Gardiner Greene (1753–1832) was a cotton planter and merchant from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

who conducted business from his plantation, Greenfield, in

Demerara Demerara ( nl, Demerary, ) is a historical region in the Guianas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana. It was a colony of the Dutch West India Company between 1745 and 1792 and a colony of the Dutch state fro ...

(

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Socially prominent in the town of Boston, he owned a house, greenhouse, and garden filled with fruit trees and peacocks on Cotton Hill, opposite

Scollay Square 300px, Scollay Square, Boston, 19th century (after September 1880) 350px, Scollay Square, Decoration Day, 19th century (after September 1880) Scollay Square (c. 1838–1962) was a vibrant city square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was na ...

. He was also the son-in-law of painter

John Singleton Copley John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. Afte ...

Biography

Greene was born in Boston, September 23, 1753, to Benjamin Greene and Mary Chandler.The Greene family in England and America. Boston: Priv. print, 1901. He first travelled to Demerara in 1774. "He resided in Demarara for many years, and laid the foundation of a large fortune" shipping cotton, coffee, rum, and the like. The plantation he owned there, Greenfield, was home to over 200 enslaved people in 1817. Associates there included William Parkinson, a plantation owner in Mahaica. Around 1804 in Boston Greene and business associates

William Tudor William Tudor (March 28, 1750 – July 8, 1819) was a wealthy lawyer and leading citizen of Boston, Massachusetts. His eldest son William Tudor (1779–1830) became a leading literary figure in Boston. Another son, Frederic Tudor, founded t ...

, Harrison Gray Otis and Jonathan Mason undertook the development of the South Boston Bridge, completed in 1805. Greene served as an official of the United States Bank and the Provident Institution for Savings. He was a proprietor of the

Boston Athenaeum Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

, a member of the Boston Episcopal Charitable Society, and a supporter of the Boston Asylum for Indigent Boys. In Boston, Greene's acquaintances included Kirk Boott (1755–1817) of

Bowdoin Square Bowdoin Street in Boston, Massachusetts extends from the top of Beacon Street, down Beacon Hill to Cambridge Street, near the West End. It was originally called "Middlecott Street" as early as the 1750s. In 1805 it was renamed after the Governor ...

. In 1818, Greene purchased 230

shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...

of the

Suffolk Bank Suffolk Bank was a private clearinghouse bank in Boston, Massachusetts, that exchanged specie or locally backed bank notes for notes from country banks to which city-dwellers could not easily travel to redeem notes. The bank was issued its corpor ...

, a clearinghouse bank on State Street in

Pemberton Hill

In 1803 Greene bought land in Boston on Pemberton Hill (i.e. Cotton Hill), from

Tremont Street Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts. Tremont Street begins at Government Center in Boston's city center as a continuation of Cambridge Street, and forms the eastern edge of Boston Common. Continuing in a roughly so ...

(opposite Court Street) to Somerset Street, including the former house of William Vassall (built c. 1758). The Greene family lived there for several decades, until c. 1835. The estate was known for its sweeping harbor views and lush "hillside garden." An acquaintance of the family, Marshall Pinckney Wilder, described the grounds:

"The most conspicuous and elegant garden of those days
n Boston N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...
was that of Gardiner Greene, who had one of the early green-houses of Boston. The grounds were terraced and planted with vines, fruits, ornamental trees, flowering shrubs and plants. ... Here were growing in the open air Black Hamburg and White Chasselas grapes, apricots, nectarines, peaches, pears and plums. ... Here were many ornamental trees brought from foreign lands."

One of Greene's children, Martha Babcock Greene Amory, also remembered the remarkable garden. "'In those primitive days ... the gardener, like the plants, had to be imported expressly from the old country,' according to Greene's daughter. Their gardener was Scottish; he tended the fruit trees and the quaint box-edged beds. ... At the back of the garden, the stable and cow shed were guarded by the 'fierce mastiff, Pedro,' whose fur Miss Greene made into mittens."

Family

In 1785 he married Ann Reading (1762–1786), who died the next year. He was married again in 1788, to Elizabeth Hubbard (1760–1797). In 1800 he married his third wife, Elizabeth Clarke Copley (1770–1866), whom he had met in London. "She was the daughter of John Singleton Copley and the sister of John, afterwards Baron Lyndhurst, three times Lord Chancellor of England. Her mother was Susanna Farnham, daughter of Richard Clarke, the merchant to whom was consigned the tea which was destroyed by the

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea ...

." Greene also served as J.S. Copley's agent in Boston for some 20 years. Greene's descendants included children Mary Anne Greene (1790–1827), Gardiner Greene (1792–1797),

Benjamin Daniel Greene Benjamin Daniel Greene (born 29 December 1793, Demerara, British Guyana – 14 October 1862, Boston) was an American lawyer, physician, naturalist, and botanist. Biography Benjamin Daniel Greene, a son of Gardiner Greene, grew up in Boston, Massac ...

(born 1793), William Parkinson Greene (born 1795), Gardiner Greene (1802–1810), Elizabeth Hubbard Greene (1804–1844), Susannah Clarke Greene (1805–1844), Sara Greene (1808–1863), John Singleton Copley Greene (1810–1872), 2x great granddaughter Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, wife of Alexander Graham Bell. Martha Babcock Greene Amory (1812–1880), Mary Copley Greene (1817–1892); and grandson

Gardiner Greene Hubbard Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader. He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Tel ...

.National Geographic Magazine, Feb. 1898.

Images

Image:GardinerGreene Garden Boston 19thc.png, Greene's garden, Pemberton Hill, Boston, 1803-c. 1832 Image:1850 Boston byDeroy.png, South Boston Bridge (built 1805), an investment of Greene's Image:1829 BrattleSt Boston Stimpson BPL12254.png, Detail of 1829 map of Boston, showing Pemberton Hill and vicinity Image:2884589771 PembertonHill Boston 1843.jpg, House of Gardiner Greene, Tremont St., Boston, by H.C. Pratt, 1834 Image:2884582141 GardinerGreene garden PembertonHill Boston.jpg, Greene's garden, Boston, 19th century Image:Elizabeth Clarke Copley Greene.png, Greene's third wife, Elizabeth Clarke Copley, daughter of painter J.S. Copley

References

External links