James Garrard
James Garrard served as the second governor of Kentucky from 1796 to 1804. He was the last Kentucky governor elected to two consecutive terms. Garrard County, Kentucky, created during his first term, was named in his honor. A number of his grandsons served in the Civil War.
About James Garrard in brief
James Garrard served as the second governor of Kentucky from 1796 to 1804. He was the last Kentucky governor elected to two consecutive terms. Garrard County, Kentucky, created during his first term, was named in his honor. A number of his grandsons served in the Civil War, including Union Generals Kenner and Theophilus T. Toulmin. He retired to his estate, Mount Lebanon, and engaged in agricultural and commercial pursuits until his death on January 19, 1822. In 1779, Garrard was elected to represent Stafford County, Virginia, on a schooner on the Potomac River. While serving in the Revolutionary War, he was captured by British forces, but refused to offer him free in exchange for military information. He later married his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Mountjoy, and had five sons and seven daughters. He died in 1822 at his Mount Lebanon estate, where he was buried with his wife and four of his children. He is survived by his son, James Garrard, who served as state treasurer from 1857 to his death in 1865. He also had a daughter, Mary Anne, who was a member of the Kentucky House of Delegates and served as a state senator from Kentucky until her death in 1883. He had a son, William, who became a farmer and served in Kentucky’s House of Representatives from 1793 to 1801. He served as governor from 1798 to 1799, and was the first resident of the state’s first governor’s mansion. He opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts and supported 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. He lobbied for public education, militia and prison reforms, business subsidies, and legislation favorable to the state’s large debtor class. He helped write Kentucky’s first constitution and was among the delegates who unsuccessfully tried to exclude guarantees of the continuance of slavery from the document. The state constitution adopted in 1799 banned the governor from succeeding himself in office, but he was personally exempted from this provision and was re-elected in1799. In his second term, his Secretary of State persuaded him to adopt some doctrines of Unitarianism, and he was expelled from the Baptist church, ending his ministry. He never returned to politics after his third term in 1804, and died at Mount Lebanon in January 1822, at the age of 80. He leaves behind a wife, Elizabeth, and five sons. His grandson, James H. Garrardson, was elected state treasurer in 1857 and served for five consecutive terms until he died in 1865, serving from 1856 to 1857. The Garrard family was moderately wealthy, and the Stafford County courthouse was built on their land. He and his wife had four children, all of whom participated in the War of 1812, including the Union grandson Kenner, who died in the Battle of the Bulge.
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This page is based on the article James Garrard published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
