Catherine Elizabeth Gardner

Catherine Elizabeth Gardner (Peabody)

Find A Grave Memorial ID # 126946750

The only daughter of Joseph Peabody and Elizabeth Smith of Salem. Through her marriage in 1826 to John Lowell Gardner (1804-1884), she united the large Peabody fortune of Salem to one of Boston's first families. Her husband was one of the last great East India merchants of Boston. He left a fortune of $ 5 million to his two surviving sons George Augustus and John Lowell Gardner, Jr. The Peabody-Gardner children further assured the social standing of their family through marital alliances with other first families of Boston or New York. George Augustus Gardner married Eliza Endicott Peabody and John Lowell Gardner Jr., Isabella Stewart from New York. The latter would become a Boston Society leader and famous patron of arts. Another son, Joseph Peabody Gardner (1829-1875) died before his parents; he had married Harriet Sears Amory and left three sons. A daughter, Julia Gardner, married Joseph Randolph Coolidge, scion of another Boston merchant family.