Things nordic

In case it has not been noticed, there is a Recent finds tab. Recently, I got interested in sails (researching the barque Bostonian was one factor). Salem, now, has a large sail maker. How did Salem fit into the business in earlier times? One other motivation was that John Goff has written about ropewalking which Salem was involved with. Heather Wilkinson Rojo wrote about visiting the museum in Boston.

Sails, and their makers, seem to be taken for granted. Perhaps, the whole thing is considered of lessor intellectual fare.

But, not. At the Recent finds little bit on sails and materials, I put links to conferences and academic work. Especially, I found the Viking use of wool for sail material as indicative of lots of things, including an innovative spirit. What brings us back to TGS, Inc. is that the Vikings (Normans) were a large influence on the culture of the mother countries.

Too, though, this little paper by a student at MIT was intriguing: How a sail boat sails into the wind.

So, we will need to look further at all things nautical; but, the land people will have their say, too. Case in point. From a common point that the Oregon Trail has with the Santa Fe (old culture) trail, one can follow the latter toward SF in a car. What we can do now in about three to four hours took the hard-working travelers of that time three weeks (21 or so days of 8 hours of labor, each) to cover.

You see, on the boat, you laze about, if you are not part of the crew. On land? There is minute by minute solving of difficult problems albeit sometimes your work may be abetted by animal power (however, not, as we know from the Mormon cart experiences).

Remarks: Modified: 02/28/2019

03/22/2015 - Gardner's Beacon, Vol. II, No. 2, had the theme of Gardners and the sea.

02/28/2019 -- This year, we're pulling together the contributions by John Goff, Salem Preservationist.

TEG, Vol. 35, No. 2

Context: TEG, draft review copy

We are in the process of completing the article (theme, Research in Progress) on Henry D. Gardiner and his barque, Bostonian, for the upcoming issue of the TEG. Notice that details have been removed from these posts as we will reissue them under Gardner Research (at the TGS, Inc. site) in order to support the footnotes (as in, each footnote in the article will be augmented with images plus links to on-line material).

Here is a look at the Bostonian's timeline as of today.

Bostonian timeline, draft

Notice that it left Boston in the spring of 1849. The ship took 173 days to get to San Francisco. Four passengers left Boston, and four arrived at SF. Then, we see an ad in Aug 1850, of selling at the Jackson Street Wharf.

Before that, we see the Bostonian in New Zealand. Did they leave the booze in a warehouse and then return?

This plaque tells the tale as it was known earlier in the 20th century. The 1994 effort at filling in the application for Historic Places added in some detail. We have gathered others.

Gardiner marker

We left this comment at the Douglas County Historical Society page as they ought to be interested.

Henry D. Gardiner, and his brother C.F., were the owners of the Bostonian. An article is scheduled to appear in The Essex Genealogist in May of 2015 that provides some background about the brothers. As well, it looks at Henry’s wives, two of whom were descendants of Thomas Gardner of Salem.
Henry, himself, was a descendant of George Gardner of Rhode Island. His grandfather’s first cousin was Dr. Silvester Gardiner of Maine (see image in post). Silvester was the namesake of Henry and was the namesake of Gardiner, ME. So, the cities in ME and OR are named after someone in the same family.
Then, there will be a timeline provided, based upon contemporary records, for H.D.’s and C.F.s’s barque. The Bostonian left Boston (May 1849 – there is a passenger list), was in SF (Aug 1849), and then, later, in New Zealand (April 1850) six months prior to shipwreck.
The article will present what is known and will raise several questions that will need further research.

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As well, the article will look at Henry and his brother, CF. Plus, two of Henry's wives were descendants of Thomas and Margaret.

We will add in a little about Henry and CF after the shipwreck which must have resulted in losses for them, albeit folks on the scene were able to salvage a lot of material with which to start the town.

George L. Snelling, purported nephew, remains a mystery. A Snelling returned to SF with the Kate Heath. George was postmaster of Gardiner, at least, through 1854. Then, what happened?

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This is an example of westward movement that ties to New England and is thereby of interest. Too, we can see that facts are about, but they need to be gathered. Hence, motivation for research arises.

The idea, here, is to get the facts written up, in an organized manner, with supporting sources, and see where future research goes. Too, some dates do not line up. We will report what has been reported; future work will sort out the issues.

BTW, clipper ships made the around-the-Cape journey in about 1/2 the time or so. All sorts of nautical interests need to be studied (see sails - 03/09/2015).

Remarks: Modified: 08/17/2018

03/18/2015 - We will post a draft of the article as soon as it is ready for general review. ... Changed the updated timeline (the ad was 1850 not 1849).

03/19/2015 -- The Aug 1950 was noticed. We hope to get feedback from the draft article which will be out later today.

