The Man Who Vanished

     

Phantom--Something apparently seen, heard or sensed, but having no physical reality.  That definition accurately describes James M. Garner.  Since my visit last week to the first known home of my Garner family, Martha's Vineyard, I've been reviewing the sources of information I've acquired over the years while studying them.  

     Among the most informative is the 72-page War of 1812 Pension Application file for Thomas Garner Jr. that can be viewed free at Fold3.  That is where I found his place of birth and his age, along with verifying information about his daughters Clarissa (Lamphere) and Lucy (Robison), both of whom submitted depositions for the application and who settled in Summerhill, Cayuga, New York along with Thomas and his first wife Prudence Lamphere, who was their mother.  

     Contained in the file is a request dated June 1856 by Thomas asking for a replacement pension certificate, his having been destroyed by fire.  Three witnesses signed the request, his second wife Lany, a neighbor named Aaron Murphy, and James M. Garner.  I'd read those papers many times before, but it was only today I noticed James M. Garner's signature off to the side of the other two.

Signature of James M. Garner; three lines up from bottom on the left

     I immediately set about attempting to identify James M. Garner, but with no success, the man simply didn't exist.  I checked census records and found a James Gardner born between 1811 and 1820 living in Sempronius in 1840, about eight miles from Summerhill, that seemed promising, but he had disappeared from that place by 1850.  The census that year did show a James Gardiner born 1817 living in Niles, seventeen miles from Summerhill, but his birthplace was New York.  Thomas was in Vermont in 1817 where he married Prudence and his other three children were born.  None of the entries I found ticked all the boxes for age, residence and birthplace, ditto the 1855 New York census and the 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, and 1880 censuses.

     I next checked the public family trees at Ancestry, then tried a search of the entire site--zilch.  Same result at Family Search, Google Books, and a broad Google search.  My favorite newspaper sites turned up nothing either.  This made no sense at all, we weren't talking ancient history here, James was alive in the 19th century.

     I'm at a loss as to where to look next.  I know James M. Garner existed, though it seems just long enough to witness Thomas Garner's signature before evaporating into thin air.  This has happened before; I once found a notice in an 1818 newspaper informing Erastus Galloway that he had an unclaimed letter waiting in the town I knew my Galloway family had recently moved to.  After years of searching, I've still never discovered a single thing about him.  Erastus was a family name, two members in that line named a child Erastus in later years and I'm sure there's a connection, but who the man with the letter was remains as elusive as James M.  But I'll be looking...