My great grandfather was John Saullivan Gardner. My Aunt Katy Kashavaroff said that he was from Glasgow, Scotland.
She said that he was a big strapping man. He died 15 May 1953.
John married Hannah (Annie) Zaroff 17 March 1878 in Belkofski, Alaska.
Her family name was Sapozhnikov. She went by Lazarov or Lazarev, but the “La” was taken off.
John and Annie’s children:
When men came from other countries to Alaska, mainly to fish and hunt, the only way that they could get a license to hunt and fish was to marry a native Alaskan. The following, referencing my great grandfather John Saullivan Gardner, appeared in Ivan Petrov’s journal in the 1800’s.
by Ivan Petrov
September 4 — The sounds of revelry in the village are subsiding and the usual death-like apathy once more prevails, owing to the fact that all the money paid out of the Company’s safe to the hunters has already found its way back through various channels over the counter of the store. It seems that the petition of the white men living at Unga Island, for permission to hunt has been favorably considered by the Treasury Department. When the cutter stopped at that place, on our way out, these men told a story which sounded very improbable at the time, but subsequent evidence obtained here at Ounalaska proves its truth. It seems that the petition was forwarded by the Collector of Customs at San Francisco and the reply was sent to him. Upon this he forwarded a letter to the Deputy Collector of Kadiak [sic], stating that the Treasury Department granted to all whitemen residents of the Territory legally married to native women all the rights preserved by natives with regard to hunting and trapping fur-bearing animals. This letter should have been sent to the Deputy Collector at Ounalaska as Ounga is in his district, but it found its way to the latter place where a Mr. King, one of the signers of the petition read it and communicated its contents to the others. Mr. McCollum, superintendent of the Shumagin Island Fishing Station also saw the document. A few days later a quarrel ensued between Mr. King and a man by the name of Gardner, and some shots were exchanged without, however, doing any harm. While yet in a passion King declared that Gardner should never benefit by the permission if they all had to suffer and then deliberately tore up the document. King subsequently removed to Ounalaska as Falkner, Bell & Co.’s agent and upon his affidavit confirming the story of the Unga man, Capt. Bailey of the cutter “R. Rush” concluded to allow those men to hunt provided they made due application for permission and furnish proof of their marriage. When news of this conclusion reached Ounga by the schooner “St. George” a white man who had arrived a week before from California immediately got married in the Greek Church to a native woman, neither of the party being able to speak one word to the other.