Gardiner Greene

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"Letters to Gardiner Greene. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. 13 (June 1873); p.56+ shipping cotton, coffee, rum, and the like. The plantation he owned there, Greenfield, was home to over 200 enslaved people in 1817.{{Cite web|title=Plantation Green Field|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/estate/view/1185|website=Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London}} Associates there included William Parkinson, a plantation owner in Mahaica.Letters from William Parkinson in Demerary to G. Greene in Boston, 1781-1795, in: Four old letters from Demerara. [https://books.google.com/books?id=hK43AAAAMAAJ Timehri]: the journal of the Royal agricultural and commercial society of British Guiana, Volume 8. 1894.

Around 1804 in Boston Greene and business associates William Tudor, Harrison Gray Otis and Jonathan Mason undertook the development of the South Boston Bridge, completed in 1805.Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff. A topographical and historical description of Boston, Part 1. Boston: Printed by request of the City Council, 1871; p.422.Whitehill. 1968; p.76+

Greene served as an official of the United States Bank and the Provident Institution for Savings.Boston Directory. 1823.Scudder. 1915; p.42. He was a proprietor of the Boston Athenaeum,The Athenæum centenary. 1917; p. 128. a member of the Boston Episcopal Charitable Society,Laws and regulations of the Boston Episcopal Charitable Society, instituted in the year 1724, and incorporated by the legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts in the month of February, 1784. Boston: H. Sprague, 1805. and a supporter of the Boston Asylum for Indigent Boys.An account of the Boston Asylum for Indigent Boys, the act of incorporation, bye-laws, and the rules and regulations adopted by the Board of Managers. Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1816. In Boston, Greene's acquaintances included Kirk Boott (1755–1817) of Bowdoin Square.Emmet. 1997. In 1818, Greene purchased 230 shares of the Suffolk Bank, a clearinghouse bank on State Street in Boston.{{citation|last=Whitney|first=David R.|title=The Suffolk Bank|pages=4–5|year=1878|place=Cambridge, MA|publisher=Riverside Press}}

In 1803 Greene bought land in Boston on Pemberton Hill (i.e. Cotton Hill), from Tremont Street (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.Prior owners/tenants included: John Cotton (17th century); Harry Vane (c. 1636); John Hull (1682); Samuel Sewall (1683-1729); Judith Sewall Cooper (c. 1729); William Vassall (1758-c. 1780s); Patrick Jeffrey (c. 1790-1802); Jonathan Mason (1802-1803). Later owners/tenants included: Patrick T. Jackson (c. 1835). Cf. Lowell. 1915; p.41+. See also: "Cotton Hill" 1855, in City of Boston. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MVMMAAAAYAAJ 5th report of the record commissioners], rev. ed. 1880. The estate was known for its sweeping harbor views and lush "hillside garden."Whitehill. 1968; p.106. An acquaintance of the family, Marshall Pinckney Wilder, described the grounds:

"The most conspicuous and elegant garden of those days [in Boston] 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."Marshall Pinckney Wilder. [https://books.google.com/books?id=a3S3AAAAIAAJ The horticulture of Boston and vicinity]. Boston: Tolman & White, printers, 1881.

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."Alan Emmet. So Fine a Prospect: Historic New England Gardens. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1997; p.34.

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."Scudder. 1915; p.40. Greene also served as J.S. Copley's agent in Boston for some 20 years.Whitehill. Boston: a topographical history, 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968; p.60.

Greene's descendants included children Mary Anne Greene (1790–1827), Gardiner Greene (1792–1797), Benjamin Daniel Greene (born 1793), William Parkinson Greene (born 1795), Gardiner Greene (1802–1810), Elizabeth Hubbard Greene (1804–1844), Susannah Clarke Greene (1805–1844),Cutter, ed. Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume 3. Lewis historical publishing company, 1908. Sara Greene (1808–1863), John Singleton Copley Greene (1810–1872),{{cite web |url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/resources/1449 |title=Greene-Appleton family letters|website=Houghton Library, Hollis Archives|publisher=Harvard University }} 2x great-granddaughter Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, wife of Alexander Graham Bell. Martha Babcock Greene Amory (1812–1880),Martha Babcock Greene Amory. The wedding journey of Charles and Martha Babcock Amory: letters of Mrs. Amory to her mother, Mrs. Gardiner Greene, 1833-1834. Merrymount Press, 1922. Mary Copley Greene (1817–1892); and grandson Gardiner Greene Hubbard.National Geographic Magazine, Feb. 1898.

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

{{reflist|3}}

• George Washington Doane. [https://books.google.com/books?id=TePpuH0YrXgC A sermon], delivered at Trinity Church, December 23, 1832: on the decease of Gardiner Greene, Esq. Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1833.
• Francis Cabot Lowell; ed. by Winthrop Scudder. History of the Gardiner Greene estate on Cotton Hill, now Pemberton Square, Boston. [https://books.google.com/books?id=77ITAAAAYAAJ Bostonian Society Publications], no.12. Boston: 1915; p. 36+
• Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy; ed. by Winthrop Scudder. A long life: a sketch of the life of Elizabeth Copley Greene (Mrs. Gardiner Greene). Bostonian Society Publications, no.12. Boston: 1915; p. 56+

• Boston Public Library. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/6056080692/ View from Pemberton Hill from Gardner Greene's garden], about 1826

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Category:1753 births

Category:1832 deaths

Category:Businesspeople from Boston

Category:19th century in Boston

Category:Government Center, Boston

Category:American cotton plantation owners

Category:18th-century American merchants