of Garrard's relationship with Toulmin, he began to accept some tenets of Unitarianism, specifically the doctrines of Socinianism. By 1802, Garrard and Augustine Eastin had not only adopted these beliefs, but had indoctrinated their Baptist congregations with them. The Elkhorn Baptist Association condemned these beliefs as heretical and encouraged Garrard and Eastin to abandon them. When that effort failed, the Association ceased correspondence and association with both men. This event ended Garrard's ministry and his association with the Baptist church.