Gurdon was fifteen when his father died. Gurdon and Eunice were living in New London, CT in 1790 with two young sons. In 1796, they left Connecticut, accompanying his brother Dudley and family for Chenango Co., NY. They first settled in the town of Norwich and later moved to a farm in Oxford, NY. Gurdon purchased and sold a number of parcels of property from 1797 to 1811, and became prosperous. He was on the board of trustees of the Oxford Academy in 1809. At one time, he owned a tavern at Fort Hill near Oxford. When a friend defaulted on a note which Gurdon had co-signed, he was obliged to make good. This ruined him financially. He moved his family to Monroe, PA, where he became a lumberman in 1811. For a while, before his early death, he operated a saw mill near Towanda. Eunice died a few years after her husband in Towanda, PA.