George Gardiner (settler)
George Gardiner (1608/1615 - c. 1677), sometimes spelled Gardner, was an early inhabitant of Newport in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and one of the original settlers of Aquidneck Island. He held some minor offices within the colony in the early 1640s, shortly after which he began a common-law marriage with Herodias (Long) Hicks, who came to live with him after separating from her first husband. This relationship lasted for nearly 20 years, after which Herodias petitioned the court to have Gardiner leave her alone, and she left Newport to go west of the Narragansett Bay and live with John Porter, a land-rich settler who was one of the original purchasers of the Pettaquamscutt lands (later South Kingstown, Rhode Island). Gardiner apparently had seven children with Herodias, and after her departure, five more with subsequent wife Lydia Ballou. His family produced a large number of descendants. A grandson, John Gardner served as Deputy Governor of the Rhode Island colony. Life George Gardiner was one of the earliest settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and first appears in the public record in 1638, when he was admitted as an inhabitant of Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island. A genealogy published in 1937 identified him with the George Gardner, baptized in 1599/1600 at Great Greenford, Middlesex, England, son of Michael and Margaret (Browne) Gardiner. They further identify George with the groom in a 1630 marriage at St. James, Clerkenwell, London to Sara Slaughter. However, prominent genealogist G. Andrews Moriarty demonstrated that evidence for this identification was lacking, and that the identification was unlikely. Moriarty's strongest evidence against this arrangement is that Gardiner would have sired five children while between the age of 67 and 74, which, though possible, is highly improbable, and that "no critical genealogist can accept the identification" unless supporting evidence were to be found. He gives a birth date in the range of 1608 to 1615 as being far more likely for the New England George Gardiner, and concludes that there is no evidence for an earlier marriage of this man, nor to assign his oldest children to a spouse other than Herodias (Long) Hicks. Gardiner followed William Coddington to Newport in 1639, but his name was not on the list of the nine men who signed an agreement to establish the new government there. He was a Newport freeman in December 1639 and a land owner there the following year when he had 58 acres recorded. He was named as Constable and Senior Sergeant in 1642, and was an Ensign two years later. At about this time he commenced a relationship with Herodias (Long) Hicks, a woman who has been generally referred to as his common-law wife. John Hicks, the previous husband of Herodias, was in the process of obtaining a divorce from her in Rhode Island in December 1643, when he sent a letter from Flushing, New Netherland to Rhode Island magistrate John Coggeshall. Hicks also eventually obtained a divorce from her