Major John "Dick" Gardiner
J. Dick Gardiner was born in Pennsylvania on October 7, 1866. He married Florence Louise Smyth in Lynn, Massachusetts on October 4, 1892. Between 1870 and 1880, he lived in Nantucket and New Jersey.
John and Louise had two children
and in 1907 moved to the corner of Manchester and Mt. Pleasant Streets in Nashua.
John was the head of Gardiner Beardsell Co. and a leather dealer, a job that required him to travel to Europe multiple times, including a trip to England in 1913.
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By 1918, their son John Dick Jr. (see gravestone right) died and Louise abandoned the family. She and her daughter settled in New Bern, North Carolina. John filed for divorce and by 1920 was married to Daisy I. Bowers.
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John and Daisy lived on the Lowell Road (DW Highway) until John's death on July 4, 1925. Their property was a gentleman's farm that the couple called “Hillaire.”
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Historically the land the Gardiners lived on was (from earlier years to most recently):
1. voted to be the location of the
first meeting house.
2. Meeting house completed in 1678.
3. Rev. Thomas Weld began preaching at the site 1679.
4. Weld Garrison built.
5. Mrs. Cummings massacred on
July 3,1706 while some of
Rogers Rangers were quartered
at the garrison.
6. eventually became a stock and horse farm.
7. owned by General Collins.
8. purchased by Major Gardiner, who constructed two large barns. By the time of his death, the property included over 500 acres.
9. considered for by government officials as a location for a federally operated hospital.
10. purchased by George P. Kimball, who added a creamery and large ice cream manufacturing plant and raised
valuable racing horses.
11. became Green Ridge Farm, which included a popular restaurant for many years.
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A few months before his death in1925, Dick was named Grounds Chairman at the Nashua Country Club.
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Below: J. Dick Gardiner and wife Daisy
