[Information is taken from the book "Leaders and Leading Men of the Indian Territory, Choctaw and Chickasaw", by H. F. O’Beirne, vol. 1. Publisher is: American Publishers’ Association, Chicago, IL, printed in the year 1891. [Page 93]

JAMES W. GARDNER - Choctaw

This gentleman was born in Blue county, Choctaw Nation, in 1849. Owing to the death of his father while James was quite a child, the youth never received the benefit of a school education, being obliged to remain at home and look after the wants of his widowed mother. In 1870 he married Wm. Lawson's widow, whose maiden name was Emily Cornwell, daughter of William Cornwell, of Morgan county, Kentucky. Mrs. Gardner's mother was an Alexander, a Cherokee by blood.

Mr. Gardner has a farm of four hundred acres close to Wynne Wood, besides some thirteen hundred head of cattle. He is also the owner of nearly one-half the town site of Wynne Wood and some five or six residences.

Though deprived of a school education, William Gardner is a smart and successful man of business, while his wife is a woman of excellent sense and piety. They have four children -- Zachariah, Benjamin, Emiline and James Dolphus, the oldest being seventeen and the youngest seven.

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