.







.

Fishponds

.
Fishpond at the base of the falling terraces at the William Paca house in Annapolis, Maryland.

In early America, gentlemen often placed a fishpond in a garden or pleasure grounds near their dwelling. A fishpond was an artificial fresh water reservoir stocked with fish meant to be caught and eaten.

Fishponds did not appear in early American gardens just to supply food for the colonial table. Water was a vital element of formal, geometric, symmetrical 17th & 18th century English gardens.

The American colonial gentry hoped that their gardening efforts would reflect their understanding of an informed, civilized manner of elegant living, especially within the wilderness surrounding them. One early marker for Southern colonial gentry to emulate was Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood's (1676-1740) canal & fish pond at the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg in 1722.


And, by the colonial period, fishing was a literate gentry sport, enjoyed by both men and women. Izaak Walton's (1593-1683) widely popular The Compleat Angler was first published in 1653, but Walton continued to add to it for a quarter of a century.

In 1731, in Mercer County, New Jersey, an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette noted a communal fishpond intended to generate income for its owner, "To be Let, A Plantation Three Miles above Trenton...a share in a Fish-pond either at shares or Rent."

In 1733 Charleston, a house-for-sale ad in the South Carolina Gazette touted, "To be sold...a garden on each side of the House...a fish-pond well stored with pearch, roach, pike, eels, and cat-fish."

Fishpond at Monticello

A similar notice appeared in the June 5, 1736, Charleston's South Carolina Gazette, "To be Sold A Plantation containing 200 Acres...An artificial fish-pond, always supplied by fresh water springs, and well stored with several sorts of fish."

By 1740, Samuel Richardson was writing of the social aspects of the fishpond in his popular novel Pamela, "We then talked of the garden, how large and pleasant it was, and sat down on the tufted slope of a fish-pond, to see the fishes play upon the surface of the water."

Eliza Lucas Pinckney described the amazing fishponds at William Middleton's Crow-Field in 1743 South Carolina, "...a large fish pond with a mount rising out of the middle-- the top of which is level with the dwelling house and upon it is a roman temple. On each side of this are other large fish ponds properly disposed which form a fine prospect of water from the house."

Crim Dell at William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia

Near Philadelphia in the same year, Isaac Norris II of Fairhill noted, "...opening my woods into groves, enlarging my fishponds and beautifying my springs."

In 1745, Charleston's South Carolina Gazette noted, "To be sold at publick Vendue...six Acres of Land, with a Dwelling house, Kitchen, two Summer houses, a large Garden and a Fish Pond."

On Peter Kalm's travels through the colonies during November of 1748, he wrote, "Not only people of rank, but even others that had some possessions, commonly had fish ponds in the country near their houses. They always took care that fresh water might run into their ponds, which is very salutary for the fish; for that purpose the ponds were placed below a spring on a hill."


Alexander Gordon wrote of the property he was trying to sell in July of 1748, in the Charleston South Carolina Gazette, "TO BE SOLD...a beautiful Pond, supplied with Fish at the End of the Garden." Richard Lake placed a similar ad in the same newspaper 6 months later, "To be sold...a very large garden...with a large fish-pond." Several months later, a similar advertisement appeared in the Charleston newspaper, "...a kitchen garden, at the end of which is a canal supplied with fresh springs of water, about 300 feet long, with fish."

In June of 1753, John Murray Esq of Murraywhaithe, Charleston, South Carolina, received this advise to a friend, "By all means mention the fine Improvements of your garden... You'll certainly dig a Fish pond & another for geese & Ducks & one Swan...William Murray."

In 1758, Thomas Hale in his Compleat Body of Husbandry, was recommending commercial fish ponds for farmers. His book was widely owned throughout the colonies. George Washington owned a copy and referred to it. Although his book is aimed at the farmer, he asserts, "We write here to the gentleman as well as to the farmer; and we may name the supply of the table as a great article. All that is saved in the expence is got: and the addition of good fish in plenty is a consideration of great value."


Hale's favorite fresh water pond fish was the carp, especially because of its ability to allude poachers. "It will endure frost better than any; it is so shy, that it preserves itself from common enemies. No fish is more dissicult to be taken out by the common methods of stealing. They will not readily bite at the hook when grown to a size, in rich ponds ; and even the casting net rarely surprizes rhem. They plunge to the bottom upon the first notice of any disturbance in the water, and strike their heads into the mud/ The net draws over their tails, without laying hold of them."

By 1759, Laurence Stern was noting of the calming effect of just sitting by a fishing pond in his popular novel Tristam Shandy, "When the misfortune...fell so heavily upon my father's head...he walked composedly out with it to the fish-pond. Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and reasoned an hour which way to have gone,— reason, with all her force, could not have directed him to any thing like it: there is something, sir, in fish-ponds ;—but what it is, I leave to system-builders and fish-pond-diggers betwixt 'em to find out; —but there is something, under the first disorderly transport of the humours, so unaccountably becalming in an orderly and a sober walk towards one of them."

Even Edmund Burke (1729-1797) in discussing his distrust of certain negotiators wrote, "I would not take one of these as my arbitrator in a dispute for so much as a fish-pond— for if he reserved the mud to me, he would be sure to give the water that fed the pool, to my adversary."

The Governor's Palace from Governor Spotswood's Canal at Colonial Williamsburg.

