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Lion Gardiner

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Lion Gardiner
Lion Gardiner (center, facing) in the Pequot War, by Charles Stanley Reinhart (painted circa 1890)
Born1599 (1599)
England[1]
Died1663(1663-00-00) (aged 63–64)
East Hampton, New York
Resting placeSouth End Cemetery by Town Pond
Occupation(s)military engineer, settler, soldier
SpouseMary Willemsen Deurcant
Children
  • David
  • Mary
  • Elizabeth
RelativesJulia Gardiner Tyler (fifth great-granddaughter)

Lion Gardiner (1599–1663) was an English engineer and colonist who founded the first English settlement in New York, acquiring land on eastern Long Island. He had been working in the Netherlands and was hired to construct fortifications on the Connecticut River, for the Connecticut Colony. His legacy includes Gardiners Island, which is held by his descendants.

Early life

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Lion Gardiner was born in England in 1599.[1] He and his wife Mary left Woerden in the Netherlands and embarked for New England on the ship Batcheler on July 10, 1635. The ship arrived at Boston at the end of November in 1635.

Governor John Winthrop noted Gardiner's arrival in his Journal under the date November 28:

Here arrived a small Norsey bark of twenty-five tons sent by Lords Say, etc, with one Gardiner, an expert engineer or work base, and provisions of all sorts, to begin a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut. She came through many great tempests; yet, through the Lord's great providence, her passengers, twelve men, two women, and all goods, all safe.[2][3][4]

Career

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Gardiner was a military engineer in service of the Prince of Orange in the Netherlands along with John Mason. He was hired by the Connecticut Company in 1635 to oversee construction of fortifications in Connecticut Colony. He finished and commanded the Saybrook Fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River during the Pequot War of 1636–37.[5] In 1639, he purchased an island from Poggaticut the Grand Sachem of the Montaukett tribe, which they called Manchonat, located between the North and South forks of eastern Long Island, in what is now Suffolk County, New York. The original grant by which he acquired proprietary rights in the island made it an entirely separate and independent plantation. It was not connected to either Connecticut Colony or New Amsterdam. He was empowered to draft laws for church and state. He called it the Isle of Wight, but it is now known as Gardiners Island after him. He became patron to the sachem's younger brother Wyandanch and in 1659 was deeded Smithtown, NY as a gift of the sachem, for being a friend to all the indians of Paumanacke when the tribe was on the verge of being wiped out.[6]

In 1660, Gardiner wrote the firsthand account Relation of the Pequot Warres. The manuscript was lost among various state archives and rediscovered in 1809; it was first published in 1833.[7]

Personal life

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Coat of Arms of Lion Gardiner
Print of the Lion Gardiner House, Easthampton (Childe Hassam – 1920)

Shortly before departing from the Netherlands, he married Mary Willemsen Deurcant, the daughter of Dericke Willemsen Deurcant and Hachin Bastiens, who was born at Woerden about 1601. She died in 1665 in East Hampton, New York. They were the parents of three children:

  • David was born on April 29, 1636, at Saybrook.[1][8] He married on June 4, 1657, Mary Leringman, a widow, at St. Margaret's Parish in the City of Westminster, England.
  • Mary was born on August 30, 1638, at Saybrook, Connecticut.[9] She married in 1658, Jeremiah Conkling, the son of Ananias Conkling, who was from Nottinghamshire, England.
The tomb of Lion Gardiner in East Hampton, New York was built in 1886 and designed by James Renwick Jr. It depicts him in recumbent effigy. (Photo, April 2006)

Lion Gardiner was buried in East Hampton, New York. A tombstone with a recumbent effigy was erected in his memory in 1886.[13]

Descendants

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Lion Gardiner's descendants number in the thousands in the 21st century. Some of his notable descendants include:

References

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  1. ^ a b c Gardiner, 84
  2. ^ Dunn, 207
  3. ^ Dunn, 161
  4. ^ Dunn, 783
  5. ^ Gardiner, 6
  6. ^ "Wyandanch, Grand Sachem of Montaukett". 1620.
  7. ^ Lion Gardiner, Relation of the Pequot Warres, 1660 Ed., W. N. Chattin Carlton, Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Electronic Texts in American Studies University of Nebraska – Lincoln Year 2007
  8. ^ Gardiner, 86
  9. ^ Gardiner, 93
  10. ^ Gardiner, 94
  11. ^ Steven Gaines (June 1, 1998). Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons (hardcover). Little Brown & Co. pp. 80–84. ISBN 9780316309417. Lion Gardiner would have none of this.
  12. ^ John Hanc (October 25, 2012). "Before Salem, There Was the Not-So-Wicked Witch of the Hamptons". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved August 15, 2015. Elizabeth Garlick, a local resident who often quarreled with neighbors.
  13. ^ Gardiner, 74
  14. ^ a b Gardiner, 145
  15. ^ "Horsford, Cornelia". The Biographical Cyclopaedia of American Women. New York: The Halvord Publishing Company. 1924. p. 169.
  16. ^ "Gardiner Greene Hubbard Biography", National Geographic
  17. ^ a b c Gardiner, 112
  18. ^ "Mrs. A.G. Bell Dies. Inspired Telephone. Deaf Girl's Romance With Distinguished Inventor Was Due to Her Affliction". The New York Times. January 4, 1923. Mrs. Mabel Hubbard Bell, widow of Alexander Graham Bell ... Mrs. Bell was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 25, 1859 [sic], the daughter of Gardiner Green Hubbard [sic] ...
  19. ^ Obituary: "Winthrop Gardiner, Jr." The New York Times. October 18, 1980.
  20. ^ History of the city of New York: its origin, rise and progress, Volume 3 By Martha Joanna Lamb, New York: THE A. S. BARNES COMPANY. 1877
  21. ^ Gardiner, 124
  22. ^ Sherwood Forest Plantation – Home of president John Tyler at www.sherwoodforest.org
  23. ^ "Robert D.L. Gardiner, 93, Lord of His Own Island, Dies". The New York Times. August 24, 2004. Retrieved January 29, 2014. Robert David Lion Gardiner, the last heir to bear the name of the family that has owned Gardiner's Island, off the coast of Long Island, for nearly four centuries, died yesterday at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 93. ... Mr. Gardiner called himself the 16th Lord of the Manor and saw himself as a custodian of his family's history on what is said to be the largest privately owned island in the world.
  24. ^ Newsday, May 24, 2005
  25. ^ "Debating the Future Of Gardiners Island", The New York Times, September 5, 2004

Bibliography

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  • Dunn, Richard The journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649.Abridged Edition: published by Harvard University Press[when?]
  • Gardiner, Curtiss C. Lion Gardiner, and his descendants with Illustrations 1599–1890. St. Louis, Missouri : A.Whipple, publisher

Further reading

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