Franklin Garrett, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller



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Franklin Garrett, the eldest surviving son of Isaiah and Narcissa Garrett,
was born in Monroe, La., on November 6, 1840; was educated at the local
schools to nine years of age, then for two years attended school in
Liberty, Miss.  Returning to Monroe, he continued to attend school until
1855, when he was matriculated at Louisiana (now Jefferson) college in the
parish of St James, remaining there a year; thence in 1857 to Centenary
college, at Jackson, La., where he remained until the summer of 1S59, when
he matriculated at the University of North Carolina, whence he was
graduated in a class of over ninety with distinction in June, 1861; entered
the confederate army in the Second Louisiana regiment soon afterward,
serving on the Virginia peninsula until his health was wrecked in the
spring of 1862, when he was discharged; resumed service in the staff
department of the Mississippi, and subsequently the trans-Mississippi
department of the confederate army.  In 1864 was commissioned in the staff
department and assigned to duty under Gen. P. 0. Hebert--subsequently put
in charge of the collection of supplies to maintain a part of the Missouri
and other troops under General Price in northern Louisiana--paroled at
Natchitoches in June, 1865, with the rank of captain; taught school in
Monroe after the war closed until November, 1865, when he became chief
clerk of the senate enrolling committee of the first post-bellum
legislature in Louisiana.  He studied law two years under his father, and
in March, 1888, was admitted to practice by the supreme court of Louisiana;
at once became partner with his father, the partnership continuing until
the death of the latter.  He was an active leader during all the era of
reconstruction from 1868 to 1876, and could at any time have commanded the
suffrages of his fellow-citizens but devoted himself to his chosen
profession.  He was attorney for Ouachita parish in 1877-78, formulating
many laws for the local guidance.  In 1880 was elected to represent Ward 3
of Monroe in the city council and re-elected for three successive terms,
during which period he acted as city attorney and drafted many of the laws
that now are in force in that city.  He was requested in 1880 to endeavor
to establish public schools in Monroe that should be representative.  He
devoted a number of years to the task and finally evolved model graded
schools wherein many children have been enabled to fit themselves for the
battle of life.  Starting with only $63 in the school treasury in 1880, he
retired from active management of the schools in 1888 leaving available an
annual revenue of nearly $6,000 besides comfortable buildings, etc.  In
1888 he was again selected to represent Ward 3 in the city council for two
years, and in the same year appointed by Gov. Francis T. Nicholls as the
member of the state board of public education for the Fifth Congressional
district and now occupies that position; has been active in local and state
and national politics as a democrat since 1868; is a democrat of the
strictest state's rights school, and delights to witness the confusion of
all the so called democrats who claimed that the "war" settled adversely
such doctrines in favor of the republican destructiveness of
centralization, in the light of the recent demonstrations for states'
rights and individual liberty throughout Kansas and the great Northwest.
Franklin Garrett was married in Shelby county, Tenn., to Miss Agnes M.
Bond, October 20, 1869, and four children--two daughters and two
sons--survive as issue of the union; Mrs. Garrett died early in 1887.  In
the latter part of 1889 Mr. Garrett was married to Miss Leila E. Johnston,
of Alabama.  He is six feet in stature, has dark hair and eyes and weighs
215 pounds.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 1), pp. 437-438.
Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.

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