Fishponds were not reserved only for the gardens of the gentry. In the fall of 1768, in Trenton, New Jersey, a woman in the business of curing & selling ocean fish but hoping to return to England, advertised that her business property also supported a fresh water fish pond. "The Subscriber, having for many years, made it her business to cure Sturgeon in North America...takes this method of acquainting the public, that she intends...to leave this part of the world, but is desirous and willing to instruct a sober industrious person or family in the whole art, secret and mystery of manufacturing sturgeon in the several branches, consisting of making isinglass, pickling, cavear, glue, and oil...apply to her at Mr. Elijah Bond's fishery near Trenton, where is every thing convenient for carrying on the business, and plenty of fish throughout the whole year furnished by Mr. Bond's fish pond. Margaret Broadfield."

A fishpond was mentioned in an 1769 memoir at Oswego, New York, "A summer house in a tree, a fish-pond, and a gravel-walk were finished before the end of May."

In Annapolis, Maryland, during the 1770s, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his father were improving their property which ran to the rivers edge. There was no need for a fishpond there, but they did build octagonal summerhouses at each end of the 400' walkway along the river. Charles Carroll wrote that between the pavilions, ladies often fished along the walkway.


Fishing was a fashionable pastime for the ladies, who did not dress down for the sport. Quite to the contrary, they dressed in their finest to spend an afternoon fishing and hoping to be noticed. One Englishman observed,
Silks of all colors must their aid impart,
And ev'ry fur promote the fisher's art.
So the gay lady, with expensive care,
Borrows the pride of the land, of sea, and air;
Furs, pearls, & plumes, the glittering thing displays
Dazels our eyes, and easy hearts betrays.

Detail. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). South Carolina.

Josiah Quincy, Jr. visited near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1773, "Dined with the celebrated Pennsylvania Farmer, John Dickenson Esqr, at his country seat about two and one-half miles from town...his gardens, green-house, bathing-house, grotto, study, fish pond."

Colonel George Braxton in 1776-1781, Frederick County, Virginia, wrote, "I agreed wth Alexander Oliver Gardener...to finish my falling Garden wth a...neat Fish Pond."

Another view of Thomas Jefferson's fishpond in his garden.

Adam Smith in his 1776 Wealth of Nations referred to a fishpond in one of his most convincing passages, "When Vedius Pollio, in the presence of Augustus, ordered one of his slaves, who had committed a slight fault, to be cut into pieces, and thrown into his fish pond, in order to feed his fishes, the emperor commanded him, with indignation, to emancipate immediately, not only that slave, but all the others that belonged to him."

Jedidiah Morse admired 1789, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, writing, "Its fine situation...the arrangement and variety of forest-trees - the gardens - the artificial fish-ponds...discover a refined and judicious taste."

In French Quarter Creek near Charleston, South Carolina, at the seat of the late Bishop Smith, Brabant, or Brabaks, was described by Charles Fraser as having a fine garden, shrubbery, and ornamental lake...long known as "the Bishops Fish Pond."

Williamsburg, Virginia

By 1793, John Aikin and his sister Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld in London were using a garden setting in their popular juvenile fiction, "There was a garden enclosed with high brick walls, and laid out somewhat in the old fashion. Under the walls were wide beds planted with flowers, garden stuff, and fruit trees. Next to them was a broad gravel walk running round the garden; and the middle was laid out in grass plots, and beds of flowers and shrubs, with a fishpond in the centre."

Thomas Wilson wrote in his Biography of the Principal American Military and Naval Heros that in December of 1799, George Washington was planning improvements for Mount Vernon. "A gentleman, who was present at Mount Vernon, has furnished the following particulars...A little before his death, he had begun several improvements on his farm. Attending to some of these, he probably caught his fatal disease. He had contemplation of a gravel walk on the banks of the Potomack; between the walk and the river there was to be a fish pond. Some trees were to be cut down, and others preserved. On Friday the day before he died, he spent some time by the side of the river marking the former. There came a fall of snow, which did not deter him from his pursuit, and he continued till his neck and hair were quite covered with snow."

In Baltimore's 1800 Federal Gazette, the country seat of Willow Brook was noted to have, "In the garden is...a fish pond well stocked with fish."


Eliza Clitherall described in 1801, The Hermitage plantation near Wilmington, North Carolina, "The Gardens were large, and laid out in the English style--a Creek wound thro' the largest, upon its banks grew native shrubbery...a fishpond, communicating with the Creek, both producing abundance of fish."

John Beale Bordley in 1803, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, described the possibilities of a fishpond,
Pond Fish.
1. Carp...will not thrive in a cold hungry water, but require a pond with a fat rich soil at bottom...
2. Tench...The pond should have a muddy bottom with weeds
3. Perch...like a clear and moderately deep water, with a pebbly, gravelly, or a sandy clay bottom...
4. Crucian...brought from Germany...
5. Gold and Silver Fish...possessing a finer flavor...calculated for the table...
6. Pike...pond...should be of good depth, with weeds growing in it...
7. Eels...never breed in perfect standing water...
8. Bream...Roach...Dace...Minnows...kept in ponds with Pike and Perch, as food for them...
Ruff or Pope, which is much like the Perch, but esteemed better eating: and the Gudgeon...equal in goodness to the delicate Smelt...delights in a gravelly bottom...

For Fish...
The sluices for emptying the ponds should have vent holes guarded with boxes, perforated so as water but not fish may pass...Small ponds of standing water should be cleansed once in seven or eight years, and left dry one summer--Large ponds every two or three years, in October, when the bottom may be ploughed and sown with Oats, and the water returned...no trees, except...willows, should grow near the pond, as the fallen leaves and rotten wood, are pernicious to the fish; as is water running from hemp, dunghills, stables, and wash houses.

