(Click on image for larger view: The home of Henry Augustus Gardner, called “Riverby” in Touisset, can be located on the very bottom left of the above map).
Across the Taunton River in South Swansea and adjacent to Mount Hope Bay in Touisset, Ma. lived a branch of Swansea’s founding Gardners who became relatives through marriage to Emma and Lizzie Borden.
Emma would be the one to maintain relationships – and very close ones – with her Gardner cousins after “The Trial” and her 1905 separation from her sister. Indeed, she knew all of those in the picture below. Their own children were her contemporaries and some would become helpful guides in her later life and benefit from her financial legacy after her death.
From my collection on the Gardners, here’s an old group photo. I’ve placed their names onto the photo for quick identity reference.
The Gardners of Swansea and Touisset, MA
(Click on image for larger view)
Handwritten names found back of oval picture shown above.
The genealogical link that bound Emma and Lizzie to these Gardners was the marriage between Henry Augustus Gardner and Caroline Cole Mason Gardner. Caroline’s sister, Ann Frances, had married William Bradford Morse eight years previous. William Bradford Morse was the brother of Sarah Anthony Morse and John Vinnicum Morse, Lizzie and Emma’s mother and uncle.
Henry Augusts Gardner and Caroline Cole (Mason) Gardner
Wedding certificate for Henry & Caroline – Married on December 11, 1864. (Emma was nearly 14 and Lizzie 4-1/2 years old when they wed; her future financial advisor, Preston, nephew of Henry & Caroline, was then a one year old baby).
Ann Frances (Mason) Morse William Bradford Morse
William married Ann, age 21, on June 8, 1856, in Excelsior, Minnesota when Emma was five years old. It would be interesting to know how Ann’s younger sister, Caroline, came to first meet (and subsequently marry) Henry Augustus Gardner whose roots were Swansea and not Excelsior.
I’ll have to add that task to my list.
