Mary Gardiner Horsford (born Mary L'Hommedieu Gardiner; September 27, 1824 – November 25, 1855) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and the wife of chemist

Eben Norton Horsford Eben Norton Horsford (27 July 1818 – 1 January 1893) was an American scientist who taught agricultural chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard from 1847 to 1863. Later he was known for his reformulation of baking powder, his int ...

. Mary L'Hommedieu Gardiner was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the daughter of Samuel Smith Gardiner and Catherine L'Hommedieu. She was a descendant of

Lion Gardiner Lion Gardiner (1599–1663) was an English engineer and colonist who founded the first English settlement in New York, acquiring land on eastern Long Island. He had been working in the Netherlands and was hired to construct fortifications on the ...

and a cousin to

Julia Gardiner Tyler Julia Tyler ( ''née'' Gardiner; May 4, 1820 – July 10, 1889) was the second wife of John Tyler, who was the tenth president of the United States. As such, she served as the first lady of the United States from June 26, 1844, to March 4, 184 ...

. In 1840, she began a three-year course of education at Albany Female Academy. It was there that she met her future husband,

, who was then a teacher. Her father, cautious of the young teacher's financial prospects, denied permission for the marriage until Horsford had attained the

Rumford Chair of Physics The Rumford Chair of Physics (originally the Rumford Chair and Lectureship on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts) is an endowed professorship established at Harvard University in 1816 under the will of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. ...

, and the couple were married on August 4, 1847. They lived at

Sylvester Manor Sylvester Manor is a historic manor on Shelter Island in Suffolk County, New York, USA. History The land, spanning 8,000 acres on Shelter Island, was acquired by English-born colonist Nathaniel Sylvester in the 17th century. Sylvester and his b ...

, which had descended through her mother's family. Her career as a poet began in her youth and continued during her marriage. She wrote for ''

The Knickerbocker ''The Knickerbocker'', or ''New-York Monthly Magazine'', was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865. Its long-term editor and publisher was Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose "Editor's Ta ...

'', ''

Godey's Lady's Book ''Godey's Lady's Book'', alternatively known as ''Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book'', was an American women's magazine that was published in Philadelphia from 1830 to 1878. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil ...

'', and other periodicals. Her poem "My Native Isle," commemorating her longtime home of

Shelter Island, New York Shelter Island is an island town in Suffolk County, New York, United States, near the eastern end of Long Island. The population was 3,253 at the 2020 census. Geography Shelter Island is nestled between the North and South Forks of Long Island. ...

, was among those anthologized in

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...

's collection ''Poems of Places''. In 1855, she published the collection ''Indian Legends and Other Poems''. The book received favorable reviews. ''Godey's Lady's Book'' promoted the collection as a "volume of pearls from the heart-fountain of one of our sweetest American poetesses." ''

The North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived a ...

'' praised the "grace and style and flowing versification" of the poems, as well as the "earnestness of tone and the purity of Christian sentiment which are their leading characteristics." The poems have retroactively attracted criticism for repeating "familiar stereotypes, both horrific and romantic" in their tacit approval of

manifest destiny Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special vir ...

. Mary Gardiner and Eben Horsford had four daughters: Lilian, Mary Katherine, Gertrude Hubbard (married Andrew Fiske), and Mary Gardiner (married Supreme Court justice

Benjamin Robbins Curtis Benjamin Robbins Curtis (November 4, 1809 – September 15, 1874) was an American lawyer and judge. He served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1851 to 1857. Curtis was the first and only Whig justice of the ...

). In the autumn of 1855, months after the birth of her youngest daughter, Mary Gardiner Horsford developed a

cold Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

which soon became

tetanus Tetanus, also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by ''Clostridium tetani'', and is characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually ...

or lockjaw. She died on November 25, 1855. ''The North American Review'' opined that her sudden death lent her poetry "a new and melancholy significance." The ''

Boston Transcript The ''Boston Evening Transcript'' was a daily afternoon newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, published from July 24, 1830, to April 30, 1941. Beginnings ''The Transcript'' was founded in 1830 by Henry Dutton and James Wentworth of the firm of D ...

'' eulogized her, saying that "her poems have been much admired for their easy and correct versification and for their simple but beautiful imagery." In 1857 Mary's widower, Eben Norton Horsford, married Mary's sister, Phoebe Dayton Gardiner, and with her had one daughter,

Cornelia Horsford Cornelia Conway Felton Horsford (1861–1944) was an American archaeologist and writer whose work focused on the Norse settlement of Vinland and other possible traces of early Norse exploration and settlement of North America, especially in Mas ...

Notes and references

External links

*
Indian Legends and Other Poems
' at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Horsford, Mary Gardiner 1824 births 1855 deaths 19th-century American poets 19th-century American women American women poets Gardiner family People from Shelter Island, New York Poets from New York City