I never know who will contact me or what piece of Manning history will come to my attention, but fortunately some people with Manning connections will take the time
to contact me and sometimes they will have pix & information to share with me.
A descendant of the Gardner family from Virginia recently stopped in the Manning Library and they were given my name and web page address, so they contacted me.
I was able to help them make their Gardner family connection to the Manning Gardner information I have and they were able to help me make the connections to Julius Gardner,
one of Manning's Civil War Veterans and VERY prominent early Pioneer of Manning...most notably the "Gardner Additions" during the first years of Manning's existence.
It so happens that his brother, John, was also a Civil War Veteran - the relative of the person from Virginia.
I was able to find more information for John and a picture of
him on the Internet.
The relative has some more information and when they get back home in Virginia will send me more of what they have.
While preserving history is very important, the true historian has to have the "Patience of Job" and willing to wait years, even decades, to find that history or for someone to
come along and share it.
Here is the picture from the Internet and I have more information under his name in my Civil War Veterans section.
https://www.davidkusel.com/veteran/welcome.htm
This link and more can be found by clicking on the "Long Term projects" link on the left side frame of this web page.
John Gardner - Civil War Veteran who lived in Manning.
Here is a cropped image from an 1884 plat map that I had restored and enhanced that took me about a week to do the digital work.
You can see J.W. Gardner farm in the east part of Manning at that time, some
of which became the Gardner Additions.
The Great Western RR line (which later basically paralleled the Northwestern) was not yet brought through Manning at this time.
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