James Biddle Lardner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1808. Lardner joined the Navy as a Midshipman on December 4, 1822 at the age of fourteen, and he may have been assigned to the West Indies squadron monitoring illegal slave trade and pirate activities.

Lardner was the cousin of Rear Admiral James Lawrence Lardner, who had two destroyers named after him, and he was probably a relative of Captain James Biddle, one of the officers who established the Pensacola Navy Yard in 1826.

According to his obituary, James Biddle Lardner died on March 17, 1829 of "inflammation of the brain." The distinctive grave marker was provided by a sibling years after Lardner's death.

A photograph of his marble marker taken in the late 1800s shows a wooden cross adjacent to the site that marked a burial no longer evident on the contemporary landscape.

Podcast written by University of West Florida Public History Student, Ricky Gomez.