John Garth (aka "JG") Mitchell

  General Notes:

I'm curious why several of his children died during the summer of 1853 - some sort of epidemic?

Found out in book The Garth Family that military troops came in and stayed at the farm and most likely transferred the cholera virus. How incredibly sad -- five of their children died it appears from the cemetery records.

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He was a slave owner

In 1850, it is reported on the slave schedule census that he "owned" the following slaves:

40 year old female
30 year old male
20 year old male
16 year old male
10 year old male
8 year old male
6 year old male
4 year old female


Unfortunately, their names are not listed. It appears to be a family.


History of Slavery in Kentucky - wikipedia


The history of slavery in Kentucky dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state until the end of the Civil War. Although Kentucky was generally classified as the Upper South or a Border state,[1] rather than the Deep South, enslaved African Americans made up a substantial percentage of the population. Early Kentucky history was built on the labor of slavery, and it was an integral part of the state. From 1790 to 1860 the slave population of Kentucky was never more than one quarter of the total population, with lower percentages after 1830 as planters sold slaves to the Deep South. Slave populations were greatest in the central "bluegrass" region of the state, which was rich in farmland. In 1850, 23 percent of Kentucky's white males held enslaved African Americans.

Early travelers to Kentucky in the 1750s and 1760s brought their slaves with them. As permanent settlers started arriving in the late 1770s, they held slaves in the station-based settlements, organized around forts. Settlers, chiefly migrants from Virginia, continued to rely on slave labor as they established more permanent farms.

Planters who grew hemp and tobacco made the greatest use of slave labor, as these were labor-intensive crops. Subsistence farming could be done without slave labor. Some owners also used enslaved African Americans in mining and manufacturing operations.

Farms in Kentucky tended to be smaller than the plantations of the Deep South, so ownership of large numbers of slaves was uncommon. Many slaves had to find spouses on a neighboring farm, and often fathers did not get to live with their wives and families.

Kentucky exported more slaves than did most states. From 1850 to 1860, 16 percent of enslaved African Americans were sold out of state. Many African Americans were sold directly to plantations in the Deep South, or transported by traders along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to slave markets in New Orleans (hence the later euphemism for any sort of betrayal, to be "sold down the river"). The sales were the result of reduced labor needs due to changes in local agriculture, as well as substantial out-migration by white families from Kentucky. In the 1840s and 1850s, white families migrated west to Missouri and Tennessee, even southwest to Texas. The larger slaveholding families took slaves with them on forced migration to Tennessee and Missouri. These factors combined to create greater instability for enslaved families in Kentucky than in some of the Deep South states.

John married Ann Elizabeth Rawlings Durrett, daughter of Dr William Durrett and Elizabeth Holladay Rawlings, on 30 Oct 1830 in New Castle, Henry, KY. (Ann Elizabeth Rawlings Durrett was born on 30 Oct 1813 and died on 1 May 1907.)