04/07/2015 -- Article submitted for review (see Timeline).

05/20/2015 -- TEG, May 2015, Vol. 35, No. 2, Pg. 31. The Gardner Annals, Vol. II, No. 1, (see TGA, Vol. II, No. 1 - pg 6) will publish the article in the near future.

08/17/2018 -- The 2nd wife of H.D. was Caroline B. Turner (see note this day at this post) of Maine and not Caroline C. Turner of Nantucket.

History mystery

The Salem Gazette published a column by John Goff on March 6, 2015, titled: Salem's Lost Carousels (link pending). John's second column will look further at the Gardner relationship.

In the following (via email), John describes the research motivation and results.

The history mystery relates to a very early and modest-sized Federal Era wooden carousel that may have had 12 wooden horses upon it---It was one of the first carousels that was ever built in America---and it functioned HERE IN SALEM, MA in 1799-1800..over 200 years ago:

a) The esteemed Reverend William Bentley, of our East Church, reported in September 1799: "The place has been erected in Bridge street for the riding of the wooden horses, a newly introduced amusement of the Town."

b) Benjamin Browne reported that it was JOSEPH GARDNER (a baker on Bridge Street, and descendant of Thomas Gardner)---thus another distant Gardner kin of ours...who "was the proprietor of the famous wood-horses, which were the delight and admiration of the boys of my day"

c) A Salem newspaper ad ran in 1800, promoting the Salem carousel---and commenting upon the health benefits (for increasing blood circulation)!!

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Joseph Gardner is #187 in Dr. Frank's 1907 book and is an uncle of Benjamin Brown Gardner.

Remarks: Modified: 03/10/2015 

03/10/2015 -

Answering questions

It seems that we have more questions than answers which is not a bad state (blank slate?). But, we have to ask ourselves, how good have the open questions been? Why ask? One early step in problem solving is to be sure that you are asking the right questions and looking in the right area (on the issue of origin, John's (supposed) claim of Sherborne ought to have some credence).

From the perspective of Gardner Research, all questions are good. We will attempt to collect all of these, categorize them, provide resources for research, and publish results. However, a first step is to look at the long history of work and get the material available in a manner that facilitates further study.

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BTW, here is a slogan:

For any domain of study, a closed situation is always suspect.

I have a book that deals with open questions in topology (a part of mathematics that is central to modern viewpoints - those that have been very, perhaps too, effective). In the book are, literally, hundreds (see Remarks, 03/11/2015, namely: 1,613) of questions that need attention. The intent of the author(s) [no book is the work of just one's person work] was to help mathematics students to choose an area of research.

So, in that spirit, we will organize and foster something related to "all things Gardner." In that context, of course, there will be specific areas of concern, such as Thomas and the mother of his children which is only one of a whole lot of questions to consider.

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Now, let's look at the Zouch Phoenix and its passenger list (see image). Son, Thomas, is not mentioned (transcription error?). Joseph was born here. So, who was this Joseph (if the name is correct)?

There are more questions. Later I'm going to put in an image of the birth order by Anderson which agrees with Dr. Frank. That is, Joseph was born after Samuel (Dr. Frank's ancestor).

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BTW, NEHGS, your re-configuration to please the mobile crowd made it harder to research from the viewpoint of this old guy (long, long years of collaborative work via the troublesome Internet). It would be nice if these folks would pay attention to the works of human-computer-interface work (did they?).

DAR had the same problem of late. Notice that the TGS site went a little mobile friendly without, I hope, being problematic to those who want to mosey about.

Remarks: Modified: 06/24/2019

03/03/2015 - Perhaps, using an FAQ would be a good start for the most common questions.

03/04/2015 -- Start of a Gardner FAQ as a page.

03/11/2015 -- We will have a larger scope (Gardner Questions) of which the FAQ will be a subset (we envision a large set of essays - included will be links to prior work, of the past century or so). Mentioned above is a collection of topology problems (Pearl, Elliott (2007) Open Problems in Topology II Elsevier) as an example of our usual state of having more questions than answers. This link is to a copy of the Second Edition (1,613 problems). ... The work of one editor but a lot of contributors.

04/07/2015 -- We have more questions than answers (research raises both).

01/18/2019 -- Added to the index at TGSoc.org.

06/24/2019 -- We have started to update the FAQ and will be renovating our sites. With the 400th coming up, plus several years of research accomplished, it is time to pull together a cohesive view some of which will be printed. There is a very long ToDo list that will be published and updated so that others can help us with our tasks. Focus will be on content related to Thomas Gardner, Cape Ann, subsequent events, and much more; plus, we will keep configuration issues in mind which deal with the continual concerns related to technology and information presentation.