Gardiner Greene Howland

Howland was born on September 4, 1787, in New York City. He was a son of Joseph Howland (1750–1836) and Lydia (née Bill) Howland (1753–1838), who married in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1772. Among his siblings was Lydia Howland, wife of Levi Coit; Jane Abigail Howland, wife of George Muirson Woolsey (uncle to Theodore Dwight Woolsey), Harriet Howland, the third wife of New York State Assemblyman James Roosevelt; Susan Howland,{{cite book|last1=Aspinwall|first1=John|last2=Collins|first2=Aileen Sutherland|title=Travels in Britain, 1794-1795: the diary of John Aspinwall, great-grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with a brief history of his Aspinwall forebears|date=1994|publisher=Parsons Press|isbn=9780963848765|pages=149|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ok8KAQAAMAAJ|access-date=31 January 2018|language=en}} who married dry goods merchant John Aspinwall (a descendant of settler William Aspinwall{{cite book|last1=Aspinwall|first1=Algernon Aikin|title=The Aspinwall Genealogy|date=1901|publisher=The Tuttle Co., Printers|location=Rutland, VT|url=https://archive.org/details/aspinwallgenealo00aspi|access-date=31 January 2018}}); and Samuel Shaw Howland.{{cite book|last1=Barrett|first1=Walter|title=The Old Merchants of New York City, Second Series|date=1864|publisher=Carleton, Publisher|location=New York|page=337|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IR2YOYMplbMC&pg=PA337|access-date=31 January 2018|language=en}}

His paternal grandparents were Abigail (née Burt) Howland and Nathaniel Howland, a descendant of John Howland, one of the Pilgrim Fathers and a signer of the 1620 Mayflower Compact, the governing document of what became Plymouth Colony.{{cite book|last1=Whittelsey|first1=Charles Barney|title=The Roosevelt Genealogy, 1649-1902|date=1902|publisher=Press of J.B. Burr & Company|location=Hartford, Connecticut|url=https://archive.org/details/rooseveltgenealo00whit|access-date=18 October 2016|language=en}} His niece Mary Rebecca Aspinwall was married to James Roosevelt's son, Isaac Roosevelt, the grandfather of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.{{cite web|title=Roosevelt Genealogy|url=http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/resources/genealogy.html#fdrpaternal|website=fdrlibrary.marist.edu|publisher=Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum|access-date=18 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140529045439/http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/resources/genealogy.html#fdrpaternal|archive-date=29 May 2014|url-status=dead}} His nephew was Union Army officer and New York State Treasurer Joseph Howland.

Howland and his brother Samuel found the merchant firm of G.G. & S.S. Howland, which imported high-status goods such as porcelain, silk, and tea from China, and sold them to Americans of means.{{cite book|last1=Kienholz|first1=M.|title=Opium Traders and Their Worlds-Volume One: A Revisionist Exposé of the World's Greatest Opium Traders|date=2008|publisher=iUniverse|isbn=9780595910786|page=403|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2YlO9qraI4MC&pg=PT403|access-date=31 January 2018|language=en}} In 1832, his son William Edgar Howland and nephew William Henry Aspinwall became partners in Howland & Aspinwall.{{cite news |date=January 19, 1875 |title=Obituary: William H. Aspinwall |pages=8 |work=New York Times |format=PDF |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1875/01/19/archives/obituary-william-h-aspinwall-rev-benjamin-b-newton-the-dartmouth.html |access-date=December 16, 2008 |id={{ProQuest|93489146}}}} Aspinwall assumed the presidency in 1835 and expanded trade to South America, China, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the East and West Indies. Howland & Aspinwall owned some of the most famous clipper ships ever built.{{cite book|last1=Blume|first1=Kenneth J.|title=Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Maritime Industry|date=2012|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=9780810856349|page=227|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_jTIbdFUnYC&pg=PA227|access-date=31 January 2018|language=en}}

