The New York genealogical and biographical record (Volume 74) online

January 5, 1882, his eldest son David J.' Gardiner became the eleventh Proprietor
and Lord of the Manor. He being a bachelor and not wishing to assume the responsi-
bilities attending the management of so large an estate, transferred his rights to his
brother. Colonel John Lyon 7 Gardiner, who is the present and twelfth Lord of this
ancient manor. At the present time there are a number of persons named Gardiner,
not of this family who have settled on Long Island.

Sir Thomas Christopher Banks, a distinguished genealogist, says in his Dormant
and Extinct Baronage of England, that the family of Gardiner of Gardiner's Island
are descended from the Gardiner who married one of the co-heiresses of the Barony
of Fitzwalter, and that the claim can be proven properly if duly inquired into. A
diamond left by the pirate Captain Kidd, when he visited the Manor of Gardiner's Isl-
and, is now in the possession of the family of Gardiner Greene, of Boston, who mar-
ried Miss Copley, a sister of Lord Lyndhurst, late Lord < Ihancellor of Great Britain.

* David " Thompson was a skilful musician, and his flute, made in London by-
George Astor. brother of John Jacob Astor, the emigrant, is now in possession of
Frederick Diodati 7 Thompson.



1896.] The Family of Thompson, 0/ the County of Suffolk, N. Y. j 7

Notwithstanding the early hour of the day, the spacious mansion was
densely crowded with the prominent bankers and distinguished men of
the city. Mr. Thompson has been identified with the banking insti-
tutions of the city for the last fifty years, and by his blameless life, his
mature judgment, his perfect rectitude in all financial transactions, com-
bined with his dignified and courteous manner, won the confidence and
esteem of all who knew him. Few men have led a more practical life
or left behind a purer record. The Rev. Dr. Hutton, in a brief address,
paid an honorable tribute to the memory of the deceased, after which the
venerable Dr. De Witt offered most fervent prayer that God would give
grace and Divine support to the stricken and sorrowing family ; that the
multitude of honored and honorable men (many of whom with himself
were in the sere of life) who had gathered to the house of mourning
might more fully realize the brevity of life and the vanity of earth from
this lesson of Divine Providence. The remains were then removed to the
hearse and deposited in the family vault." Mr. Thompson's children
were Sarah Gardiner'* who married Colonel David Lion Gardiner, born
May 23, 1816, died May 9, 1892, B.A. Princeton (son of David Gardiner
who was killed by the explosion of the great gun on board the United States
frigate Princeton on the Potomac River while on a pleasure excursion
with the President of the United States) ; Elizabeth 1 ; Gardiner 7 ,f B.A.
Columbia College, 1854, born July 23, 1835, died January 15, 1893 ;
David Gardiner'4 B.A. Columbia College, 1856, M.A. i860, born May 29,
1837, died October 16, 1895 ; Charles Griswold 7 , formerly Vice-President

* Mrs. Sarah Thompson 7 Gardiner, widow of Colonel David Lion Gardiner: Miss
Elizabeth 7 Thompson, and Miss Mary Gardiner 1 Thompson, are members of the Orig-
inal Society of Colonial Dames, of which Mrs. A. Gracie King is President; Mrs.
J. Lyon Gardiner, of the Manor of Gardiner's Island, is Vice-President, and Mrs.
John King Van Rensselaer is Secretary.

f " Gardiner 7 Thompson died at his residence. 25 Lafayette Place. New York, on
Sunday, January 15. 1893, after a short illness, of heart trouble.

" Mr. Thompson was born in this city, July 23, 1S35. and was the son of David'
Thompson, a gentleman prominent socially and as a financier in Wall Street. David
Thompson was the son of Honorable Jonathan 5 Thompson, Collector of the Port,
President of the Bank of the Manhattan Company, a gentleman well known in the
social, financial, and political history of New York. He was the intimate friend of
five Presidents of the United Stales.

" Jonathan" Thompson was the son of Honorable Isaac ' Thompson of Sagtikos
Manor, Apple Tree Wicke, one of His Majesty's Judges for the County of Suffolk.
Subsequently an officer of the active militia, chairman of the Committee of Safety.
member of the State Legislature in 1795, and an ardent patriot, having written sev-
eral important letters to the Continental Congress on public affairs. The Thompson
family is one of the oldest on Long Island, having been seated there since 1656.
On the maternal side Gardiner 7 Thompson was descended from the ancient family of
Gardiner's Island, he being the grandson of John Lyon Gardiner, seventh lord of
that manor. Mr. Thompson was a B.A. of Columbia College, having graduated in
1854, ar "i was a refined scholarly gentleman of quiet, unostentatious manners and of
domestic habits. His loss will be severely felt by a large number of relatives and
friends. The funeral obsequies occurred at the old mansion in Lafayette Place, the
Rev. Edward B. Coe officiating, and the interment was in the family fault in Green-
wood Cemetery. Mr. Thompson was unmarried." — New York Genealogical and
Biographical Register, Aral 1893.

