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'Archibald Gardner' (1814 – 1902) was a 19th century pioneer and businessman who helped establish communities in Alvinston, Ontario, Canada, West Jordan, Utah and Star Valley, Wyoming. He was also an early leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As a businessman, millwright and practical engineer, Archibald Gardner built 36 mills, mostly gristmills, 23 in Utah, six in Canada, five in Wyoming, and two in Idaho. He also built hundreds of miles of canals, and many bridges. Gristmills often formed the economic center of a community, producing flour to bake bread.

Contents

Alvinston, Ontario

Mormon pioneer

Life in the West

Legacy

Notes

References

External links

Alvinston, Ontario

Archibald was born on, or around October 8, 1814 in Kilsyth, Scotland. Archibald, brother Robert, sister Mary and their mother emigrated to eastern Ontario, Canada (near to Port Dalhousie) in 1822, two years after their father and brother William. At 17, Archibald built his first mill by following the direction of his father. Six years later Archibald went on his own, moving to southwestern Ontario. In Alvinston, Ontario he built a gristmill in 1837 on the east end of the sixth concession of Brooke township. As was common to the technology of the period, Archibald Gardner's gristmills were "built without nails. Wooden pins and mortises were used instead. All shafts, bearings, cog wheels, etc. were of wood..."Gardner Mill and the Birth of Salt Lake Valley's West Side, by Becky Bartholomew, ''History Blazer'', November 1995, as found May 2, 2007 on "Utah History to Go" section of utah.gov The gristmill area was on a hill that faces Alvinston. The area was called Gardner's Mill for several years. Archibald also built a saw mill in this area to produce shingles. Under business pressure, mostly based on his joining the LDS Church, Gardner sold his Alvinston area mills at a reduced price. Archibald left Canada in 1846 for the United States, documenting a miracle escape across an ice flow filled river, an event that was witnessed by many and reported in a Detroit newspaper. ^[1] Harriet Beecher Stowe used the event in her 1853 book Uncle Tom's Cabin to allow an escaped slave to safely enter Canada.

Mormon pioneer

In 1845, while living in Brooke, Kent, Western District, Canada (near Sarnia, Ontario), later named Alvinston, Gardner followed the example of four family members, his mother, sister and two brothers, and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His father did not join until 1855. The family and others, 100 wagons total, left Canada, meeting Archibald in Joliet, Illinois. The Canadian group tried to meet up with Brigham Young in Nauvoo, Illinois. The group stayed in Nauvoo two weeks, and then caught up with the Mormon Exodus in Winter Quarters. In 1859 Gardner became a LDS Bishop of a local ward of about 600 members, a position that he held for 32 years.

Life in the West

Arriving in Utah in 1847, Gardner first built a mill near Warm Springs. In 1848 he moved the mill to a site on Mill Creek where the water flow was greater, in time for the fall harvest. There he claimed to have sawed the first lumber in the Salt Lake Valley. This mill was sold to Brigham Young for $6,000, paid in-kind. West Jordan business boomed with the building of a gristmill. "Gardner Mill inspired a cluster of small industries, including blacksmith shops, logging and hauling operations, woolen and carding mills, a tannery, several stores, a shoe shop, and later a broom factory". Each business employed more settlers, entrenching the Gardner Mill as a hub of the west side's first industrial center. In total Archibald built 23 mills in Utah, with several of the mills selling its products to federal groups, especially military forts, thereby gaining much needed cash and hard to obtain goods. Archibald also built miles of canals, tunnels and bridges. His Utah canals, tunnels and bridges were reimbursed by the territorial legislature, with the canals' water irrigating farm land, and fulfilling other purposes.
He was also a miner and land developer, partnering and selling several mining properties. The largest was a site in Bingham Canyon, south of West Jordan, Utah, that was found in 1863 while logging with a partner.^[2] For several years Archibald was the county recorder, recording mining claims and other deeds in the Bingham Canyon area. From 1878-1882 Gardner served in the Utah Territorial Legislature.
Due to an unsettled polygamist status, after 1882 Archibald moved to Mexico and other places, ending up in Afton, Wyoming in 1889. He lived in Wyoming with with two wives, Laura Althea Thompson, his fifth, and Mary Larson, his 11th, and several of his 48 children. When Althea died in Afton in 1896, Archibald buried her in the Salt Lake cemetery's Gardner family plot. Archibald stayed on in Utah building another gristmill in Spanish Fork. Archibald Gardner died on February 8, 1902, and is buried in the Salt Lake cemetery. A new headstone was dedicated after a 1989 Afton, Wyoming family reunion when 5,000 of his 10,000 descendants attended.

Legacy

Gardner's life is memorialized by a plaque in Alvinston,^[3] Archibald's Restaurant,^[4] and restored gristmill in West Jordan at Gardner Village,^[5] and a monument in Afton Wyoming.^[6]

Notes

1. Archibald Gardner Journal, 1814-1857
2. Quirrh Mountain from media.utah.edu.
3. Alvinston History
4. Archibald's Restaurant
5. Gardner Village
6. Afton Monument

References

★ Bartholomew, Becky. Gardner Mill and the Birth of Salt Lake Valley's West Side. ''History Blazer'', November 1995.

★ Carter, Kate B. and Daughters of Utah Pioneers. "Archibald Gardner, the Miller." Heartthrobs of the West, vol. 3, Salt Lake City, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1948.

★ Carter, Kate B. and Daughters of Utah Pioneers. "Journal and Diary of Robert Gardner." Heartthrobs of the West, vol. 10, Salt Lake City, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1951.

★ Dedication West Jordan Church. ''Deseret News'', 1867-08-14.

★ Furse, B. S., editor. ''A History of West Jordan.'' Salt Lake City, City of West Jordan, 1995.

★ Hughes, Delia G. ''Life of Archibald Gardner.'' American Fork, Alpine Publishing Company, 1939.

External links

★ Journal (1814-1857)of Archibald Gardner

★ Wives of Archibald Gardner

★ Alvinston History

★ A Future Wife' Trek to Utah

★ West Jordan Mill activity 1858

★ millpictures.com - Picture of Gardner Mill in West Jordan

★ Rootsweb.com - Genealogy and Family info

★ The Sprague Project - Family Information

★ [1] Archibald's gravestones