Turtle in Colonial Williamsburg's Governor's Palace Pond

Also in the same year, the popular Domestic Encyclopaedia: Or, A Dictionary of Facts and Useful Knowledge from London, instructed, "FISH-PONDS, are those reservoirs made for the breeding and rearing of fish. They are considered to be no small improvement of watery and boggy, lands, many of which can be appropriated to no other purpose. In making a pond, its head should be at the lowest part of the ground, that the trench of the flood-gate, or sluice, having a good fall, may, when necessary, speedily discharge the water...Ponds should be drained every three or four years, and the fish sorted. In those which are kept for breeding fish, the smaller kind should be taken out, for storing other ponds; but a good stock of females, at least eight or nine years old, ought to remain, as they never breed before that age."

In 1808, Washington Irving wrote in his New York satire Salmagundi, "Another odd notion of the old gentleman, was to blow up a large bed of rocks, for the purpose of having a fish-pond, although the river ran at about one hundred yards distance from the house, and was well stored with fish ;—but there was nothing, he said, like having things to one's-self. So at it he went with all the ardour of a projector, who has just hit upon some splendid and useless whim-wham. As he proceeded, his views enlarged; he would have a summer-house built on the margin of the fishpond ; he would have it surrounded with elms and willows..." In a few years," he observed, " it would be a delightful piece of wood and water, where he might ramble on a summer's noon, smoke his pipe, and enjoy himself in his old days."

Fishing in 18th century North Carolina.

English agriculturalist Richard Parkinson had spent three years in the United States farming and visiting the plantations of others, such as George Washington, at the turn of the century. When he returned to London, Parkinson, who was always sure that he knew best, wrote of fishponds in 1810. "Gentlemen often have fish-ponds made on hills, by way of ornament...if a gentleman put more value on his land looking well, and being profitable, than on a mere exhibition of water, he should pay regard to situation in forming his fish-ponds; as making a pond on a hill is like having a leaky cistern at the top of a house, which will infallibly rot or injure some part of the building: thus a fish-pond, if only one acre of water, will often damage, or perhaps half destroy, from ten to twenty acres of land, should care not be taken to cut drains where it first makes its appearance."
.

.







.

Urns in Early America - Garden Ornaments

.
An urn is a marble, stone, earthenware, or metal vessel or vase of a round or ovoid form standing on a rectangular or circular base. Traditional Greek and Roman forms of garden urns are the tazza, a cup-shaped form whose width exceeds it height; and the campana, or upturned bell-shaped form.

Because early urns were used to hold ashes of the departed, urns are solemn ornaments of reverence, taste, & refinement. Cremation was prevalent among the Greeks & durine the Roman Empire, 27 B.C. to 395 A.D., it was widely practiced. The custom called for cremated remains to be placed & stored in urns, which were sometimes elaborate and placed within detached columbarium-like buildings in the garden.

Christians considered cremation pagan, & Jews preferred traditional sepulcher entombment. By 400 A.D., as a result of Constantine's Christianization of the Roman Empire, earth burial replaced cremation, except for rare instances of plague or war, for the next 1,500 years throughout Europe & its colonies.

Few urns are mentioned in early American documents, but painters of the period occasionally depicted urns in their portraits. Open urns are often referred to as vases by colonial observers. Maryland-born artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) was particularly partial to painting urns as props in his protraits.

Hannah Callender visited William Peters' garden at Belmont in 1762, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She noted, "On the right you enter a labyrinth of hedge of low cedar and spruce. In the middle stands a statue of Apollo. In the garden are statues of Diana, Fame and Mercury with urns."

Early colleges in America often had walled grounds. My favorite description of one of these walls was by Moreau de St. Mery (1750-1819), when he visited Princeton, New Jersey in the 1790s. In a 1764 print, Nassau Hall is depicted with a wall & urns. He wrote, "Before it is a huge front yard set off from the street by a brick wall, and at intervals along the wall are pilasters supporting wooden urns painted gray."

Detail of Nassau Hall with Wooden Campana Urns on the Wall, Princeton, New Jersey, in 1764.

After Thomas Jefferson's death, a Monticello visitor noted, "cattle wandering among Italian mouldering vases." The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg was recorded as having "lead vases" in its gardens. A description of Eliza Hasket Derby's garden in Salem, Massachusettes, was said to have "large marble vases" which gave it a finished appearance.

Detail of Closed or Lidded Campana Urn on an oversized Pedestal. 1772 William Williams (1727-1791). The William Denning Family.

Detail Closed or Lidded Campana Urn on a Classical Pedestal at Mount Clare in Baltimore. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Margaret Tilghman (Mrs Charles Carroll the Barrister).

Closed or Lidded Campana Urn. 1784 Charles Willson Peale.(1741-1827). Mrs. Thomas Russell. Wisconsin. Reproduction at encore.com.

Detail Closed or Lidded Campana Urn on a Stone Wall. 1787 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) Mrs. John O'Donnell (Sarah Chew Elliott). Chrysler Museum of Art. Norfolk, Virginia.

Closed or Lidded Campana Urn on a Classical Pedestal. 1789 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Mary Claypoole Peale. Amherst College.

Closed or Lidded Campana Urns at Falling Garden in Annapolis, Maryland at the William Paca (1740-1799) House. These urns have recently been replaced by large pineapple or artichoke (Cynara) finials on classical pedestals.

Tazza Urn on a tall pedestal at Belvedere, Home of Governor John Eager Howard (1752-1827), Baltimore, Maryland. Painting by Augustus Weidenbach c 1858.

