Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum
   You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of North and South Americans >> Sylvester Gardiner





The Seven Flags of the New Orleans Tri-Centennial 1718-2018

For more information go to New Orleans 300th Birthday

 

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 and 1999. Virtualology.com warns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors and bias. We rely on volunteers to edit the historic biographies on a continual basis. If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor




Virtual American Biographies

Over 30,000 personalities with thousands of 19th Century illustrations, signatures, and exceptional life stories. Virtualology.com welcomes editing and additions to the biographies. To become this site's editor or a contributor Click Here or e-mail Virtualology here.



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 



Sylvester Gardiner

GARDINER, Sylvester, physician, born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, 29 June, 1707; died in Newport, 8 August, 1786. After studying medicine in London and Paris he became a practitioner in Boston, a lecturer on anatomy, and a drug merchant. In the sale of drugs he acquired a large fortune, and became proprietor of a part of "Plymouth Put-chase" on the Kennebeck River, His efforts to settle this domain were unceasing from 1753 to the Revolution. About the middle of the century he colonized it with Germans, and settled the town of Pittston, from which the present City of Gardiner, Maine, was afterward set off, annually furnishing the colonists with supplies. He also contributed liberally to the erection of King's chapel, Boston, of which he was a warden, and promoted the introduction of inoculation for the small-pox. He was the compiler and publisher of a prayer-book, built and endowed Christ Church, the first Episcopal Church in Pittston, Maine, and presented that town with a valuable library, which afterward became scattered. He was one of those who signed the address to Governor Hutchinson in 1774, approving that officer's course, and in the year following he became an active supporter of the royal cause. When the British army evacuated Boston in 1776, he left that City and went to Halifax. In 1778 his name appeared in the proscription and banishment act. He removed to England during the war, taking with him but a small proportion of his property, and settled in Peele. About 100,000 acres of his great estate were confiscated and sold, but his heirs recovered it many years afterward. After the war, in 1785, Dr. Gardiner returned to this country and settled in Newport, Rhode Island His remains were interred under Trinity Church in that City, and in the Episcopal Church in Gardiner, Maine, there is a cenotaph to his memory.--His eldest son, John, lawyer, born in Boston in 1731; died near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, 15 October, 1793, studied law at the inner temple, London, and was admitted to practice in the courts of Westminster Hall. He became intimate with Churchill, the satirist, with Lord Martsfield, and with John Wilkes, in whose cause he appeared as junior counsel in 1764. He also appeared for Breadmore and Meredith, who, for writings in support of Wilkes, had been imprisoned on a general warrant. He practiced a short time with success in the Welsh circuit, and then procured in 1766 the appointment of attorney general in the Island of St. Christopher, West Indies, where he remained until after the American Revolution, when he returned, in 1783, to Boston. A few years later he removed to Pownalboro, Maine, and represented that town in the Massachusetts legislature until his death. While a member of that body he procured the abolition of the law of primogeniture, promoted several legal reforms, and was earnest but unsuccessful in his arguments for the repeal of the statutes of 1.750 against theatrical entertainments. The law that he sought to abolish remained in force until 1793, when it was repealed. Mr. Gardiner was one of the most influential of the early Unitarians of Boston, and prominently participated in the transformation of King's chapel, of which his father was one of the founders, from an Episcopal into a Unitarian Congregational Church. He met his death by drowning while on his way to the general court of Massachusetts. In connection with his efforts to repeal the anti-theatrical laws while he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, he published a" Dissertation on the Ancient Poetry of the Romans," with incidental observations on certain superstitions. He also wrote a political tract in verse entitled "Jacobinial," a satire on the republican clubs of Boston, a revision of which by the author was published in Boston in 1795.--His son, John Sylvester John, clergyman and scholar, born in Haverford West, South Wales, in June, 1765; died in Harrow-gate, England, 29 July, 1830. At an early age, about 1770, he was sent to his grandfather, Dr. Svlvester Gardiner, in Boston, for education. Shortly after the opening of the Revolution, and after visiting his father in the West Indies, he was removed to England, and placed in 1776 under the care of Dr. Samuel Parr, by whom he was instructed until 1782. He returned to the United States in 1783 by way of the West Indies, and was accompanied by his father to Boston, where he began the study of law. Subsequently, in 1787, he was ordained deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church by Bishop Provoost, in St. Paul's Church, New York. He then became pastor of the parish of St. Helena, near Beaufort, South Carolina He took priest's orders in 1791, became assistant rector of Trinity Church, Boston, in 1792, and on the death of Bishop Parker, in 1805, succeeded him as rector, continuing to hold that, post until his death. While assistant rector, he taught a large classical school, and afterward instructed a few pupils in his own house. He died while on a foreign tour for his health. He received the degree of A. M. from Harvard in 1803, and that of D.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1813. In 1805-'11 he was president of the Anthology club, which was organized at his house, and for several years conducted the "Anthology and Boston Monthly Review," which was one of the ablest literary periodicals in the United States, and assisted greatly in elevating the standard of letters in this country. It was the remote precursor of the "North American Review," to which Dr. Gardiner was a contributor. To the Anthology club belongs the honor of founding the Boston athenaeum. Dr. Gardiner was a classical scholar of eminence and an eloquent preacher, and exerted a wide influence. He published numerous sermons, delivered before various societies (1802-'23).--Another grandson of Sylvester, Robert Hallowell, born in Bristol, England, about 1782; died in Gardiner. Maine, 22 March, 1864, came to this country in 1792. He was the son of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner's daughter Hannah, and Robert Hallowell, but took the surname of Gardiner in 1802, in obedience to the will of his uncle, on inheriting the latter's estate. He was fitted for College in the Boston Latin-school, and graduated at Harvard in 1801, after which he traveled abroad for sixteen months, and in 1803 returned and settled on his estate, giving much of his time to its cultivation and to advancing the interests of the town of Gardiner, to which he gave a Church, a lyceum, and a public library. He was an active member of the Maine historical society, and was its president from 1846 till 1855.

Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM

Start your search on Sylvester Gardiner.


 

 


 


Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.TM Privacy Policy

Search:

About Us

 

 

Image Use

Please join us in our mission to incorporate The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America discovery-based curriculum into the classroom of every primary and secondary school in the United States of America by July 2, 2026, the nation’s 250th birthday. , the United States of America: We The People Click Here

 

Historic Documents

Articles of Association

Articles of Confederation 1775

Articles of Confederation

Article the First

Coin Act

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Monroe Doctrine

Northwest Ordinance

No Taxation Without Representation

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Mayflower Compact

Treaty of Paris 1763

Treaty of Paris 1783

Treaty of Versailles

United Nations Charter

United States In Congress Assembled

US Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

US Continental Congress

US Constitution of 1777

US Constitution of 1787

Virginia Declaration of Rights

 

Historic Events

Battle of New Orleans

Battle of Yorktown

Cabinet Room

Civil Rights Movement

Federalist Papers

Fort Duquesne

Fort Necessity

Fort Pitt

French and Indian War

Jumonville Glen

Manhattan Project

Stamp Act Congress

Underground Railroad

US Hospitality

US Presidency

Vietnam War

War of 1812

West Virginia Statehood

Woman Suffrage

World War I

World War II

 

Is it Real?



Declaration of
Independence

Digital Authentication
Click Here

 

America’s Four Republics
The More or Less United States

 
Continental Congress
U.C. Presidents

Peyton Randolph

Henry Middleton

Peyton Randolph

John Hancock

  

Continental Congress
U.S. Presidents

John Hancock

Henry Laurens

John Jay

Samuel Huntington

  

Constitution of 1777
U.S. Presidents

Samuel Huntington

Samuel Johnston
Elected but declined the office

Thomas McKean

John Hanson

Elias Boudinot

Thomas Mifflin

Richard Henry Lee

John Hancock
[
Chairman David Ramsay]

Nathaniel Gorham

Arthur St. Clair

Cyrus Griffin

  

Constitution of 1787
U.S. Presidents

George Washington 

John Adams
Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson
Republican* Party

James Madison 
Republican* Party

James Monroe
Republican* Party

John Quincy Adams
Republican* Party
Whig Party

Andrew Jackson
Republican* Party
Democratic Party


Martin Van Buren
Democratic Party

William H. Harrison
Whig Party

John Tyler
Whig Party

James K. Polk
Democratic Party

David Atchison**
Democratic Party

Zachary Taylor
Whig Party

Millard Fillmore
Whig Party

Franklin Pierce
Democratic Party

James Buchanan
Democratic Party


Abraham Lincoln 
Republican Party

Jefferson Davis***
Democratic Party

Andrew Johnson
Republican Party

Ulysses S. Grant 
Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican Party

James A. Garfield
Republican Party

Chester Arthur 
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland
Democratic Party

Benjamin Harrison
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland 
Democratic Party

William McKinley
Republican Party

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party

William H. Taft 
Republican Party

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic Party

Warren G. Harding 
Republican Party

Calvin Coolidge
Republican Party

Herbert C. Hoover
Republican Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic Party

Harry S. Truman
Democratic Party

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican Party

John F. Kennedy
Democratic Party

Lyndon B. Johnson 
Democratic Party 

Richard M. Nixon 
Republican Party

Gerald R. Ford 
Republican Party

James Earl Carter, Jr. 
Democratic Party

Ronald Wilson Reagan 
Republican Party

George H. W. Bush
Republican Party 

William Jefferson Clinton
Democratic Party

George W. Bush 
Republican Party

Barack H. Obama
Democratic Party

Please Visit

Forgotten Founders
Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental
Congress Society


U.S. Presidency
& Hospitality

© Stan Klos

 

 

 

 


Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum