Judge Garretson was born in Franklin Township, Somerset County, on the 11th of March, 1842. He was sent to school in Trenton at the age of thirteen, and entered Rutgers College in the fall of 1859. His preparation had been such that he was enabled to enter the sophomore class in the classical course at the age of seventeen, graduating with honors three years later, in 1862, and standing first in his class. In 1865 he received the degree of A.M. in course. He chose the legal profession as promising the best opportunities for a career. He also determined to select the largest city of his State as his field of operation. Accordingly, we find him, almost immediately after graduation, entering as a student the law office of the well known Chancellor A. O. Zabriskie, of Jersey City. After spending two years in the Chancellor's office, he rounded out his legal studies by a year at the Harvard Law School. In November, 1865, he was admitted to practice at the bar of New Jersey as an attorney, and at the end of three years, in 1868, and as soon as the law of the State permitted, he was admitted as a counselor, giving him the right to practice in the highest courts of the State. He was afterward admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court at Washington.

The young lawyer's success was not only immediate, but quite phenomenal, as was shown by his appointment in February, 1869, only one year after his admission as a counselor and only four after his first practice, to the responsible position of Prosecutor of Pleas for Hudson County, an office identical in every respect except its name with that of the ordinary district attorney of other States. He was appointed for a term of five years by Governor Randolph, and filled the position so ably and with such general satisfaction that at the end of the time he was re-appointed for a second term by Governor Parker. He served four years of this second term, making a continuous service of nine years, and then resigned to accept in 1878 the appointment by Governor McClellan as Law or "President" Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Hudson County. He served in this capacity for five years.

The ability and integrity displayed by Judge Garretson upon the bench only served to greatly increase the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens. But notwithstanding all this, he desired to return to private practice, and this he eventually did in 1883, when his term as judge expired, he having announced that he was not a candidate for re-appointment previous to the expiration of his term.

In the same year he formed a legal partnership with James B. Yredenburgh in Jersey City. In 1900 he was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

While Judge Garretson has always been a consistent Democrat in politics, in local affairs his sympathies are fully enlisted in the welfare of the community. He has served as one of the Commissioners for the Adjustment of Tax Arrearages for Jersey City since 1887, when that commission was organized. In Jersey City an immense amount of property has been snowed under a great burden of tax arrears which it was utterly impossible for its owners to meet, while if they abandoned their property the city treasury was unable to realize upon it, and it has been the delicate and difficult task of the commission to readjust such old claims of the city and fix a sum which the property owners could pay and thus put such property on a tax-paying basis, and at the same time lift a burden which could not fail to depress values and impede municipal growth and development. Claims aggregating millions of dollars have been thus readjusted, while the commission is now beginning to see the prospective end of its labors.

Judge Garretson was a founder in 1888 and is President of the New Jersey Title and Guarantee Trust Company, the only one of its kind in Jersey City, and is a Director in the Third National Bank. He is also similarly interested in other directions. His name must ever be linked with the progressive development of his adopted city, where he has resided since 1865.