Urn at Governor's Palace, Colonial Williamsburg

In the early republic & well into the 19th century, depictions of urns in the landscape were used as memorial objects in the work being produced by American girls in private female academies, where the young women learned decorative painting & sewing as well as reading & writing. Outdoor memorial urns were usually depicted with a nearby weeping willow tree.

The emerging middle-class of the early republic & later Industrial Revolution embraced classic Roman & Greek literature & motifs. Urns appeared on imported wallpapers; with coffee & tea sets; on mourning jewelry; on furniture; on funeral carriages; as knife cases, and as architectual ornamentation on private homes, outbuildings, & public buildings.

In 1789, needing more space & wanting a building of their own, Benjamin Franklin's Library Company bought a parcel of land near the corner of Philadelphia's 5th & Chestnut Streets. William Thornton, physician & amateur architect, won the design competition. His proposed building featured white pilasters & a balustrade surmounted by urns.

The John Peirce House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, built in 1799, featured a lantern tower crowned by urns. The Samuel McIntire, Peirce-Nichols House in Salem, Massachusettes, begun in 1782, has urns punctuating its fence. The Elias Hasket Derby Mansion, also in Salem, built in the late 1790s, had a roof balustrade with pilasters supporting 6 urns.

Urns & weeping willow trees dotted 19th century cemeteries, but it would be many decades before cremation was once again a commonly accepted form of burial in America.

1789 Detail Schoolgirl Depiction of a Memorial Urn.

1792 Mourning Brooch. 2 funeral urns, plus locks of hair memorialize Mann Page & Anne Corbin Page of Virginia. Made in Philadelphia.

1811 Sally Miller's Needlepoint Urn from Litchfield Female Academy.

1815 Detail Schoolgirl Memorial Urn.

1817 Detail of Miss Diademia Austin Haines composition of silk, spangles, paint and ink on silk. Moravian Museum of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

1819 Memorial for Lucy Libby. Miss Mayo's School, Portland, Maine.

1822 Memorial for Robert B. Harding. Miss Mayo's School of Portland, Maine.

1836 Detail Schoolgirl Memorial Urn.


For more about schoolgirl needlework, see Girlhood Embroidery, American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework by Betty Ring (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993) and The "Ornamental Branches," Needlework and Arts from the Lititz Moravian Girls' School Between 1800 and 1865 by Patricia T. Herr (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Heritage Center Museum of Lancaster County, 1996).
.

.

.

Early American Wine -- Garden Products

.
The fermented products of garden grapes & apples--wine & cider--were important in early America, where a deserved distrust of water persisted from the 17th to 19th centuries. Jamestown colonist George Percy, who served as governor of Virginia between September 1609 & May 1610, wrote in his 1625 A Trewe Relaycon, "Our drinke [was] Cold water taken out of the River, which was at a floud verie salt, at low tide full of slime and filth, which was the destruction of many of our men."

By the 1619 meeting of the Virginia Burgesses, designated speaker & secretary John Pory declared, "Three things there bee which in a few yeares may bring this Colony to perfection: the English plough, vineyards and cattle." The 22 Burgesses then passed "Acte 12," requiring colonists to plant vineyards.

The vineyards were less than successful, and cider & beer became the liquid staples in the new Atlantic coast American colonies. Robert Beverley (1673-1722) reported in his History and Present State of Virginia in 1705, "Their richer sort generally brew their small beer with Malt, which they have from England...the poorer sort brew their Beer with Molasses and Bran. Their strong drink is Madeira Wine."

Jamestown clergyman Hugh Jones, who also taught mathematics at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1717 to 1721, declared that Madeira was, indeed, the most popular wine in the colonies. In his 1724 The Present State of Virginia he wrote, "for it relieved the heat of summer and warmed the chilled blood and the bitter colds of winter."

And it was true that large quantities of wine were imported from Spain & especially from Portugal, along with lemons & oranges during the colonial period. The Portugese import Madeira, clearly a crowd favorite, held up best during the voyage from Europe to the new world, where it was combined with brandy to produce a very popular colonial drink. Colonials did try to use the wine to cure the common cold using sack-whey, a beverage made of wine & the watery part of milk that separates from the curds in making cheese.


Although Madiera was a favorite of Benjamin Franklin, he was enthusiastic over just about any kind of wine. In 1744 Philadelphia, Franklin wrote of his distrust of water as well as his fondness for wine in a poem used as a drinking song. A year earlier, in 1743, Franklin gave instructions for producing American-made wine from local, wild-growing grapes to the readers of Poor Richard's Almanac,

Friendly READER,

Because I would have every Man make Advantage of the Blessings of Providence, and few are acquainted with the Method of making Wine of the Grapes which grow wild in our Woods, I do here present them with a few easy Directions, drawn from some Years Experience, which, if they will follow, they may furnish themselves with a wholesome sprightly Claret, which will keep for several Years, and is not inferior to that which passeth for French Claret.

Begin to gather Grapes from the 10th of September (the ripest first) to the last of October, and having clear'd them of Spider webs, and dead Leaves, put them into a large Molosses- or Rum-Hogshead; after having washed it well, and knock'd one Head out, fix it upon the other Head, on a Stand, or Blocks in the Cellar, if you have any, if not, in the warmest Part of the House, about 2 Feet from the Ground; as the Grapes sink, put up more, for 3 or 4 Days;


after which, get into the Hogshead bare-leg'd, and tread them down until the Juice works up about your Legs, which will be in less than half an Hour; then get out, and turn the Bottom ones up, and tread them again, a Quarter of an Hour; this will be sufficient to get out the good Juice; more pressing wou'd burst the unripe Fruit, and give it an ill Taste: This done, cover the Hogshead close with a thick Blanket, and if you have no Cellar, and the Weather proves Cold, with two.

