The Gardners of Massachusetts:
An American Legacy
By
Anthony Taylor Dunn
For most, the Gardner name does
not easily come to mind as do such historic family names as Revere, Copley, or
Kennedy. However, the Gardner name has an important place in American history
spanning from the birth of our country to the present day.
The Gardner family history dates
back to early colonial America when Thomas Gardner sailed from England to Cape
Ann in 1623, only three years after the arrival of the Mayflower. He was
dispatched from Weymouth, England, by the Dorchester Company and was appointed
as the overseer of the Plantation at Cape Ann. Unfortunately, this area proved
to be unsuited for farming due to the predominantly rocky and unfertile soil.
Those that remained did so “to the hazard of their lives,” and most died in the
first three years. In 1626, the survivors of the colony under the direction of
Roger Conant relocated to the mouth of the Naumkeag River and founded present
day Salem. Yet the title of Massachusetts’ first governor belongs to Thomas
Gardner because he was the first man of authority over what developed into the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Thomas Gardner left nine
children, two of which became prominent figures in their own rite. Samuel was
born in 1627, one year prior to the official renaming of Naumkeag to Salem. He
was a merchant by trade and built a corn mill in town. In later years he became
a member of the board of selectmen and general court.
Another son, George, married
Elizabeth Stone who was the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Stone, a leading
clergyman of the day. Their daughter married John Hathorne, the infamous
"witch judge" who was the chief interrogator of the accused witches
in the Salem witch trials of 1692. John Hathorne was the grandfather to author
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
A fifth-generation grandson to
Thomas, Ebenezer Gardner moved from Roxbury to Nova Scotia. During the outbreak
of the revolution, he remained loyal to the colonies and his farmhouse was the
central location for the Committee-of-Safety, the governing assembly of
political and military leaders. After a failed attempt to defeat Fort
Cumberland whose victory would have added a new state into the union, the
British put a bounty on his capture. His farmhouse was burned in the early
winter of 1776, and he fled south to Machias, Maine (formally Massachusetts)
with his family suffering exposure and near death.
Ebenezer Gardner’s grandson,
John Gardner, married Rebecca Berry who was the daughter of another important
figure in the Revolutionary war, John Berry. On June 2, 1775, a band of Machias
patriots responded violently to threats on their town from a British officer
and attacked and captured his 100-ton schooner, Margaretta, killing the
officer and three crewmembers in the process. They Machias patriots lost two
men, and three others were badly wounded. John Berry was one of the survivors
who took a musket ball through his mouth before it exited behind his ear. The
battle of the Margaretta has been coined “the Lexington of the sea”
because it was the first naval battle in the Revolution.
The Gardner family has established
roots in Boston society, beginning with Samuel Gardner, a seventh-generation
grandson to Thomas, who owned the former estate of the Vassals and Hubbards on
Summer Street.
However, most Bostonians as well
as many throughout the world will instantly recognize the Gardner name as it
associated with the prominent Boston financier, John “Jack” Lowell Gardner, the
ninth-generation grandson. His wife was Boston socialite Isabella Stewart
Gardner. She was a collector of valuable art and, inspired by the Palazzo
Barbaro of Venice, had Fenway Court constructed in 1899 to store
her collection. The building was later willed to the city of Boston, as a
public museum that became the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The event that put the Gardner
name on the map was the infamous art heist of all time when in 1990 two men
disguised as police officers stole thirteen paintings from the museum. These
pieces included Rembrandt’s only seascape, "Storm on the Sea of
Galilee", and the total estimated value of the robbery was well over three
hundred million dollars.