Davidson-Giles-Shelby County TN Archives Biographies.....Gardner, Edwin M. 1845 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tn/tnfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com October 30, 2005, 3:57 am Author: Will T. Hale AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN M. GARDNER, OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. My paternal grandfather and grandmother were of Dutch parentage, and moved from Little York, Pennsylvania, to Kingston, Tennessee. I learn that my grandfather had an only brother, who left home when about twelve years old, and was never again heard from. At Kingston, Tennessee, my father was born. He had several brothers, and one sister. My grandfather's family consisted of William, George Washington, Nicolas, called Andy, Joseph B., Charles, and a daughter whose name I do not remember. Charles went away with the 1849 exodus to California, and was never after heard from. My father's name was George Washington Gardner. While he was a little boy my grandfather moved away from Kingston, coming down the Tennessee river in a keel boat to the mouth of the Elk river, and up that stream to Elkton, in Giles county, where at the present day is a piece of land known as the "old Gardner farm." In boyhood my father served an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade, and when a young man built some of the first houses erected in Savannah, Tennessee, the Indians at that time owning the land on the opposite side of the Tennessee river. He also erected some of the first houses built in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Returning from there to Tennessee at the age of twenty-six years, he for a short time kept a grocery at Pulaski, Giles county, while there marrying, in 1840, Miss Caroline Francis Ezell, a daughter of Timothy Ezell. My great-grandfather Ezell came from France to America, one tradition being that he came to this country as a Huguenot, and the other relating that he crossed the ocean with the famous French general, Marquis de Lafayette. At the close of the Revolutionary war he settled in Mecklenburg county, Virginia, where he reared a number of boys, and one girl. My maternal grandfather, Timothy Ezell, migrated, with other members of the family, to the Abbeville district, South Carolina, where three Ezells, two boys and a girl, married into the Scotch family of Buchanans, while a Buchanan girl married a man named Bumpass. These two families who had intermarried, and other men of the Ezell name, organized a small colony under the leadership of Dr. Gabriel Bumpass, father of the Bumpass that married a Miss Buchanan, and about 1805 or 1806 this colony came to Tennessee, locating in Nashville. My grandfather, Timothy Ezell, said he was offered forty acres of land just west of the Square, and south of the present site of the State House, for forty dollars, but he refused the offer, as the land was too rocky for corn raising. He bought land down the river, one mile from the bluff, on the east side. In 1807 this little colony moved by way of Columbia to Giles county, from Columbia cutting their way through the cane, following the ridge because the cane was so large in the valleys, passing Campbellsville, and then across to the head waters of Crosswater and Buchanan's creeks in the northeast part of Giles county, probably six miles northeast of Pulaski. The road, which was the first cut in that section of the state, was long known as the Bumpass trail. There they raised a crop of corn in 1808. In 1809 they built about a mile south, or southwest of Crosswater spring, one of the first churches of Giles county. It was a Baptist church, built by the Ezells and Buchanans, and Rev. George Brown, and perhaps. Rev. Galloway, were the first preachers. There my mother, Caroline Francis Ezell, was born and reared. About 1840 my Grandfather Ezell moved to Mississippi, and having bought land near Okolona was there engaged in farming until his death, at the advanced age of four score and four years. His wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Buchanan, lived ten years longer, and died, also, at the age of eighty-four years. After his marriage, my father, George Washington Gardner, bought land lying three miles east of Pulaski, in Giles county, and was there employed in farming for a few years. Going then to Mississippi, he lived near Okolona a year, and then purchased a home about twenty miles further north, in Pontotoc county. I was born, October 12, 1845, on the farm near Pulaski, and was about a year old when the family moved to Mississippi. When I was eight years of age my father bought a home near Harrisburg, Mississippi, and in addition to farming owned and conducted a store in the little town. My early days were spent mainly on the farm, with the negroes, my schooling being obtained during the winter. I became an expert hunter of small game from the wild turkey down, and kept the table well supplied when I was not at work in the field. When the Civil war broke out I was a lad of fifteen years, with an exceedingly limited education. I enlisted in a company of volunteers to beat the snare drum, feeling that I was a drummer boy in very truth, such as I had read about, for I read everything I could get my hands on. When the company was mustered in I was rejected because I was too small, or because there was an understanding between the captain and my father. At any rate I did not go, but cried like a baby because I had to stay at home. Little did I realize where my companions were going, for few of them ever came back. After marking their names on their knapsacks for them, beating the drum for them to recruit by, and bidding them good-bye, I never saw the greater number of them again. Subsequently I became subject to the conscript law, and volunteered in a company being organized at Okolona, Mississippi. It was an independent company, furnishing its own horses and all equipments. That was in 1864, and boys were so scarce that a full company could not be obtained, but we were accepted for provost duty at Okolona, and placed under command of General Bedford Forrest. Our duty was to examine passports on the cars running south; go into the country after deserters; and guard prisoners, and other similar duties. Whenever a battle was brought on, either be the enemy invading north Mississippi, or by our commands moving into Tennessee, we were assigned to some command, and would take our part in the fight. I was with General Forrest in many engagements in North Mississippi, Alabama, and Middle and West Tennessee, having taken part in many skirmishes around Memphis; in the battles at Pontotoc, Mississippi, Harrisburg and Okolona; at Athens, Alabama, and in many minor brushes with the enemy during the last year of the conflict. All the equipment of any value at all that we had we captured from the Federal forces. We never slept under a tent, nor drew a dollar for our services, and all of our clothes were made at home. At the Battle of Harrisburg, Mississippi, my father's house was burned, so, after we heard of the surrender of General Lee, and that our command had been disbanded near Selma, Alabama, I made my way to the pines, near