% David Gardiner 7 Thompson was a prominent member of the Fraternity of Delta
Psi, the Xew York Historical Society, Long Island Historical Society. Suffolk 1
Historical Society, the American Geographical Society, and the St. Nicholas Society.
He was literary in taste and a remarkable classical scholar. He also traveled exten-
sively and was fond of luxury and refinement.



1 8 The Family of Thompson, of the County of Suffolk, N. V. [Jan.,

of the New York Life Insurance and Trust Co., and a member of the
Century and Metropolitan Clubs ; Mary Gardiner 7 , Frederick Diodati 7 ,*
and a son, John Lyon Gardiner 7 , who died young, and is buried on the
Manor of Gardiner's Island. Sarah Gardiner 7 Thompson, who married
David Lion Gardiner, has children — David", Sarah Diodati", and Robert
Alexander", graduated B.A. Yale, 1887.

George VV." Thompson, born February 25, 1817, died January 8, 1884,
son of Jonathan" Thompson, entered the Custom House under his father
and became the Deputy Collector. He afterward established himself in
business, and acquired by careful attention and strict integrity a fine for-
tune. He married Eliza Prall, born December 16, 1817, died May 7,
1886. Her father was an eminent merchant and related to some of the
best people of the city. They had children : Anna 7 , born December
17, 1846, married William Thorne (son of the late Jonathan Thorne
of Thorndale and New York, a wealthy and well-known merchant) and
has one child (Lydia A.") ; William Prall 7 , f born May 4, 1850, married
December 1, 1875, Grace Hollister, only daughter of John Jay Hollister,
an eminent citizen of Buffalo, N. Y. (He has children, Edith Crosby",
born March 4, 1877, and George W. a , born April 7, 1878, at present a
student at Harvard University.) Thomas De Witt 7 , born February 27,
1853, died January 10, 1893, graduated B.A. 1874, Columbia College,
and M.A., and a son George \Y. 7 , who died young.

Jonathan 6 Thompson, son of Hon. Jonathan 6 Thompson, born Feb-
ruary 1, 1 8 14, died November 14, 1872, married Katherine Todhunter,
died May 9, 1878, of a highly connected family of Baltimore. They had
a number of children, but three only lived : Elizabeth T. 7 , born Decem-
ber, 1845, married June 9, 1884, at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian
Church by the Rev. Dr. John Hall, Elijah Pendleton Smith ; Joseph
Todhunter 7 , born January 10, i860, married at St. Mark's-in-the-
Bowery by the Rev. Dr. J. H. Rylance, the rector, April 29, 1884,
Jane, daughter of William and Jane Suydam Remsen, and has children
(Jonathan 8 , born January 31, 1885, Jane Remsen 8 , born November 11,
1SS7. Elizabeth Remsen 8 , bnrn February 16, 1894), Mary "' who mar-
ried William B. Westcote (Mr. Westcote and his sister, who married
Fordham Morris of Morrisania, were the only children of William ].
Westcote, Esq.), and has three children (Kitty T. 8 , Robert D. 8 , and
William T. B ), and Harry 7 who died March 22, i860.

Jonathan 7 Thompson graduated at Columbia College, B. A. 1832,
M.A. 1837. He entered the counting-house of S. S. & G. G. Howland,
and was there associated with Moses Taylor, Wm. H. Aspinwall, and
other young men who afterwards attained eminence in mercantile life.

* Frederick Diodati' Thompson graduated LL.B. at Columbia College, was admitted
topractice in the Supreme Court of the United States on motion of the then Attorney-
General Benjamin 11. Brewster ; was Turkish Commissioner to theChicago Exhibition
I I Liu nary), and has been decorated by the Sultan with the orders of the Osmanlieh
and the Medjidieh ; author of " In the Track of the Sun." a book of travels, and
many articles in magazines ; is the present proprietor of Sagtikos Manor, Apple
icke ; a member of the New York Historical Society, Long Island Histor-
ical Society, the Knickerbocker and Union Clubs, St. George's Society, Academy of
Design, Fraternity of Delta I'si, Sons of the Revolution,' Society of Colonial Wars,
and a trustee of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, of which
Society he was formerly Secretary.

f Wm. Trail 7 Thompson, T. De W itt 7 Thompson, and Jos. T. 7 Thompson, mem-
bers of the Union Club, New York.




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