Gardiner Greene Howland

Gardiner Greene Howland (September 4, 1787 – November 9, 1851) was a prominent American businessman who was a founding partner in the merchant firm of Howland & Aspinwall and a co-founder of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

Gardiner Greene Howland
Born(1787-09-04)September 4, 1787
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
DiedNovember 9, 1851(1851-11-09) (aged 64)
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Resting placeGreen-Wood Cemetery
OrganizationHowland & Aspinwall
Pacific Mail Steamship Company
Spouse(s)
Louisa Edgar
​
​
(m. 1812; died 1826)​

Louisa Sophia Meredith
​
​
(m. 1829; his death 1851)​
RelativesJoseph Howland (nephew)
William Henry Aspinwall (nephew)

Early life

Howland was born on September 4, 1787 in New York City. He was a son of Joseph Howland (1750–1836) and Lydia (née Bill) Howland (1753–1838), who married in Norwich, Connecticut in 1772.[1] Among his siblings was Lydia Howland, wife of Levi Coit; Jane Abigail Howland, wife of George Muirson Woolsey (uncle to Theodore Dwight Woolsey), Harriet Howland, the third wife of New York State Assemblyman James Roosevelt;[2] Susan Howland,[3] who married dry goods merchant John Aspinwall (a descendant of settler William Aspinwall[4]); and Samuel Shaw Howland.[5]

His paternal grandparents were Abigail (née Burt) Howland and Nathaniel Howland,[1] a descendant of John Howland, one of the Pilgrim Fathers and a signer of the 1620 Mayflower Compact, the governing document of what became Plymouth Colony.[6] His niece Mary Rebecca Aspinwall was married to James Roosevelt's son, Isaac Roosevelt, the grandfather of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[7] His nephew was Union Army officer and New York State Treasurer Joseph Howland.[6]

Career

Howland and his brother Samuel Shaw Howland found the merchant firm of G.G. & S.S. Howland,[2] which imported high-status goods such as porcelain, silk, and tea from China, and sold them to Americans of means.[2] In 1832, his son William Edgar Howland and nephew William Henry Aspinwall became partners in Howland & Aspinwall.[8] Aspinwall assumed the presidency in 1835 and expanded trade to South America, China, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the East and West Indies. Howland & Aspinwall owned some of the most famous clipper ships ever built.[9]

In 1845, while the firm owned the Ann McKim which was regarded as the fastest ship afloat, it built the Rainbow, which was even faster. The Rainbow was the high-tech racehorse of its day, and is considered to be the first of the extreme clippers. Instead of the bluff bow that was customary on ships up until that time, the Rainbow had a sharp bow, prompting on-lookers to joke that maybe she would sail better backwards. The next year, Howland & Aspinwall had the Sea Witch built, which set a speed record from China to New York which still stands.[10] The firm and its profits made the Howlands and Aspinwalls very wealthy,[11]

In 1840s, Aspinwall's younger brother John Lloyd Aspinwall succeeded William Henry Aspinwall as president of Howland & Aspinwall.[2] In 1848, Howland, along with William Henry Aspinwall and Henry Chauncey, founded the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, to provide service to California.[12] This turned out to be a rather good year in which to start a steamship line to California, since the Gold Rush started the next year. Howland & Aspinwall were also the recipients of a federal government subsidy to operate their trans-oceanic steamship line, against which they were forced to compete with the unsubsidized line owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt.[13] The company's first vessel to make the trip was packed with passengers. Pacific Mail eventually became American President Lines,[14] which is now part of Neptune Orient Lines.[15]

Personal life

Howland was twice married. His first marriage was to Louisa Edgar (1789–1826) on December 14, 1812. Louisa was the daughter of William Edgar. Together, they were the parents of five children, including:[16]

  • William Edgar Howland (1813–1885), who married Ann Walter Cogswell.[17] After her death, he married Hortense La Periene.[16]
  • Annabella Edgar Howland (1816–1899), who married Rufus Leavitt (1794–1867).[16]
  • Abby Woolsey Howland (1817–1851), who married Frederick Henry Wolcott Sr. in 1838.[16]
  • Robert Shaw Howland (1820–1887), who founded Church of the Heavenly Rest in 1865 on New York's Upper East Side and was married to Mary Elizabeth Watts Woolsey, a sister of Eliza Newton Woolsey (the wife of his cousin Joseph Howland).[16]
  • Marie Louisa Howland (b. 1823), who married James Brown (1823–1847).[16]

After the death of his first wife in 1826, he remarried to Louisa Sophia Meredith (1810–1888) on July 7, 1829. She was the daughter of Jonathan Meredith. They were the parents of:

  • Rebecca Brien Howland (1831–1876), who married her second cousin James Roosevelt Sr. in 1853. After Rebecca's death, James married Sara Ann Delano and became the father of Franklin D. Roosevelt.[18]
  • Meredith Howland (1833–1912),[19] who married Adelaide Torrance,[20] the daughter of Daniel Torrance and Sophia Johnson (née Vanderbilt) Torrance.[21]
  • Gardiner Greene Howland Jr. (1834–1903), who married Mary Grafton Dulany in 1856 and was the general manager of the New York Herald.[1]
  • Joanna Hone Howland (b. 1842), who married Irving Grinnel (b. 1840).[22]
  • Emma Meredith Howland (1847–1849), who died in infancy.
  • Samuel Shaw Howland (1849–1925), who married Fredericka Belmont, daughter of August Belmont.[23]

Howland died on November 9, 1851 and was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Descendants

Through his daughter Rebecca, he was a grandfather of James Roosevelt Roosevelt (1854–1927), who married Helen Schermerhorn Astor, the second daughter of businessman William Backhouse Astor Jr. and socialite Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor.[24] Through his son Gardiner Jr., he was a grandfather of Maud Howland (1866–1952), who married banker, financier, and philanthropist Percy Rivington Pyne II;[25] and Dulany Howland (1859–1915),[1] who married Marguerite McClure. After Dulany's death, Marguerite married Ambassador Ogden Haggerty Hammond, the father of Millicent Fenwick.[26]

See also

References
  1. Thurtle, Robert Glenn (2009). Lineage Book of Hereditary Order of Descendants of Colonial Governors. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 127. ISBN 9780806350875. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  2. Kienholz, M. (2008). Opium Traders and Their Worlds-Volume One: A Revisionist Exposé of the World's Greatest Opium Traders. iUniverse. p. 403. ISBN 9780595910786. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  3. Aspinwall, John; Collins, Aileen Sutherland (1994). Travels in Britain, 1794-1795: the diary of John Aspinwall, great-grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with a brief history of his Aspinwall forebears. Parsons Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780963848765. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  4. Aspinwall, Algernon Aikin (1901). The Aspinwall Genealogy. Rutland, VT: The Tuttle Co., Printers. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  5. Barrett, Walter (1864). The Old Merchants of New York City, Second Series. New York: Carleton, Publisher. p. 337. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  6. Whittelsey, Charles Barney (1902). The Roosevelt Genealogy, 1649-1902. Hartford, Connecticut: Press of J.B. Burr & Company. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  7. "Roosevelt Genealogy". fdrlibrary.marist.edu. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  8. "Obituary: William H. Aspinwall" (PDF). New York Times. January 19, 1875. Retrieved December 16, 2008.
  9. Blume, Kenneth J. (2012). Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Maritime Industry. Scarecrow Press. p. 227. ISBN 9780810856349. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  10. Somerville, Col. Duncan S., The Aspinwall Empire, p. 22, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc., Mystic, CT, 1983.
  11. Hillstrom, Kevin; Hillstrom, Laurie Collier (2005). The Industrial Revolution in America: Iron and steel. ABC-CLIO. p. 83. ISBN 9781851096206. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  12. "Testimonial to the Late William H. Aspinwall". The New York Times. January 21, 1875. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  13. Stiles, T.J. (2009). The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-41542-5.
  14. Niven, John, The American President Lines and its Forebears 1948-1984, p. 15, University of Delaware Press, Newark, NJ, 1987.
  15. Elias, Rahita, Beyond Boundaries: The First 35 Years of the NOL Story, p. 8, Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., 2004.
  16. Duyckinck, Whitehead Cornell; Cornell, John (1908). The Duyckinck and Allied Families: Being A Record of the Descendants of Evert Duyckink who settled in New Amsterdam, now New York, in 1638. Tobias A. Wright. pp. 56-57. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  17. Bergen, Tunis Garret (1915). Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. p. 1176. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  18. "J. R. Roosevelt, 73, Dies at Hyde Park; Philanthropist and Trustee of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Victim of Bronchitis – Brother-in-Law of Late Col. J. J. Astor and Half Brother of Franklin D. Roosevelt". The New York Times. 8 May 1927. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  19. "Meredith Howland" (PDF). The New York Times. April 6, 1912. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
  20. "MRS. MEREDITH HOWLAND | Descendant of Commodore Vanderbilt Stricken in Paris" (PDF). The New York Times. September 16, 1932. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
  21. "HADDEN--TORRANCE" (PDF). The New York Times. March 11, 1892. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  22. Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide. C.W. Sweet & Company. 1902. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  23. The Howland Quarterly. Pilgrim John Howland Society. 1939. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  24. "A Notable Social Event; The Wedding of Miss Astor and Mr. Roosevelt; An English Morning Ceremony in Grace Church the Reception in the Astor Mansion; The Bride's Presents and Some of the Costumes". The New York Times. 19 November 1878. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  25. "Percy R. Pyne Dies. Noted Financier. Philanthropist Succumbs at His Summer Home in Bernardsville, N.J., at 72 Years. Bank And Rail Official. He Was Long Active in Many New York Charities and Interested in Explorations. A Native of New York City. Active in Scientific Research". The New York Times. August 23, 1929. Retrieved 2012-09-15. Percy R. Pyne, philanthropist, railroad official, financier and member of a prominent New York family, died here early this morning at his Summer home, Upton Pyne. ...
  26. "Mrs. Howland Weds Ogden H. Hammond". The New York Times. December 19, 1917.
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