Lion Gardiner


Lion Gardiner founded the first British settlement in New York on Long Island. His legacy includes Gardiners Island, which is held by his descendants.

Biography

Early life

Lion Gardiner was born in England in 1599. He and his wife Mary left Woerden in the Netherlands and embarked for New England in 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.

Marriage and family

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. She was buried next to her husband. They were the parents of three children: David, Mary and Elizabeth.
Their only son, David Gardiner, was born on April 29, 1636, at Saybrook. He married on June 4, 1657, Mary Leringman, a widow, at St. Margaret's Parish in the City of Westminster, England.
Mary Gardiner was born on August 30, 1638, at Saybrook, Connecticut. She married in 1658, Jeremiah Conkling, the son of Ananias Conkling, who was from Nottinghamshire, England.
Elizabeth Gardiner, was born on September 14, 1641, at the Isle of Wight, New York. She married in 1657, Arthur Howell, a son of Edward Howell of Southampton, Long Island. Her death led to the witchcraft trial of Elizabeth Garlick.

Career

Gardiner was a military engineer in service of the Prince of Orange in the Netherlands along with John Mason, and 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. In 1639, he purchased an island from the Montaukett tribe which they called Manchonat, located between the North Fork, Suffolk County, New York and South Fork, Suffolk County, New York. The original grant by which he acquired proprietary rights in the island made it an entirely separate and independent plantation, in no way connected either with Connecticut Colony or New Amsterdam. He was thus empowered to draft laws for church and state. He called it the Isle of Wight, but it is now known as Gardiners Island.
In 1660, Gardiner wrote the firsthand account Relation of the Pequot Warres. The manuscript was lost among various state archives until rediscovered in 1809; it was first published in 1833.

Death

Lion Gardiner was buried in East Hampton, New York, and a recumbent effigy was erected in his memory in 1886. He and many of his descendants are buried in the South End Cemetery by Town Pond.

Descendants

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