Benoni GARDINER

                   Naming
1645 , Newport, Rhode Island
1643-45         Benoni Gardiner, son of George and Herodias (Long) Gardiner, wasprobably born in Newport, Rhode Island.  No information on the Gardiner childrens birthdates survived the destruction of Newports records.  In 1727 Benoni Gardner estimated his age as  ninety years and upward, making his birth year about 1637, probably an exaggeration.  His brother Henry was probably more accurate with an estimated birth year of 1645.

The Biblical "Benoni" was the son of Abraham and Sarah.  Sarah died giving birthto Benoni, and New Englanders sometimes named sons Benoni when their mothers died in childbed.  However, Herodias definitely survived Benonis birth.  She probably noted the highly troubled circumstances surrounding Benonis arrival bygiving him a Hebrew name meaning child of my sorrow.


See my Gardiner documentation on my computer.  He may have been born as late as 1646 in Rhode Island.
Some people had him as the child of Sarah Slaughter, other think he was the child of Herodias Long.
Karen's information also has the mother of Nathaniel as Mary Sherman (Dyer)
born about 1636. One place had his birthdate as 1636, I went with the one from the Utah Geneological Society.

5/4/2013. He may have been the son of Herodias Long and George Gardiiner.

Benoni testified in 1727, calling himself "aged 90 years and upwards" (Austin, p. 81). If this statement is correct, he was born in or shortly before 1637 and so could not have been the son of Herodias. However, there is no doubt but that Benoni overstated his age considerably. Anyone, who has had experience with Colonial depositions and gravestones, knows that, in nine cases out of ten, the ages given are usually some years off the true age. This variation is usually from one to four years out, but this writer has met instances where the age given is from six to ten years out. He has in mind particularly the deposition of a Marblehead man, where the age he gave himself was ten years out, and the gravestone of President John Coggeshall at Newport makes him born in 1591, whereas he was baptized at Halstead, co. Essex, on 9 Dec. 1601 (Austin, p. 49; N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg. LXXIII, 29). Of course cases of so large a discrepancy are comparatively rare.Benoni, at the time he made this deposition, was a very old man and very old people have, as is well known, a tendency to overstate their age. Furthermore, he was not a well educated man; he usually signed with a mark. One careful antiquary in the writer's own family who was well acquainted with the Narragansett records once described him as "an illiterate old man" at the time this deposition wasmade. His brother, Henry, usually allowed to have been the second child of George and Herodias, deposed in March 1738 and called himself "about 93 years of age" (Austin, p. 81). This statement of his age, making himself born about 1645-6 fits far better with all the known facts. Nicholas, the fifth child, testified on12 March 1710/1, and called himself "aged about 57 years (ib.), thus placing his birth in or about 1654; a date which would coincide very well with that given by Henry and with the other known facts. In addition to all this there is further evidence of a very strong nature tending to show that Benoni was also a son ofHerodias.