Aberdeen, Mississippi, where my father was existing. Going back then to our old home, there were no houses visible, and as the fences along the road had also been burned, we realized that we were indeed destitute of every comfort of life. But the war was over. There was a waiting as though we expected some of the soldiers that formerly lived there to make their appearance, but only occasionally did one return, maybe wounded, and maybe not. I took my army horse home with me, and we had one pair of oxen to work with. We took possession of a dilapidated old house near where ours formerly stood, and as my brothers were too young to do much work my father, who was then getting old, and myself had to do most of the farming. A few years later my father sold his land in that vicinity, and moved to Tupelo, Mississippi, two miles east of the former site of Harrisburg. Tupelo was a railroad station, and the boys younger than I obtained work in the village stores, and as all were nearly grown we managed to get along pretty well. At Tupelo both my father and mother died, at the ages, respectively, of seventy-four and seventy-six years. They were the parents of seven children, as follows: A child that died in infancy, in Tennessee; Eleanor Elizabeth; Edwin M., myself; Frances Caroline; Timothy Ezell; Orvella; and George Washington, Jr. From my earliest recollection I had been trying to draw and paint, but I now found myself getting up in years, and having had no advantages of study. About 1866 I was employed, in Okolona, by a merchant, who also had a store in Memphis, he furnishing a negro to take my place on the farm. After clerking in his Okolona store for awhile, he sent me to his establishment in Memphis. There I met an artist, a portrait painter, who gave me many ideas in regard to drawing and painting, and I spent all of my spare time with pencil and brush, copying from books, and drawing familiar objects about my room, and bits of landscape along the river banks below the city. By watching others work, and trying by myself, I began to make a portrait that would bring me money. By 1869 I had accumulated a small sum, but not enough to carry me far, but I painted enough portraits to raise my bank account to less than two hundred dollars, working mostly for people in and around Tupelo. With this sum of money in my pocket, I went to New York city, arriving there with $112.00 in my pocket. I attended the National Academy of Design in the winter of 1869 and 1870, returning to Mississippi the following June. While in New York I became acquainted with Dr. Charles F. Deems, pastor of the Church of the Strangers. He sold for me one landscape for $35.00. He introduced me to General Bethune, who, while a resident of Georgia, raised the celebrated negro musical prodigy, Blind Tom. I painted from life a portrait of the general, who paid me $75.00 for it. He then invited me, after school was over, to spend the summer at his home, in Warrenton, Virginia, but when I told him my mother was old, and would want me at home during the summer, he said if I would return to the academy in the fall that he would pay any expense during the winter that I could not easily meet. Among his many other kindnesses, Dr. Deems sent me to Mrs. Commodore Vanderbilt, who was a Southern woman. Under his card of introduction, she treated me very courteously, showing me all the fine paintings and art treasures which she possessed. After I returned to Mississippi, I not only painted many portraits in Aberdeen, but taught in the Female College of that place. While there I was visited by the president of a college in Jackson, Tennessee, who offered me a position in his college, where I taught during the term of 1872 and 1873. Having accumulated $600.00 or $700.00, I spent a part of the years of 1873 and 1874 in Europe, studying art first in Brussels, and later in Paris, in the meantime visiting many of the finest art galleries on the continent, including those at Antwerp, Munich, Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Paris, and then going to London. While in Rome I made one large drawing for Harper's Weekly, illustrated an archaeological work, copying here from the Minerva and Vatican libraries in Rome, also from pictures in the Catacombs, and subsequently copying from works in the Bibliothique, at Paris, and in the British Museum, in London. Returning to America, I located first in Mobile, Alabama, where I married Miss Lula T. West, whom I had met some years before, in Jackson, Tennessee. She was a daughter of John and Martha (Ashcroft) West, of Henderson county, Tennessee. In 1879 I was offered a professorship in the Mary Sharp College, in Winchester, Tennessee, where I taught five years, the last year going to Winchester once a week from Nashville, which has been my home since 1883. Since coming to this city to reside, I have painted several portraits, some landscapes and still life pictures, but not meeting with the recognition that I had hoped for, and with an increasing family to support, I gradually abandoned pictures, and began illustrating for books and the trade generally. I drew on wood the first picture of a Jersey cow ever put in a stock paper in Nashville, and also drew on wood the first portraits ever produced for a newspaper. I drew on stone the first portrait lithographs ever published in Nashville, that of Dr. Strickland; I made the first pen portrait for photo-engraving, it having been that of Mrs. James K. Polk, I illustrated the first book by the Ross tinted paper process; made and used the first chalk plates; and for five years illustrated the Nashville Banner, and one year the Nashville American. I also made the first wax engravings of maps ever made in Nashville, and taught the first successful Free Art school in the city, it being under the auspices of the commissioners of the Watkins Institute. During the years 1912 and 1913, I have discovered that beeswax can be used as a medium for color instead, of oil or water. This is a lost art, as the ancients used wax for portrait painting. There are in the British Museum two or three portraits painted with wax in the Greco-Roman period. I have discovered a method of mixing and applying wax colors by which painting can be done rivaling oil painting in the technique and exceeding either oil or water colors in brilliancy and durability. I have made a landscape with wax colors which I claim to be the only wax painting of a landscape ever made. My wife and I have been blessed with six children, namely: Edwin, who died at the age of six years; Helen lived but seven months; Thomas West Gardner; Martha, wife of John Howard Ansley, has one son, John Howard Ansley, Jr., familiarly called by the family "Jack;" Eleanor Gardner, the fourth child; and Emma Sayle Gardner, who died at the age of seventeen years, in Nashville. The two older children are buried in Winchester, Tennessee. Additional Comments: From: A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities by Will T. Hale Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1913 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/tn/davidson/bios/gardner265nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/tnfiles/ File size: 14.5 Kb