Gaines family lived on a farm called Maplewood in Boone County, Kentucky, just west of Richwood Presbyterian Church, of which Archibald K. Gaines was a member. Three of Margaret Garner's children, including Mary, the daughter whose throat Margaret Garner slashed, were likely the children of Archibald K. Gaines, the only adult white male at Maplewood. The timing suggests they were each conceived after his wife had become pregnant and was unavailable to him.

Margaret Garner's story was the inspiration for the novel Beloved