Dr. Sylvester Gardiner was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island in 1707. He studied eight years in England and France. Returning to Boston he pursued a successful professional career. He established a store for the importation of drugs and acquired a fortune.

Gardiner accumulated much real estate in Maine and became proprietor of one-twelfth part of the Plymouth Purchase on the Kennebec River. At one time he owned 100,000 acres and was grantor to much of the land in ancient Pittston, as the area was known.

He made great efforts to settle a large area around the Kennebec.  Gardiner built mills, houses, stores, and wharves, cleared lands and made generous offers to immigrants. He established an Episcopal mission and furnished the people of the region with their first religious instruction. Most of this was accomplished with his own money.  He erected houses and mills at Swan Island, in what was then Pownalborough, and other places where he sponsored many settlements.

A loyalist at the time of the American Revolution, he abandoned Maine and found temporary shelter in Halifax. In 1778 he settled in Poole, England.  His property in Boston and Maine was confiscated and all goods that could be found were sold at public auction. Dr. Gardiner returned to the United States in 1785 and died at Kingston, Rhode Island in 1786 in his 80th year.

The town of Gardiner was named in his honor.

Additional resources

Stark, James H. The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution.  Salem Press. 1910. pp.313-315.

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