Garrett, Thomas

Garrett's parents were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and he remained a member throughout his life...His work as an abolitionist and Underground Railroad organizer and operator would result in his national reputation.

While most northern Quakers were moderate in their antislavery views, emphasizing primarily their own rejection of slavery, Garrett went much further, becoming a follower of Boston abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who offended some Quakers with his strong language and confrontational style. Like Garrison, Garrett advocated nonviolent resistance to slavery. Working with abolitionists in the Philadelphia area, Garrett organized a network of sympathizers who provided funds, transportation, and sometimes hospitality to slaves who had fled from their masters. During his lengthy involvement with the Underground Railroad, he kept records of 2,700 slaves he had helped escape. His work, along with that of Levi Coffin in Cincinnati, contributed to the perception that a well-organized escape route for slaves extended throughout the nation.

Even though Delaware was a slave state, except for several newspaper attacks Garrett experienced remarkably little opposition to his Underground Railroad activity, especially in the years just prior to the Civil War. In 1856 Garrett wrote a friend: "There is about as much anti-slavery feeling here as in Boston, and quite as freely expressed."

An American merchant, distinguished as a philanthropist and reformer. He was born in Upper Darby, Pa., of Quaker parentage; learned the trade of a cutler and scythe-maker, and in 1820 removed to Wilmington, Del., where he became an iron and hardware merchant. Here, also, he avowed his anti-slavery opinions without reserve, and became widely known as the friend of the slaves and of negroes generally. His name was familiar to the slaves of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia; and during a period of forty years there was a constant procession of fugitives seeking his protection and aid. It is said that not less than 3000 of them were indebted to him for their freedom. He was compelled to resort to many ingenious devices in his work, but he made no secret of the fact that he was engaged in it, and such was his reputation for success that few slaveholders thought it worth while to pursue their runaways any farther after learning that they had fallen into his hands. In 1848 he was prosecuted by James Bayard (q.v. ) before Judge Taney (q.v.); was finally convicted on what appears to have been insufficient evidence of having abducted two slave children; and was fined so heavily as to render him penniless. His business would have been utterly broken up at this time if his fellow-citizens of Wilmington had not volunteered to furnish him all the capital he needed. At the time of his death he was universally beloved by the whites as well as the blacks.

Garrett, Thomas, philanthropist, of Quaker parentage, b. Darby, Del. Co., Pa., 21 Aug. 1783; d. Wilmington, Del., ab. 20 Jan 1871. Bred а scythe and edge-tool maker, he acquired a competency, and in 1820 settled in Wilmington. He became an abolitionist ab. 1807, through the kidnapping of a colored woman from his father's family; and thenceforward assisted all fugitives who applied to him on their way to freedom. May, 1848, in a suit brought against him by the owners of some slaves whom he had aided to escape, he was convicted; and the damages awarded swept away every dollar of his property. Commencing business anew in his 65th year, he amassed a competence. He lived to be honored in the community by which he had formerly been execrated, and to see his hopes for universal freedom realized.