MORRIS JEFFERSON GARRISON

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 504
Monongalia

MORRIS JEFFERSON GARRISON. Without disparaging man
whom destiny makes prominent in state and national af-
fairs, the highest credit belongs to those who help mold
and improve the standards of living and the welfare of
their home community. Such men do the duties that lie
nearest them, and are satisfied with the achievement of
that most difficult thing, winning the esteem of people
who have known them intimately all the days of their lives.

Such an enviable character was the late Morris Jefferson
Garrison of Wadestown, Monongalia County. He was a
merchant, a high minded citizen who worked steadily in
behalf of things that only remotely concerned his own
prosperity, and he enjoyed the love and fellowship of both
his family and a wide circle of friends and admirers.

He was born near Jolleytown in Greene County, Penn-
sylvania, August 24, 1843, and died at Wadestown, February
18, 1916, after completing a life of nearly seventy-three years.
He was a son of Abner and Hannah (Morris) Garrison and
a grandson of George Garrison, and represented an old
American ancestry. Abner Garrison was a successful farmer
in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where he died April 29,
1859, at the age of fifty-five. He was an ardent Methodist,
and built up an estate comprising thirteen hundred acres
of land. His wife, Hannah Morris, was a daughter of
Levi Morris.

Morris J. Garrison was reared on his father's farm in
Pennsylvania, and in 1868 he opened a general store at
Wadestown, thirty miles west of Morgantown. During the
many successive years he was in business there he ac-
cumulated a handsome property, including some seven
hundred acres of valuable land. This is farming and graz-
ing land, and is also underlaid with coal, all of which is
still retained by his family. Mr. Garrison was a thorough
business man, as a merchant kept the stock needed by his
patrons, studied their wants, and had the genial nature
which made dealing at his store a pleasure. His business
was continued three years after his death by his daughters,
and after the stock was sold they continued to own the
building.  Mr. Garrison also did a large business as a
stock dealer, kept many sheep, and was a leader in every
movement for the advancement of the prosperity and wel-
fare of the district in general. He was one of the men
who brought the good roads movement to a practical basis,
and secured the construction of one of the first improved
pieces of highway in this section of Monongalia County.
He was an enthusiastic Methodist, and for fifty years his
home was an open house for the ministers of that church.

In 1868, the year he began merchandising at Wades-
town, Mr. Garrison married Adelaide Virginia Jolley, daugh-
ter of William Jolley, of Jolleytown, Pennsylvania. She
died February 11, 1891. They were the parents of six chil-
dren.  The son Frank died in childhood.  Harry, who
operates the home farm, married Blake Maples and has
two children, Robert and Adelaide. The daughter Maude,
now living at the old home, is the widow of Dr. W. C.
Cole, who was a successful medical practitioner and died
when in the prime of his powers, in 1904. Mrs. Cole has
a daughter, Virginia Garrison Cole, now in the first year
of her studies at West Virginia University. Blanche is
the wife of W. E. Campbell, a merchant at Oglesby, Okla-
homa. Nellie is the wife of R. E. Boggess, a farmer at
Ochelata, Oklahoma.

The eldest daughter, Miss Kate Garrison, was closely
associated with her father in the store and possesses all
the personal qualities that made her father such a com-
panionable citizen. She was formerly a teacher. Having
had special elocutionary training, she is now a public
entertainer, being a reader of no little fame. Miss Garri-
son is a worker in church and Sunday school, and has
done much to advance the social and intellectual standards
of her community, which, despite its isolation, is regarded
far and wide as a most desirable place of residence.


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