John Gardner Coolidge

John Gardner Coolidge (July 4, 1863 – February 28, 1936) was an American collector, diplomat, author, and nephew of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Early life Coolidge was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1863. He was the second of five sons born to Harvard Law School graduate Joseph Randolph Coolidge and Julia (née Gardner) Coolidge, both from prominent and wealthy Boston Brahmin families. His siblings included professor and diplomat Archibald Cary Coolidge, noted lawyer Harold Jefferson Coolidge Sr. (the father of zoologist Harold Jefferson Coolidge Jr.), architect J. Randolph Coolidge Jr. and mathematician and professor Julian Lowell Coolidge. His paternal uncle was Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, the Boston businessman and U.S. Minister to France. His father, Joseph Randolph Coolidge, was a great-grandson of the 3rd United States President Thomas Jefferson, through his maternal greatgrandparents, Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. and Martha Jefferson Randolph. John's great-uncles were Thomas Jefferson Randolph, George Wythe Randolph, and his grandfather, Joseph Coolidge, was a distant relative of President Calvin Coolidge. Through his mother, John was the nephew of John Lowell Gardner II and his wife Isabella Stewart Gardner. His mother and uncle John were the grandchildren of merchant Joseph Peabody, one of the wealthiest men in the United States at the time of his death in 1844.