- There is no known photo of Robert Sr. Pioneers Prominent Men of Utah incorrectly connected Robert Jr's photo to Robert Sr. The error has continued to be perpetuated because the publication of the book cannot be revised.
Son of William Gardner and Christian Henderson
Married Margaret Calinder, May 25, 1800, Falkirk Parish, Barony, Lanark, Scotland
Children - William Gardner, Robert Gardner, Archibald Gardner, Mary Gardner; the following children died in Scotland, baby girl Gardner, Margaret Gardner (b. 1801), Christine Gardner, Margaret Gardner (b. 1810), Janet Gardner, female child Gardner
History - Robert Gardner, age eighteen, and Margaret Calender, age twenty two, were married. Robert Gardner was a Lowlander. The lowlands have the best farm land, while the Highlands fill the entire northern half of Scotland and have scenery of exquisite beauty. Robert was a "good scholar." He was apprenticed to learn the carpenter's trade. During his early married life he kept a grocery store and the Black Bull Inn tavern. He later rented the Garrel Mill from the Canal Company. The mill was located on the outskirts of Kilsyth.
Robert was imprisoned for in the Stirling castle for speaking out against the queen. He was found innocent and released. Nine weeks of imprisonment, however, was sufficient to fill him with resentment against the injustice meted out to him and to give him the determination to leave this the land of his birth and seek his fortune in a far country.
Historical records indicate that forty-seven men were taken to Stirling Castle, and twenty-four of them were tried and sentenced to death. Based on Archibald's autobiography, Robert must have been one of the men who was released without being tried. Nineteen of the death sentences were commuted, and those men were sent to Botany Bay in Australia.
The Gardner family sailed to Canada where they homesteaded in the area of backwoods of Canada in the Township of Dalhousie, Banthest District, Upper Canada. This was a very poor part of the country consisting of rocky ridges covered with heavy timber mostly hemlock, pine, cedar and some hardwood. Some swamps and mud lakes, and here and there small patch of land that would do to cultivate, after cutting and burning the heavy timber then there was a kind of a thistle that came up among the grain which compelled us to reap it with gloves or mittens on our hands, cradles, reapers, and thrashing machines was not in fashion in that country in those day. And it was hard, cold country to live in.
Robert's son, Archibald, was a young man and was tired of the poor country and started west in search of a better country which he found about 500 miles of in the township of Warwick then known as county of Kent, Western District called Canada West, near the lower end of Lake Huron. He then bought some land claims called W. E. claims that was then in the market, and entered some land and then returned home and soon as it was convenient he and his older brother William started for there new home in the West.
Meantime the rest of the family went to work to clear off another timbered farm the labor was hard they we had to cut down the timber, cut it in about sixteen foot lengths haul it together with oxen, pile it in piles four or five logs high and seven or eight logs wide and set fire to it and burn them up in the summer. Then they had to plant among the stumps which it took years to rout out. There was no prairie's in that country and it took a long time to make a start in a new country in them days. Those who have been raised in the far west has but little knowledge of the labor it took to make a start in the Canada timbered lands, although this was a much better country than the one we first settled in country of Dalhousie.
In the year 1844 that an elder named John Baraman brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the neighborhood. In the beginning of January 1845 in company with a few Saints the Gardner family went a mile and half into the woods and cut a hole in the ice about 18 inches thick and was there baptized in the township of Brook in a stream called Brown's Creek. Son, Robert Jr., was there baptized by his brother William who had been ordain elder, and he was confirmed by another elder, named Samuel Bolton.
Sister Mary and her husband, Roger Luckham, was the next to be baptized and the family has all joined now but father and he was the first one in the family to believe and said that it was only true church on the earth and when he heard anyone opposing he would stand up for it although he would not be baptized as soon as Robert. He embraced the gospel he had a strong desire to go to Nauvoo to see the apostle and the Saints in their gathering place, a distance of five hundred miles. He left Canada on 1st June, 1845 traveled 30 miles on foot to Port Sarnia, there took steamboat to Chicago and then traveled on foot to Nauvoo a distance 160 miles. He made the trip in two weeks his wife made him a lot of crackers and he put his crackers in a two bushel sack and he traveled on foot. He packed them on his back and the lasted him to Nauvoo. But it was a pretty good day for crackers, better than it was for money.
Robert and his family traveled with the Edward Hunter - Joseph Horne Company (1847)
Robert Sr., Archie and Robert Jr. sowed six acres of wheat and early in the spring of 1848 and moved camp six miles south of Salt Lake on Mill Creek. They moved their saw mill and they rebuilt on Mill Creek and commenced to make lumber and build houses and get them farms.
Archibald Gardner Blogspot
Autobiography of Robert Gardner, Jr.
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1781 - 1855 (74 years)
