ROBERT H. GARNETT.
Among the men of sterling worth and strength of character in this county who have made an impression on the life of the locality in which they lived, none has achieved a larger meed of popular respect and regard than Robert H. Garnett. Mr. Garnett has lived in Audubon county for many years and this has given the people an opportunity to know every phase of his character. That he has been true to life in its every phase is manifest from the high confidence and regard in which he is held by the people of this county. Mr. Garnett is now living retired, having, by his early labors, acquired a substantial competence for his declining years.
Robert H. Garnett was born in Rock Island county, Illinois, about sixteen miles north of the city of Rock Island, on November i6, 1847, the son of William and Sarah (Brown) Garnett, natives of Pennsylvania, the former of whom was born at Westchester, near Philadelphia, and the latter near a town that was then called Bloody Run. The Garnetts are of English descent, William Garnett's father having been the first of the family to cross the Atlantic for America. Robert H. Garnett received his education in the public schools and lived at home until he was twenty-one years old. In 1881 he came to Iowa and located in Greeley township, this county, where he purchased two hundred acres of railroad land in section 5. Later he sold forty acres of that farm and purchased eighty acres more, adjoining his farm on the northwest. In 1896 Mr. Garnett moved to Audubon, but after two years moved back to the farm where he lived until 1905, in which year he retired and moved to Hamlin, where he now hves and where he owns one of the pleasantest homes in the town.
On August 23, 1871, in Rock Island county, Illinois, Robert H. Garnett was married to Jeanette I. Clark, who was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on October 12, 1853. the daughter of George W. and Mary A. (Horton) Clark, natives of Baltimore, Maryland, and Tarentum, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, respectively. The Clarks were of Scottish descent, Mrs. Garnett's great-grandparents having emigrated from Scotland to this country. George W. Clark was a carriage-maker in his earlier days, but later in life took up farming. To Robert H. and Jeanette I. (Clark) Garnett two children have been born, Carrie E., born on September 2, 1872, who married James White, and has six children, Harry, Walter, Ruth, Ralph, Helen and Wayne, and Charles R., November 30, 1878, who married Jessie Gerard and has two children, George R. and Franklin M. Both of Mr. Garnett's children live on his farms.
Mr. Garnett is a Democrat and served as township clerk in Illinois before coming to Iowa. He also has served two terms as township trustee of Greeley township, in this county, and for seven years was postmaster at Hamlin, filling all these offices with credit to himself and with satisfaction to the public. No better testimonial of the esteem in which he is held by the people of this county can be offered than his successive elections or appointments to important offices. Mr. and Mrs. Garnett and family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and are enthusiastic and faithful supporters of this denomination. They are earnest in all good works and enjoy the highest esteem of the entire neighborhood.
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Transcribed from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 543-544.
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