In this Manner you must let it take its first Ferment, for 4 or 5 Days it will work furiously; when the Ferment abates, which you will know by its making less Noise, make a Spile-hole within six Inches of the Bottom, and twice a Day draw some in a Glass.

When it looks as clear as Rock-water, draw it off into a clean, rather than new Cask, proportioning it to the Contents of the Hogshead or Wine Vat; that is, if the Hogshead holds twenty Bushels of Grapes, Stems and all, the Cask must at least, hold 20 Gallons, for they will yield a Gallon per Bushel. Your Juice...Must thus drawn from the Vat, proceed to the second Ferment.

You must reserve in Jugs or Bottles, 1 Gallon or 5 Quarts of the Must to every 20 Gallons you have to work; which you will use according to the following Directions.

Place your Cask, which must be chock full, with the Bung up, and open twice every Day, Morning and Night; feed your Cask with the reserved Must; two Spoonfuls at a time will suffice, clearing the Bung after you feed it, with your Finger or a Spoon, of the Grape-Stones and other Filth which the Ferment will throw up; you must continue feeding it thus until Christmas, when you may bung it up, and it will be fit for Use or to be rack'd into clean Casks or Bottles, by February.

N. B. Gather the Grapes after the Dew is off, and in all dry Seasons...If you make Wine for Sale, or to go beyond Sea, one quarter Part must be distill'd, and the Brandy put into the three Quarters remaining. One Bushel of Grapes, heap Measure, as you gather them from the Vine, will make at least a Gallon of Wine, if good, five Quarts.

These Directions are not design'd for those who are skill'd in making Wine, but for those who have hitherto had no Acquaintance with that Art.

Franklin felt strongly about the virtues of wine in everyday life, "There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking...Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance...Take counsel in wine, but resolve afterwards in water..."

Franklin even conjured up a tale about the world before the Garden of Eden, in which he suspected that the lack of wine may have had a hand in mankind's early adjustment problems. "Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly...they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the water they loved to drink. This good man, Noah, having seen that all his contemporaries had perished by this unpleasant drink, took a dislike to it; and God, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and revealed to him the art of making le vin. By the aid of this liquid he unveiled more and more truth."

Like his imaginary wine-drinking hero Noah, Franklin used wine to his advantage. When Franklin became convinced that the local militias needed a few cannons for defence, he traveled up to New York to meet with British colonial Governor George Clinton (1686 –1761) of New York, hoping to convince him to share some of his cannons with the locals. "He at first refus’d us peremptorily; but at dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he advanc’d to ten; and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen."

In his autobiography, Franklin revealed that wine played a hand in his becoming a printer, when he arrived in Philadelphia, "I went, however, with the governor and Colonel French to a tavern, at the corner of Third-street, and over the Madeira he propos’d my setting up my business, laid before me the probabilities of success, and both he and Colonel French assur’d me I should have their interest and influence in procuring the public business of both governments. "

Pondering his own death, he declared that he would "prefer to an ordinary death being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira" to help preserve them.

Early British American settlers, including Benjamin Franklin, hoped that the Atlantic coastline would grow the familiar European wine grapes. But old world grapevines did not hold up well against the assults of American insects, deer, heat, & diseases. Colonists resorted to using native grapes to make wines, but these never were deemed as fine as the European imports.


Determined to keep trying to duplicate European wines, the Virginia General Assembly designated Frenchman Andrew Estave the official winemaker & viticulturist for Virginia in 1770. He was described as having "a perfect Knowledge of the Culture of Vines, and the most approved Method of making Wine." Estave had already lived in the colony for 2 years, studied the soil, and cultivated some native grapes. With his new designation, he established himself on 100 acres, with a house & 3 slaves, promising to make "good merchantable Wine in four years from the seating and planting of the Vineyard." But he failed declaring that his stocks of European grapes, vitus vinifera, were too fragile for Virginia.

In 1773, Benjamin Franklin persuaded Tuscan wine grower, merchant, & physician Philip Mazzei, to immigrate to Virginia with 10 Italian vignerons to create a native wine industry. He settled on 2,000 acres that Thomas Jefferson gave him and began trying to cultivate wine with European vine cuttings. Jefferson described the land that Mazzei selected as "having a southeast aspect and an abundance of lean and meager spots of stony and red soil, without sand, resembling extremely the Côte of Burgundy from Chambertin to Montrachet where the famous wines of Burgundy are made."

Jefferson stated that "the greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture." Mazzei, who confidently formed the Virginia Wine Company gathering capital from such investors as Jefferson & George Washington, ultimately failed.

Other founding fathers were intimately familiar with the imported libations, as well. John Hancock was accused of smuggling wine, and Patrick Henry once worked as a bartender. Early lists from colonial ordinaries show that Madeira, Port, and Claret (the common term in those days for red Bordeaux wine) were often available; but rum & rum punch with "loaf sugar" may have been the most popular spirits of the time, closely followed by brandy, some of which was made in Virginia.

In 1768, Virginians imported 396,580 gallons of rum from overseas, and another 78,264 from other North American colonies. Colonials seemed to enjoy sweet drinks with a high enough alcohol content to intoxicate quickly. No dry white wines or "sour" French red wines for them.


