Family:George Gardiner and Herodius Long (1)

For more information on the controversies surrounding the birth and parentage of George Gardiner, see Person:George Gardiner (7).

George and Herodius Long's marriage and divorce are an unusual tale for colonial America. From The Gardiners of Narragansett, p. 2:^S1

"Some time, not far from 1640, George Gardiner married Herodias (Long) Hicks. She made the statement that she had been married to John Hicks, in London, without the knowledge of her friends, when between thirteen and fourteen years of age. Soon after coming to Rhode Island Hicks deserted her, going to New Amsterdam, or, as she expressed it, 'to the Dutch,' taking with him the most of the property left to her by her mother. Her marriage to George Gardiner was rather irregular in form, to say the least, consisting in going before some friends and declaring themselves husband and wife. As she was a Quaker, and a fanatic at that, cheerfully walking from Newport to Boston, with a young child in her arms, to receive a whipping at the post for her religious(?) beliefs, possibly she would not consent to be married after any established forms. According to her own account, George neglected her and would not provide for her numerous family. It may have been her pressing needs, and it may have been the superior attractions of John Porter, with his great wealth in lands (he being one of the original Pettaquamscutt Purchasers) and his promises to provide for her children, that awakened her religious(?) scruples about the legality of her marriage with George Gardiner. At any rate, she petitioned the General Assembly for a divorce, which was granted, thus proving the legality of her marriage. John Porter, having conveniently gotten a divorce from his wife, married Herodias and faithfully kept his promise,—giving large farms of several hundred acres to each of her sons, and possibly to her daughters, for the land of John Watson, who married two of her daughters, joined the Gardiner lands.

"George Gardiner married, as a second wife, Lydia Ballou, a daughter of Robert and Susannah."

1.   Robinson, Caroline E. The Gardiners of Narragansett: being a genealogy of the descendants of George Gardiner the colonist, 1638. (Providence: Printed for the editor, 1919)
   p.2.

   See text

2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Moriarty, G. Andrews. The Parentage of George Gardiner of Newport, R. I. American Genealogist (D.L. Jacobus). (1944)
   21:194-95.

   Herodius' first husband divorced her shortly after 12 Dec 1644, and Herodius lived with George Gardiner after that. The Assembly granted her a separation from George on 3 May 1665. They were separated (rather than divorced) as they had never been legally married.