George Thompson Garrison and the 55th

 

   

1st Lieutenant (55th Regiment) George Thompson Garrison was born February 13, 1836 and died January 1, 1904 son of William Lloyd Garrison and Helen Eliza Benson Garrison. He married Annie Keene Anthony on October 1, 1873. Annie was d. of John Gould Anthony and Anna W Rhodes
All seven of the Garrison children were named for Abolitionists.  The first, born in 1836, was named for the English abolitionist, George Thompson, whom Garrison met on his 1833 trip to the UK.  Thompson has experienced in England some of the same intense verbal vitriol, calling him “fanatic”, similarly experienced here by Garrison. They became constant co-laborers in the international abolitionist cause.
May 25, 1836
Garrison, writing to Helen, tells of a letter from George Thompson.  “T. says…that our dear babe, with such a name as he has got, must really be a double dipped fanatic — George Thompson GARRISON !!”
George, not sharing his father's scruples, enlisted in the Fifty-fifth Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, attaining the rank of captain. He was a printer before he went into the war. 
Read about George T Garrison's tent found in family attic 
George T. Garrison's Trunk, National Museum of African American History and Culture

 

Garrison Family 1876 Newburyport MA Smith College Collection

 William Lloyd Garrison and his daughter Fanny (Helen Francis) , carte-de-visite, ca. 1856. From Boston's Crusade against Slavery  C. Seaver, Jr., photographer (Boston, Mass.)

                                                   

                                                 

Photo From William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children. George Thompson, abolitionist age 40

 Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson 1851

Garrison Family Papers, 1694-2005
Visit Smith College Library for more Garrison Information
Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2 
The Memorial History of Boston: Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts Chapter 6 (1882)
A House Dividing Against Itself, 1836-1840 By William Lloyd Garrison
Mayors of Boston: An Illustrated Epitome of who the Mayors Have Been and what They Have Done
The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips by George Lowell
"Anti-Slavery Excitement" in Boston