One guest at Monticello, politely drinking Jefferson’s imported claret with dinner, told a friend that he was longing for a glass of brandy, commenting that "I have been sipping his...acid, cold French wine, until I am sure I should die in the night unless I take an antidote" and wondering "why a man of so much taste should drink cold, sour French wine?"

Apparently, Jefferson had begun to appreciate fine imported wines while visiting the home of his law tutor George Wythe in Williamsburg. Wythe built a vaulted brick wine cellar under his home, and Jefferson wrote of drinking Malmsey Madeiras at Wythe's house.

During his 5 years in Paris as a diplomat beginning in 1784, Thomas Jefferson learned about fine wines at Europe’s salons & dinner tables. While serving as the new nation's Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the French court, Jefferson took a nearly 4 month tour through southern France & northern Italy. The 3,000-mile trip included visits to Meursault & Montrachet in Burgundy, Condrieu in the Rhone, and Turin in Italy. Jefferson then returned north through Bordeaux, where he sampled the great wines—Chateau Margaux, La Tour de Segur (Chateau Latour), Hautbrion (Chateau Haut-Brion), and Chateau de la Fite (Chateau Lafite-Rothschild).

Jefferson took a 2nd European wine tour through the regions of the Rhine & Moselle rivers and western France, where he developed a taste for the wines of Champagne. Even though he wrote to a friend vines are "the parent of misery" adding that those who cultivate them "are always poor," he continued to long for the success of European wine grapes in Virginia.

During his presidency, Jefferson imported 20,000 bottles of European wines, perhaps making the decision to acquire the already wine-savvy Louisiana Purchase more appealing. Favorites on his White House wine list were Cote d'or Burgundies, Hermitage Rhones, and Medoc Bordeauxs. Jefferson shared his contemporaries taste for sweet dessert wines, his favorites were Tokaji from Austria & Sauternes from France. From his $25,000 annual salary as president, Jefferson spent an average of $3,200 a year on wine during his first term.


Jefferson had a 16' deep brick wine cellar dug adjacent to the White House. A wooden superstructure protected the wine against the weather, and a bed of ice packed in sawdust beneath the floor kept the president's imported wines cool.


After his return from France, Jefferson would use the occasion of dining with his colleagues to instruct them on the fine points of European wines. He lectured George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, & James Monroe on the proper use of his favorite imported vintages. John Quincy Adams remarked wearily after one Jefferson dinner, "There was, as usual, a dissertation about wines, not very edifying." Jefferson doggedly continued to try to grow the European grapes and produce his own fine wines.

The Vineyard at Monticello in Virginia.

Even George Washington flirted with the idea of growing European grapes and producing wine at Mount Vernon. In the early 1760s, he ordered from his factor, "a Butt of about one hundred and fifty gall’ns of your choicest Madeira. And if there is nothing improper, or inconsistent in the request a few setts or cuttings of the Madeira grape." After his retirement from the presidency, Washington operated one of the largest distilleries in the new nation very near his home at Mount Vernon.

In Virginia, however, black rot & the ever-hungry phylloxera louse continued to devour the tasty roots of the European grapes Jefferson attempted to raise at Monticello. Eventually he became more committed to the using native American vines including the fox grape, Vitis labrusca, and the Scuppernong variety of the southern muscadine, Vitis rotundifolia. In 1817, he gave the state of North Carolina credit for producing "the first specimen of an exquisite wine," Scuppernong, and praised its "fine aroma, and chrystalline transparence."

A frustrated Thomas Jefferson declared in 1817, that Americans could not enjoy the finer wines, because their pallets had been ruined by decades of British rule. "The taste of this country (was) artificially created by our long restraint under the English government to the strong wines of Portugal and Spain."

The Vineyard at Monticello in Virginia.

Six years before Jefferson's death in Virginia, New Yorker John Nicholson explained to the citizens of the new republic how to turn the fruits of their gardens into wine in The Farmer's Assistant. "The presses used for making this liquor are similar to our screw-presses for making cider, though they are executed with much neater workmanship...

"To make good wine, the grapes of the same vine should be gathered at different times. The first should be of the ripest clusters; and let them be cut close to the fruit to avoid the taste of the stalks. The green and roten grapes are to be rejected...

"In due season, the second gathering takes place, when all that are ripe and sound are taken as before...To make wine in the greatest perfection, however, the grapes are all striped from the stems before they are put into the vat...


"Wines of different colors are made from the same grape. The French make their white and red wine from the blackgrape...

"To make white-wine, grapes sufficient for a pressing are gathered early in a damp, misty morning, while the dew is on...When the sun comes out warm, the gathering is discontinued...

"The grapes gathered are carefully carried in panniers, on Horses, to the press, into which they are immediately put, and the first pressing is given without delay; which should be gentle, for fear of discoloring the liquor. The wine from this pressing is the most delicate, but not the strongest...


"After the first pressing, the press is raised, the scattering grapes are laid on the cake, and the second pressing is given, in which more force is used than before. The second runing is but little inferior to the first, in flavor or color, while it is stronger and will keep lunger. Sometimes the wines of these two pressings are mixed together...

"After these pressings, the sides of the cake are cut down perpendicularly with a steel spade, so far as they exceed the upper part of the press that is let down on the cake. The eatings are laid on the top of the cake, and the third pressing, which is called the first cuting, is given. The juice pressed out at this time is excelent. A second and third cuting is in like manner given the cake, with pressings, till the juice ceases to run...

"The liquor of the cutings becomes gradually more red, from the liquor contained in the skin of the grapes. The wines of these different cutings are collected separately, and afterwards may be mixed...


