Lewis Gardner was born in 1809/1810 at South Carolina. He lived in Monroe County, Georgia where he was a farmer, married in 1834, and he fathered thirteen children. Then, he removed the family to Newton County, Mississippi where he owned a farm with about five slaves.

It was often rumored that he was a horse thief and a bigamist. However, he had no prior record as a thief. And there is no evidence that he was a bigamist.

Gardner consented to divorcing his wife in 1863, giving her the farm and children.

It is said that Lewis Gardner killed a man in a gunfight in 1865 at Jackson, Mississippi and was wanted by the U. S. Marshals.

Gardner was good with a gun and could shoot bottles from a fence yards away with a pistol.

He went to Texas in 1865 and lived in Houston County where he remarried. As a horse trader, he went to South Texas, and lived around Brownsville, Texas. He would drive horses from Mexico to Louisiana to be sold.

There is record of a man named Gardner who shot and killed a U. S. Marshal in 1876 at Fort Worth, Texas.

There is record of a man named John Gardner who was arrested for murder in 1878 at Houston County, Texas.

It is rumored that Lewis was killed in a gunfight with horse thieves at Neches, Texas while driving horses to Louisiana.

However, record states that Lewis Gardner "spent his last years in Johnson County" and it seems he died peacefully in 1879 at Denton, Texas.

Any one have records or newspapers from Browsnville, Texas that mention him?