Gardner Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
A Massachusetts governor organized “with great skill and success the knave-power and the donkey-power of the Commonwealth,” wrote the late Senator George F. Hoar of Worcester in his “Autobiography of Seventy Years.”
He was referring to Henry J. Gardner, who came up from the dry goods business in Boston to serve three terms as governor beginning in 1854. They called his party the “Know-Nothing” party; Gov. Gardner, the “Know- Nothing” governor.
Both have been suffocated in the dust of history and forgotten political strife that choked Massachusetts in its younger years.
In 1850, Henry J. Gardner, 32, entered municipal politics as a member of the Boston Common Council. He was president in 1852-53. He had been known as a Whig and staunch anti-slaver.
Gov. Gardner joined the “Know-Nothing” party.
It was based on a fear of Roman Catholic domination and of foreign influence in the United States. Members held no public meetings; dodged newspaper publicity, yet attracted a large following.
In the election of 1854, Gardner won with 81,000 votes compared to 26,000 for the Whig candidate and 13,000 for the Democratic candidate.
The winning party elected all but two members of the Legislature and every member of Congress from Massachusetts.
It was considered “the most amazing political landslide in the history of the state.”
Gardner street, which extends from Main street southeast, was named for the governor in 1857 by James H. Wall, a prosperous Worcester business man.
He served in each branch of the city council; was common councilman in 1852, 1853 and 1858; alderman in 1854, 1855, and 1856; assessor in 1849 and 1859 and highway surveyor in 1848.
“He was,” wrote the Worcester Daily Spy on Jan. 27, 1892, “a careful and conservative man…”
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
