BIO:  Rev. Leonard Marsden GARDNER, Huntington Township, Adams County, PA

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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 457-458

REV. LEONARD MARSDEN GARDNER, York Springs.  Bernhard Gardner, who emigrated 
from Bremen, Germany, was the progenitor of all the Gardners who lived in the 
eastern part of Adams County.  He resided the first half of the eighteenth 
century in Lancaster and Lebanon Counties, Penn.  He had seven sons, all of 
whom, except the youngest, removed to what was then a part of York County, 
before 1800.  (In that year this part of York County was included in the new 
county of Adams, then organized.)  The Gardners took up their residence along 
the Bermudian and Conowago Creeks; reared large families; and left quite a 
number of descendants, many of whom are still found there.  Jacob and John 
located in the village of Petersburg, now York Springs.  Jacob carried on 
tanning a number of years, and was followed in that business by two of his sons.  
John was a wagon-maker by trade, and two of his sons, Benjamin and George, also 
followed that business in the same village for many years, but finally began the 
manufacture of carriages on a large scale, each having a separate establishment.  
In the latter part of his life George invented and patented a machine for 
hulling clover seed, which was in such demand that he disposed of his carriage 
factory and devoted his time to the manufacture of his patent.  The only son of 
George is Rev. Leonard M., the subject of our sketch.  He was born near 
Hunterstown, Adams County, October 10, 1831, but was reared in the village of 
Petersburg until his seventeenth year.  He then served a three years' 
apprenticeship at the printing business in the office of the Star and Banner, 
Gettysburg, Penn., and later entered Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Penn., 
where he remained two years.  In the spring of 1854 he entered the Baltimore 
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  His pastorates have been 
Mercersburg, Penn., Middletown and Liberty, Md., McConnellsburg, Penn., Hancock, 
Md., Lock Haven and Curwensville, Penn., Exeter Street, Strawbridge, Eastern 
Avenue and Franklin Street, in Baltimore city, and Ryland and Mount Zion, 
Washington, D. C., and, by special transfer, for three years at the old Liberty 
Street Church, Pittsburgh, Penn.  He is at present pastor of the Franklin Street 
Church, in Baltimore.  During the war he was an ardent Union man, and supported 
the Government in every proper and patriotic way in its effort to suppress the 
Rebellion.  On the early morning of July 4, 1863, before the result of the 
battle of Gettysburg was known, a messenger from Gen. Smith, en route for Gen. 
Meade’s headquarters, with important dispatches, met Mr. Gardner in front of his 
father’s house, in York Springs, and asked for directions to get around the 
rebel army to Gen. Meade.  Our subject volunteered himself as a guide, and 
successfully conducted him, by way of New Oxford, arriving on the battle ground 
at 6 P. M., and during the following week, in connection with the Christian 
Commission, was occupied in caring for and attending to the sick and wounded 
soldiers of both armies.  The year following, as a member of the Christian 
Commission, he was with the Army of the Potomac, through the battle of the 
Wilderness, and until the army crossed the James River.  The greater part of the 
time he was attached to the field hospital and exposed to the usual dangers 
consequent to marching and fighting.  Of all the numerous progeny of Bernhard 
Gardner first mentioned, now numbering many hundreds, the Rev. Leonard M. is the 
only one who ever became a minister of the gospel, and, though only one from the 
flock, the Lord has made him a host.  In the power of ministerial oratory and 
success as a preacher, he stands in the front rank.  He owns a farm and 
homestead at York Springs; the house is kept furnished and ready for occupancy, 
and each summer and at other seasons, he returns to it for quiet, or engages in 
the agricultural pursuits necessary to its care, and returns after each vacation 
to his ministerial labors with renewed vigor.  He was married December 24, 1856, 
to Miss Annie M. Rhodes, an estimable lady, formerly of Greencastle, Franklin 
Co., Penn., a daughter of William P. Rhodes.  Mr. and Mrs. Gardner have two 
sons:  George W. and Leonard M., Jr., both now residents of Florida.