Levi spent about eight years in Mitchell County, Iowa -- from about 1867 until 1875. The following tells a little about him.
Levi C. Gardner was born on August 3, 1832 in Bartlett, New Hampshire, as the youngest of four children born to Adam and Rebecca Gardner.
Levi married Lucy E. Chandler in 1854, but their four children died at birth or in childhood, and Levi and Lucy were later divorced.
Although Levi lived in New Hampshire, he came to Vermont to enlist in the Volunteers with his brother, James. He enrolled at Craftsbury, Vermont for a $100 bounty on August 30, 1864 for a one-year enlistment in Company H, 9th Vermont Infantry. He described himself as 5 feet 11 inches in height, fair complexion, gray eyes, dark hair, and that he was 32 years and one month old. He also said that he was a carpenter by trade.
He and his brother saw action at Chapin's Farm in September, 1864. In April of 1865, according to a claim filed in his later years, he suffered a rupture (hernia) on his left side while assisting in loading cannon onto a vessel at Manchester, Virginia. He served for a short while during the occupation of Richmond, and was there given his final discharge and mustered out on June 13, 1865,
After the War, he returned to Bartlett, Nwe Hampshire, but then moved on to Osage, Iowa around 1867. It was there that he and his first wife, Lucy, were divorced in 1880.
During this period he continued working as a carpenter.
In 1875 he moved to north to Minneapolis, and then by the early 1890's to Rush City, Minnesota. He lived in Brainerd from 1902 until a few years before his death, when he was being cared for in the rural home of Mrs. Julia Stillings.
Levi is buried in Oak Land Cemetery in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, alongside his brother James, and James' wife and daughter. The grave is unmarked except for a white Civil War Veteran marker commemorating his service with the 9th Vermont Infantry. His first name is mis-spelled on the marker as "Leevi." There is also a GAR Post 30 flag holder.
SOURCES: Soldier's Certificate #864058 Pension Records; U.S. Census Data for New Hampshire and Minnesota; Vital Statistics Records from Minnesota; John Van Essen 1601 N Innsbruck Dr #149, Fridley, MN 55432
Submitted by Kathy Pike -- August 2004.