"The pressings for the white-wine should be performed quickly, that the grapes may not have time to heat...

"In making red-wines of the same grapes, they are to be gainer when the sun shines the hotest They are to be selected and gathered in the manner before directed...

"When brought home, as before, they are mashed in a vat, and are then to lie in the liquor lor a length of time, which must depend on the heat ot the weather...They are to be stired frequently, the better to raise a fermentation and reden the liquor...

"The unripened grapes, that were rejected at former gatherings, are to hang till they become a little frost-biten, and may then be made into wine which will answer to mix with other coarse red-wines...

"When the murk has been fully pressed, it will still yield, when diluted with water, fermented, and distiled, a spirit lor medical and domestic uses...

"The finest wines will work the soonest, and the fermentation will take 10-12 days...When the fermentation is entirely over, the casks are to be filled up, and this is to be repeated once a month as long as they remain in the cellar, in order to prevent the wine growing flat and heavy. They should be filled with wine of the same kind which they contain, which may be kept in bottles for the purpose...


"The first drawing off from is done about the middle of December, and the casks containing the liquor drawn off should stand without the least disturbance, by shaking, until the middle of February, when the liquor should be again drawn off into other casks...let the casks be kept lull, and let no wines of dissimilar qualities be mixed...

"Raisin-wine is made as follows: Take 30 gallons of clear rain or river-water, and put it into a vessel that will hold a third more; add a hundred weight of Malaga raisins picked from the stalks; mix the whole well together, and cover it over partly, but not entirely, with a linen cloth, and let it stand in a warm place...It will soon ferment, and must be well stired about twice in 24 hours, for twelve or fourteen days...the liquor must be strained off, and the juice of the raisins pressed out, first by hand and afterwards by press, which may easily be contrived, by having 2 boards, and weights laid on the uppermost. All the liquor is then to be put into a good sound winecask, well dried and warmed, together with 8 pounds of sugar, and a little yeast; except that a little of the wine should be reserved in bottles, to be afterwards added during the fermentation, which will take place again...When the fermentation has ceased, which will be at the end of a month, the cask is to be stoped tight and kept a year, or more, and then bottled off...

"This wine will be very good at the end of a year and a half; but will improve much by being kept four or five years; as it will then be equal to any of the strong cordial foreign wines...

"This is the most perfect of artificial wines, but others may be made cheaper...adding a proportion of wellrectified whiskey to the cask when closed, in which case less raisins and less sugar would be requisite...

"To make Birch-wine. After collecting the sap of the birch, it is to be made into wine before any fermentation takes place; and for this purpose, a pint of honey or a pound of sugar is to be added to every gallon of the sap, the whole to be well stired up, and then boiled for about an hour, with a few cloves and a little lemon-peel; during which, the scum is carefully to be taken off. When cool, a few spoonsful of new ale or yeast is to be added, to induce a due degree of fermentation; and after this has ceased, or nearly so, the liquor is to be bottled and put away in a cool place in the cellar.



"When properly made, the liquor, however, becomes so strong that it frequently bursts the bottles, unless they are placed in spring-water. Stone bottles are said to be the best for containing the liquor, as they are stronger than glass...

"The black-birch affords the greatest quantity of sap, which may be drawn from the tree in plenty, by boring a hole into the southerly side, in the manner directed tor extracting the sap from the maple...

"Perhaps a liquor equally good might be made, in some similar manner, of the sap of the maple, and of the juice of watermelons, especially of those raised in the Southern States...

"Wine of a tolerable quality may be made of the juice of elderberries, in a manner similar to that of making currant-wine...

"Raspberries and blackberries may also be applied to the same use; and less sugar will be found requisite in making wines of these than of currants."

The Vineyard at Monticello in Virginia.

With the exception of a "sufficient" quantity of native Scuppernong, all the wines on hand in the Monticello cellar at the time of Jefferson's death in 1826, came from southern France: red Ledanon, white Linoux, Muscat de Rivesalte, and a Bergasse imitation red Bordeaux.

An earlier post explored wine & more ardent spirits available in 18th and early 19th century public pleasure gardens in America.

Another recent posting dealt with the recommended process for developing vineyards in early America.

Post Script:
Ironically, the fact that the settlers needed to continue to import European wines helps us learn more about the history of the American colonies. Imported wine bottles occasionally had “seals” that sometimes were imprinted with a date & even rarely with the name of the bottle’s intended owner or the name of the producer or the merchant who sold the wine. Wine bottle seals are glass stamped impressions (much like wax seals on letters) that can only be applied to glass bottles at the moment of manufacture.

Colonial tavernkeepers, who sold carry-out beverages by the bottle, sometimes had their names or tavern emblems impressed onto bottles; so that their customers would know just where to bring empty bottles for refilling. The gentry, who could afford to custom-order large quantities of wine through their factors, sometimes requested that their bottles be personalized with their names or initials.

Archaeological digs at colonial sites often unearth a large quantity of broken wine bottles. Whether this is because of a vast consumption of wine or because wine bottles were inexpensive & easily broken (especially when their handlers were intoxicated) is not clear. Archaeologists can also look at the shape & size of unmarked imported bottles, often in fragments at a dig site, to guess when the bottle was produced. The shape of wine bottles changed during the 1600s and 1700s.


.

.

.

The American Vineyard

.
In early American gardens, the section of the grounds devoted to the growing of grapes was the vineyard. Throughout the colonial & early republic periods, planters & farmers attempted to grow grapes for wine on their grounds.


