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GARDNER, Augustus Peabody (1865-1918)
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GARDNER, AUGUSTUS PEABODY, (uncle of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.), a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Boston, Mass., November 5, 1865; attended St. Paul's School, Concord, N.H., and was graduated from Harvard University in 1886; studied law in Harvard Law School, but never practiced, devoting himself to the management of his estate; captain and assistant adjutant general on the staff of Gen. James H. Wilson during the Spanish-American War; member of the State senate 1900 and 1901; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-seventh Congress by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of United States Representative William H. Moody, and reelected to the eight succeeding Congresses (November 4, 1902-May 15, 1917); resigned from Congress to enter the Army; chairman, Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions (Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth Congresses); during the First World War served at Governors Island and in Macon, Ga., as colonel in the Adjutant General's Department, and later was transferred at his own request to the One Hundred and Thirty-first Regiment, United States Infantry, with the rank of major; died at Camp Wheeler, Macon, Ga., January 14, 1918; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

Boston Athenaeum
Boston, MA
Papers: 1906-1912, 29 items.
Letters from Augustus Peabody Gardner to E.E. Gaylord during Gardner's tenure as a United States Representative. The letters provide revealing and personal observations by Gardner on certain political issues of the period. Some of the issues discussed are: the removal of Speaker of the House, Joseph G. Cannon (Illinois), discussion of insurgency and patronage among members of the House, food surplussing, passage of the Postal Savings Bank bill (1910), the Parcel Post System Bill, meat inspection legislation, and Gardner's opposition to appropriations for a New Orleans Exposition, Theodore Roosevelt's nomination to the Presidency, and the Pension Bill (1910). Several letters discuss the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy in 1910 which involved illegal distribution of federal lands in Alaska, rich in coal, into private ownership. Gardner supported Pinchot's claims and efforts to expose both Taft and Ballinger's motivates in this matter. One of these letters dated 11 January 1910 published by Houghton Mifflin in "Some letters of Augustus Peabody Gardner," in 1920.

Brown University
John Hay Library
Providence, RI
Papers: In the John Hay Correspondence, 1854-1914, "Fiske" to "Gilder," approximately 6,000 items.
Other authors include Augustus Peabody Gardner.

Harvard University
Graduate School of Business Administration Baker Library
Boston, MA
Papers: In the Gardner Family Business Records, ca. 1780-1936, 33.33 linear feet.
Persons represented include Augustus Peabody Gardner.

Massachusetts Historical Society
Boston, MA
Papers: In the Gardner Family Papers, ca. 1655-1959, 2 boxes and 1 narrow box.
Correspondents include Augustus P. Gardner.

Papers: In the Henry Cabot Lodge Papers, ca. 1745-1966; 154 boxes, 216 volumes and an oversize container.
Correspondents include Augustus P. Gardner.

  • Gardner, Augustus Peabody. Some Letters of Augustus Peabody Gardner. Edited by Constance Gardner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920.
  • Gardner, Constance. Augustus Peabody Gardner, Major, United States National Guard, 1865-1918. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, privately printed, 1919.