by Ann Needle
As the U.S. celebrates the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, Stow residents just received a fresh reminder of the role Stow played in that landmark event.
After the town’s Memorial Day parade, a group of residents gathered at the edge of Lower Village Common to help dedicate a new sign marking the home of patriot Henry Gardner.
The sign was funded and designed by Ellen Sturgis and husband Mike Kopczynski. Sturgis told spectators that she took notice of the old, weathered Garner sign nearby when fellow resident Andrea Harris posted, “Someone should really fix this sign.”
Sturgis explained that, about 5 years ago, she discovered she was a descendant of John Gardner, her sixth great-grandfather who was the father of Henry, the first treasurer of the Colonies before they became a country.
In 1775, Colonists “were hiding arms here, and Henry Gardner had a lot of money, and they didn’t know where the money was being stored,” she said. “Apparently, they tried to look in Concord, and it wasn’t there. Apparently, we had all the munitions and we had all the money.”
Samuel Prescott ended his Midnight Ride at Gardner’s on April 19, 1775.
Sturgis offered her own take on the lesson from Gardner’s actions: “It’s important to remember that Stow was maybe even more important than Concord and Lexington.”