In 1845, while the firm owned the Ann McKim which was regarded as the fastest ship afloat, it built the Rainbow, which was even faster. The Rainbow was the high-tech racehorse of its day, and is considered to be the first of the extreme clippers. Instead of the bluff bow that was customary on ships up until that time, the Rainbow had a sharp bow, prompting on-lookers to joke that maybe she would sail better backwards. The next year, Howland & Aspinwall had the Sea Witch built, which set a speed record from China to New York which still stands.Somerville, Col. Duncan S., The Aspinwall Empire, p. 22, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc., Mystic, CT, 1983. The firm and its profits made the Howlands and Aspinwalls very wealthy,{{cite book|last1=Hillstrom|first1=Kevin|last2=Hillstrom|first2=Laurie Collier|title=The Industrial Revolution in America: Iron and steel|date=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781851096206|page=83|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fUIbzBymAjIC&pg=RA2-PA83|access-date=31 January 2018|language=en}}

In 1840s, Aspinwall's younger brother John Lloyd Aspinwall succeeded William Henry Aspinwall as president of Howland & Aspinwall. In 1848, Howland, along with William Henry Aspinwall and Henry Chauncey, founded the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, to provide service to California.{{cite news |date=January 21, 1875 |title=Testimonial to the Late William H. Aspinwall. |pages=8 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1875/01/21/archives/testimonial-to-the-late-william-h-aspinwall.html |access-date=31 January 2018 |id={{ProQuest|93515102}}}} This turned out to be a rather good year in which to start a steamship line to California, since the Gold Rush started the next year. Howland & Aspinwall were also the recipients of a federal government subsidy to operate their trans-oceanic steamship line, against which they were forced to compete with the unsubsidized line owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt.{{cite book|last=Stiles|first=T. J.|author-link=T. J. Stiles|title=The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt|year=2009|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=978-0-375-41542-5}} The company's first vessel to make the trip was packed with passengers. Pacific Mail eventually became American President Lines,Niven, John, The American President Lines and its Forebears 1948-1984, p. 15, University of Delaware Press, Newark, NJ, 1987. which is now part of Neptune Orient Lines.Elias, Rahita, Beyond Boundaries: The First 35 Years of the NOL Story, p. 8, Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., 2004.

Howland was twice married. His first marriage was to Louisa Edgar (1789–1826) on December 14, 1812. Louisa was the daughter of William Edgar. Together, they were the parents of five children, including:{{cite book |last1=Duyckinck |first1=Whitehead Cornell |last2=Cornell |first2=John |title=The Duyckinck and Allied Families: Being A Record of the Descendants of Evert Duyckink who settled in New Amsterdam, now New York, in 1638 |date=1908 |publisher=Tobias A. Wright |pages=[https://archive.org/details/duyckinckandall00corngoog/page/n90 56]-57 |url=https://archive.org/details/duyckinckandall00corngoog |access-date=18 July 2019 |language=en}}

• William Edgar Howland (1813–1885), who married Ann Walter Cogswell.{{cite book |last1=Bergen |first1=Tunis Garret |title=Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation |date=1915 |publisher=Lewis Historical Publishing Company |page=1176 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZuwpAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1176 |access-date=18 July 2019 |language=en}} After her death, he married Hortense La Periene.
• Annabella Edgar Howland (1816–1899), who married Rufus Leavitt (1794–1867).
• Abby Woolsey Howland (1817–1851), who married Frederick Henry Wolcott Sr. in 1838.
• Robert Shaw Howland (1820–1887), who founded Church of the Heavenly Rest in 1865 on New York's Upper East Side and was married to Mary Elizabeth Watts Woolsey, a sister of Eliza Newton Woolsey (the wife of his cousin Joseph Howland).
• Marie Louisa Howland (b. 1823), who married James Brown (1823–1847).

After the death of his first wife in 1826, he remarried to Louisa Sophia Meredith (1810–1888) on July 7, 1829. She was the daughter of Jonathan Meredith. They were the parents of:

