DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, pull up a chair, because this is the story of a man who showed up in Texas before Texas was even Texas. Jacob Harmon Garner was born in Louisiana in 1814, the son of Bradley and Sarah Harmon Garner.
And somewhere along the way, the Garner family made a decision that would set young Jacob on a course through some of the most consequential years this state has ever seen. In 1825, he settled in Jefferson — a village sitting on Cow Bayou in what is now Orange County, Texas. A village.
Not a town, not a city. A village on a bayou. That's where this story takes root.
Now here's where it gets interesting. By 1835, Jacob Garner wasn't just a settler anymore. He was a soldier.
He took part in the Grass Fight and the Siege of Bexar — two of the early, gritty engagements of the Texas struggle — and he did it while serving the first of two enlistments in the Texas Army. Two enlistments. The man went back.
For those two tours of duty, he later received land and bounty grants. The Republic had a long memory when it came to men like Garner. He married Matilda Hayes in 1838, and settled into the life of a prominent citizen of Jefferson County.
And prominent is the right word, because Jacob Garner had a particular talent for showing up wherever there was work to be done. In 1843, he served as Jefferson County justice of the peace. By 1846, he was district clerk, and he held that post all the way through 1850.
Then in 1857, he turned up as a Sabine Pass alderman. And in 1861 — with the country tearing itself apart — he stepped forward again, this time as a third lieutenant in the Confederate Army. Jacob Harmon Garner died in 1887.
A Louisiana boy who came to a bayou village in 1825 and spent the better part of six decades woven into the very fabric of the place. Justice of the peace, district clerk, alderman, soldier — twice over before statehood, once more after. Some men just can't seem to stay on the sidelines.
Jacob Garner was plainly one of them.
What the marker says
(1814-1887) Louisiana native Jacob H. Garner, son of Bradley and Sarah Harmon Garner, settled in Jefferson, a village on Cow Bayou in present-day Orange County, Texas, in 1825. In 1835 he took part in the Grass Fight and Siege of Bexar while serving one of two enlistments in the Texas Army for which he later received land and bounty grants. He married Matilda Hayes in 1838. A prominent citizen of Jefferson County, he served as Jefferson County justice of the peace in 1843, district clerk from 1846 to 1850, Sabine Pass alderman in 1857, and as a third lieutenant in the Confederate Army in 1861. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995