The Genealogy of one Vermonter, Darrell A. Martin

Hugh was born in Glenshinnock, Erskine Parish, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1751. He married Mary Nelson in Ryegate, Caledonia County, Vermont, on 9 February 1791. Hugh died on 1 February 1815 in Ryegate. He was buried in the Blue Mountain Cemetery in Ryegate.

Before the Revolution, associations were formed in various parts of Scotland to purchase land in America, and there form communities whose members were previously acquainted. Sometimes these associations were assisted by some nobleman or wealthy merchant, but generally they were joint stock companies, in which the "adventurers" took shares. Such an association was organized at Inchinnan in Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 5 February 1773. "William Neilson and John Walker, farmers, and Hugh Gardner, smith, all in Glenshinnock" were among the 137 signers of the "Bond of Association" of the Scotch-American Company which settled Ryegate. Because Inchinnan was chosen as its meeting place, the association is often called the "Inchinnan Company", to distinguish it from other Scottish colonies in America (including the one which settled Barnet). Their impact did not fade quickly. In 1913 a prominent clergyman declared "that the only parts of Scotland he had ever visited were Ryegate and Barnet". Caledonia, the Vermont county which includes those two towns, was given the ancient name for Scotland. But there was no nostalgia among these Scots toward the regime of George III. Although Tories (Loyalists) made a great deal of trouble in neighboring Newbury, there is not one recorded as being from Ryegate. Hugh was a prominent citizen of the town, long a justice of the peace, and an elder in the Reformed Presbyterian church.
               adapted from Wells' History of Ryegate.