Garnett, Henry Highland

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Henry Highland Garnett
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    Black
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    3
    Family
    George Garnett (father), Henrietta Garnett (mother), Julia Williams (wife)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    African Free School, NY; Noyes Academy, NH
    Occupation
    Clergy
    Educator
    Relation to Slavery
    Slave or Former Slave

    Henry Highland Garnet (Dictionary of American Biography)

    Scholarship
    He was born a slave, at New Market, Kent County, Md., escaped from bondage in 1824, and subsequently made his way to New York, where he entered school in 1826. He was one of the persons of African blood on account of whose matriculation a mob broke up the academy at Canaan, N.H., in 1835. His education was continued, however, under Beriah Green at Oneida Institute, Whitestown, N.Y. The intelligent and versatile Presbyterian minister, Rev. Theodore S. Wright of New York, with whom Garnet established an acquaintance, probably became the dominant influence in directing him to the gospel ministry. After finishing his education, he divided his time between preaching and abolition agitation in the employ of the American Anti-Slavery Society. While he did not neglect the ministry, he viewed the anti-slavery platform as his important post of duty. He easily took rank among the foremost negro Abolitionists, and his fame spread throughout the country.
    Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., "Garnet, Henry Highland," Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960), 4: 154.
    How to Cite This Page: "Garnett, Henry Highland," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5706.