Dr. John Burrowes Gardiner, a surgeon in the Texas Navy, married Susan Bryson Fontaine, a widow with three children, in 1842. The couple had two children before Gardiner’s death in Galveston in 1851. His widow married a third time to John S. Rhea in 1855 and had one more child. Three of Susan Rhea’s sons, Henry B. Fontaine, Sydney T. Fontaine, and Charles B. Gardiner, served in the Confederate army during the Civil War.
Benjamin E. Edwards came to San Antonio, Texas, from Illinois in 1846. He married Susan H. Mudge in New Orleans in 1852, becoming the father of two sons. He died while on a trip to Illinois in 1858. A granddaughter of Benjamin and Susan Edwards married a son of Sydney T. Fontaine.
From the guide to the Gardiner, Fontaine, and Edwards Families Papers Doc 6174., 1840-1885, (Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas)
