Preston Hicks Gardner

by Kat Koorey

First published in January/February, 2008, Volume 5, Issue 1, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.

Preston Gardner was born in Swansea, Massachusetts, on 8 January 1863. His father was Nathan Bosworth Gardner (1833), Henry A. Gardner’s brother. His mother was Mary G. (Hicks) Gardner (1831). He attended Warren High School and Bryant & Stratton Business College, as did his cousin Orrin. He taught school in Swansea for a short time and also was a substitute teacher in bookkeeping at the business college while he was still a student there.

Mr. Gardner started his business career as a temporary clerk and bookkeeper at the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company in 1884, the first trust company in New England. By 1901, he was assistant secretary of the corporation, and in 1905, the year Emma Borden left her sister Lizzie, he had been promoted to head of the trust department. Emma came to live with his family in 1909, and Preston was named vice president of the company in 1912, becoming director in 1921, and finally Chairman of the Board in 1936.

During this long rise through his chosen profession, Preston developed and implemented many innovative banking techniques that were soon adopted by other banking establishments. Also during this productive period of his career, while trying to maintain a banker’s trust with his client base, Lizzie Borden, his distant cousin, was periodically being exposed in newspaper headlines.

The end of 1896 retired the story of his first cousin Orrin Gardner’s engagement to the infamous Lizzie Borden, yet the year 1897 was barely new when his own family was involved in a scandal. This time Lizzie was boldly accused of stealing from his local Tilden-Thurber, in Providence, apparently as a part of her Christmas shopping expedition. The Preston Gardner name had been suppressed, at least. Lizzie had given his wife, Mary, one of the supposedly stolen pictures. She was described as a friend, but also as married to a bank cashier in Providence. The family knew to whom that referred. It was the only controversy in which his reputation was attached to that of Lizzie Borden. It was many years later that the family legend revealed Preston Gardner as the one who had settled the affair behind the scenes.

Preston and Mary had taken in Emma a few years after she left Lizzie and Maplecroft. He had a taste of the notoriety and could only be glad to gallantly shelter Emma in his home on Hope Street. She was dignified and refined and fit in well with his wife and daughter. When he took a luxury apartment at The Minden, Emma took her own. She became interested in Mary’s charity, the Providence Animal Rescue [League], and provided for them in her will and codicil.

Upon her death, to show her high regard, Emma bequeathed to Preston personally $15,000 (the equivalent today of a quarter of a million dollars), to his wife Mary and daughter Maude $5,000 each ($75,000 today), and also willed to them her jewelry. She placed Preston in a position to administer trusts she had formed, and gave him powers to invest money and pay out the interest, and also to spend the capital. She gave him coexecutor status of her will and estate. 

Preston Gardner was in a unique position to benefit from this status. He continued as vice president of the trust company until 1936, when he reached his pinnacle as Chairman of the Board. It didn’t hurt his career now that he was an heir to a fortune. He was also director on other boards, and had various interests in philanthropy and charitable institutions, such as the Welfare Society, the Greater Providence YMCA and the Working Men’s Loan Association. He was a Mason and a Knight’s Templar. He was a member of Grace Episcopal Church. He died, age 90, on 22 October 1953. His wife Mary had predeceased him in 1945.