• Rebecca Brien Howland (1831–1876), who married her second cousin James Roosevelt Sr. in 1853. After Rebecca's death, James married Sara Ann Delano and became the father of Franklin D. Roosevelt.{{cite news |date=8 May 1927 |title=J. R. Roosevelt, 73, Dies at Hyde Park; Philanthropist and Trustee of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Victim of Bronchitis – Brother-in-Law of Late Col. J. J. Astor and Half Brother of Franklin D. Roosevelt. |pages=29 |work=The New York Times |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A01E2D9123FE03ABC4053DFB366838C639EDE&legacy=true |access-date=21 June 2017 |id={{ProQuest|104171031}}}}
• Meredith Howland (1833–1912),{{cite news |date=April 6, 1912 |title=Meredith Howland |pages=11 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/04/06/100528916.pdf |access-date=9 December 2018 |id={{ProQuest|97364919}}}} who married Adelaide Torrance,{{cite news |date=September 16, 1932 |title=MRS. MEREDITH HOWLAND {{!}} Descendant of Commodore Vanderbilt Stricken in Paris |language=en |pages=21 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1932/09/16/100805897.pdf |access-date=9 December 2018 |id={{ProQuest|99717532}}}} the daughter of Daniel Torrance and Sophia Johnson (née Vanderbilt) Torrance.{{cite news |date=March 11, 1892 |title=HADDEN--TORRANCE |pages=4 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1892/03/11/106083878.pdf |access-date=27 June 2018 |id={{ProQuest|95004358}}}}
• Gardiner Greene Howland Jr. (1834–1903), who married Mary Grafton Dulany in 1856 and was the general manager of the New York Herald.{{cite book |last1=Thurtle |first1=Robert Glenn |title=Lineage Book of Hereditary Order of Descendants of Colonial Governors |date=2009 |publisher=Genealogical Publishing Com |isbn=9780806350875 |page=127 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xUmYgRsSTZUC&pg=PA127 |access-date=18 July 2019 |language=en}}
• Joanna Hone Howland (b. 1842), who married Irving Grinnel (b. 1840).{{cite book |title=Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide |date=1902 |publisher=C.W. Sweet & Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MiEeKE5HDnQC |access-date=18 July 2019 |language=en}}
• Emma Meredith Howland (1847–1849), who died in infancy.
• Samuel Shaw Howland (1849–1925), who married Fredericka Belmont, daughter of August Belmont.{{cite book |title=The Howland Quarterly |date=1939 |publisher=Pilgrim John Howland Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0jhVAAAAMAAJ |access-date=18 July 2019 |language=en}}

Howland died on November 9, 1851, and was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Through his daughter Rebecca, he was a grandfather of James Roosevelt Roosevelt (1854–1927), who married Helen Schermerhorn Astor, the second daughter of businessman William Backhouse Astor Jr. and socialite Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor.{{cite news |date=19 November 1878 |title=A Notable Social Event; The Wedding of Miss Astor and Mr. Roosevelt; An English Morning Ceremony in Grace Church the Reception in the Astor Mansion; The Bride's Presents and Some of the Costumes. |pages=1 |work=The New York Times |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D00E5D9153EE63BBC4152DFB7678383669FDE&legacy=true |access-date=21 June 2017 |id={{ProQuest|93751399}}}} Through his son Gardiner Jr., he was a grandfather of Maud Howland (1866–1952), who married banker, financier, and philanthropist Percy Rivington Pyne II;{{cite news |date=August 23, 1929 |title=Percy R. Pyne Dies. Noted Financier. Philanthropist Succumbs at His Summer Home in Bernardsville, N.J., at 72 Years. Bank And Rail Official. He Was Long Active in Many New York Charities and Interested in Explorations. A Native of New York City. Active in Scientific Research |pages=13 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/08/23/archives/percy-r-pyne-dies-noted-financier-philanthropist-succumbs-at-his.html |access-date=2012-09-15 |id={{ProQuest|104909717}} |quote=Percy R. Pyne, philanthropist, railroad official, financier and member of a prominent New York family, died here early this morning at his Summer home, Upton Pyne. ...}} and Dulany Howland (1859–1915), who married Marguerite McClure. After Dulany's death, Marguerite married Ambassador Ogden Haggerty Hammond, the father of Millicent Fenwick.{{cite news |date=December 19, 1917 |title=Mrs. Howland Weds Ogden H. Hammond |pages=10 |work=The New York Times |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A07E5DE1E3BE03ABC4152DFB467838C609EDE |id={{ProQuest|99867826}}}}

• Howland & Aspinwall

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Category:1787 births

Category:1851 deaths

Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery

Category:Howland family

Category:19th-century American merchants