My Genealogy Hound

Thomas Benjamin Garrett was born in Tyro, Miss., September 18, 1849, and is a son of James and Harriet R. (Sharp) Garrett, natives of Virginia, and descendants of one of its old families. James Garrett, the grandfather, was also born in that State, and was a member of the Baptist Church. Several ancestors of our subject fought in the Revolution and in the Mexican War. The mother was a daughter of Thomas Sharp, of Alabama, whose ancestors also were early settlers of Virginia. Thomas Benjamin Garrett passed his boyhood upon his father’s plantation, receiving a common-school education. He afterward attended the University of Mississippi at Oxford, graduating with the class of 1871-72. He then returned home, and occupied himself with mercantile life until 1873, when he was elected representative of Tate County in the Mississippi Legislature, which county he represented two consecutive terms. In 1881 he came to Arkansas and located upon a cotton plantation in Woodruff County, where he was engaged in farming and merchandising until 1886. He then sold his property, and coming to Fort Smith invested his money in the livery and transfer business. He is a prominent business man of the town, a member of the city council, and is a stockholder in the Fort Smith Ice and Coal Company, also in the Fort Smith Land and Improvement Company. He also took an active interest in the organization of the Fort Smith Natural Gas Company, of which he is a director. While in Tyro, Miss., he married Miss Ella Brown, daughter of Jesse and Mary Brown, natives of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Garrett are the parents of the following three children: Luella, T. B. and Ollie.