James (Jean/Jacques) Gardette (1756-1831)

James Gardette, Surgeon Dentist, was the second son of Jean Blaize Gardette, and was born 13th of August, 1756, in the town of Agen, departement de Lot et Garonne, France. His father died when James was quite a lad, and we are but little acquainted with this early period of his life : nor, indeed, does it enter into the plan for the performance of our task. We only know that he possessed a very trifling patrimony, insufficient for his maintenance or education, and that after his father’s death he was brought up by his paternal uncle, Blaize Gardette, who lived at Agen, and held the office of Prosecuting Attorney until an advanced age. His uncle designed James for the medical profession, and with that view, after the ordinary academical studies of that day in a provincial town of France, sent him to Paris. He remained at the capital about two years (from 1773 to 1775), pursuing the study of Anatomy and Surgery in the Royal Medical School; and thence he was removed to the Hospital at Toulouse, where he resided eighteen months as a pupil in the Institution [1; 5]. At the end of this period he was sent to Bayonne, and there was examined by the surgeons of the Admiralty, and commissioned as a surgeon in the French navy. On obtaining the commission in the navy, he received orders to embark in his professional capacity, on board the brig of war La Barquaize de St. Jean de Luz, destined for Boston, Massachusetts. He sailed in October, 1777, with La Fayette and the Count of Rochambeau [1]. He arrived at Plymouth early in January following (1778). The love of liberty and popular movement throughout France, which brought so many young Frenchmen to the United States, at the period of our «Declaration of Independence,» had no small influence in governing the course of Gardette. He made a cruise of four months, during which an engagement occurred with two British ships, lasting three hours and a half, and in which there were several killed and wounded on board the vessel of which he was the surgeon. This seems to have terminated his official duties and connection with the French navy, from which he resigned, intending to adopt this country as his home. When the French fleet and army arrived at Newport (1780), he was induced to visit that town, and commence practice as a Dentist, the officers affording him considerable and congenial occupation for a short time. He had received instructions in dental operations (as part of his profession of Naval Surgeon) from Mrs. Le Roy de la Faudinière et Louis Laforgue, Dentists at Paris, then in high repute. He had also provided himself with the best works extant (Fauchard and Bourdet) on the Teeth, and with a limited set of dental instruments : still we scarcely think he could have had any expectations of pursuing the profession of Dentist in this country, at the time he left France [2]. In 1781-1782, he became acquainted with a young American soldier, Josiah Flagg (1763-1816), whom he is thought to have instructed in the art of French dentistry and became one of the most famous American dentist [3].