In the June 5, 1736 edition of the South Carolina Gazette in Charleston, South Carolina, an ad noted that on Goose Creek was property, "To be Sold A Plantation containing 200 Acres...a vineyard of about two years growth planted with 1200 vines."


The 1761 Maryland Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland, also advertised, "To Be Sold...Part of Governor Nicholson's Vineyard."


The Baltimore Whig in 1811, reported, "For Sale, An Elegant Retreat...Of the six acres, two are laid off in an excellent garden, which is now in the highest state of cultivation, and contains...the most promising and productive small vineyard in this state. The cuttings from which these vines are produced, were imported from France, Italy, and Germany."


After noticing years of less than successful attempts at developing flourishing vineyards in America, New Yorker John Nicholson wrote of the best methods for establishing & maintaining vineyards in his book The Farmer's Assistant in 1820, "Wherever any kinds of grapes grow wild, they may be there cultivated to advantage for making wines... In the more southerly parts of this State, there are two species of grapes, of which there are varieties; the black-grape and the foxgrape... In the more southerly climates, particularly on the waters ot the Ohio and Mississippi, there are much greater varieties of these grapes...


"The spots most favorable for vineyards are the sides of hills or mountains, descending southwardly, or to the east; but to the south is best; and let the soil be loose and mellow, but not liable to be much washed by heavy rains....


"Some soils are not good; though by carting on much sand, and other loosening manures, they will answer tolerably well. The ground must be well mellowed by ploughings, and mixed with sand, if not naturally sandy, and such manures as will serve to make it rich and keep it mellow...


"Where the hill sides are steep (and such produce the best vines) it is advisable to cart on stones ol small and middling size to mix with the soil, which help to keep them moist and warm; and a part of them are to be laid along in ridges on the lower side of each row of vines, to keep the earth from washing away. Round the vineyard let a good substantial fence be made, which will keep out both Men and beasts. The northerly side of the vineyard should be well protected from the northerly winds...


"All this time, the ground of the vineyard is constantly to be kept light and mellow, and perfectly clear of weeds and grass. For this purpose, straw, chaff, flax-shives, and every thing of the kind is to be carried on, and spread over the ground, to keep it mellow and moist, and to prevent us washing. Observing this the first 4 years, greatly forwards the vines, and at the same time prepares them for good crops afterwards; nor should the practice be afterwards wholly discontinued...


"A vineyard of an acre should contain but two sorts of grapes, and one of two acres should not generally contain more than four sorts. Every kind of grape should be made into wine by itself, and not mixed with others."

A recent posting deals with the production of wines from native grapes and with the importation of European wine in early America.
.

.







.

Hedges as Fences in Early America

.
Early Americans planted hedges, plantings of bushes or woody plants in a row, to act as defensive fences, decorative garden dividers, or windbreaks.

In 1705, "An act for prevention of trespasses by unruly horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats" passed by the General Assembly of Virginia. It stated that "an hedge two foot high, upon a ditch of three foot deep and three foot broad" was "so close that none of the creatures aforesaid can creep through."

The South Carolina Gazette advertised a garden in a house-for-sale ad in 1749, "genteely laid out in walks and alleys, with cassini and other hedges."

At Riversdale in Prince George County, Maryland, Rosalie Steir Calvert wrote he father in 1805, "We are...going to surround" the orchard "with a hedge."

New Yorker John Nicholson emphasized the practical use of hedges in early America as fences in The Farmer's Assistant in 1820, "For making these, different sorts of trees have been used, and the hedges have been made in different ways. Some have prefered planting the hedge on the top of a bank, thrown up for the purpose; while the more modern method is, to plant it on the surface, without any bank.


"This latter method is the cheapest, and, as is observed by Mr. Pickering, of Massachusetts, would seem to be the only proper method, in some hilly situations...

"In level lands, however, a hedge set on a bank, properly made, would seem to be most formidable to cattle; but the bank we should prefer would be one raised between two small ditches...


"We have, at the same time, no doubt that a good hedge may eventually be made, in dry level lands, without the aid of a bank...

"We have seen the Washington-thorn (crataegus cordata) planted in Maryland, without any bank, on uplands; some of which were sufficiently dry...the thorn...requires a bed of moderately dry earth...


"Where hedges are to be made of this tree, without being set in a bank, we should advise to the method pursued by Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts, which is, first, to cultivate the ground, intended for bearing the hedge, with potatoes; having it properly manured, and kept clear of weeds...

"When the plants of thorn are about 2 feet high, they should be set out in a single row...at the distance of about eight inches apart, and beded in good mould.


"Mr. Miller (Philip Miller) directs that, before transplanting, they should be cut off at the height of about 8 inches from the ground; and that, after having had a years growth, they should be headed down, similar to the manner directed by Mr. Forsyth (William Forsyth).

"Which operation will produce a stronger and thicker growth...when they get to about the height of 6 or 7 feet, or less where they grow on a bank, the tops are to be cut down to an uniform height, and the trees to be trimed, and then plashed.


"In the plashed state...the young trees, after having been headed down, as before mentioned, are supposed to send out at least two sprouts from each tree, which number, and no more, are to be trained up, the rest being cut away. Of the shoots thus trained, every 4th one is to be left standing erect, and the others are to be bent downward...and wove alternately on each side of the upright shoots, in the manner of weaving threads in making common cloth...

"The failure of one or two trees in a place produces a chasm in the fence; and this at first is only to be obviated by some temporary method of filling up the gap; as it must at least require time to make any after-growth supply the place of trees which may be missing.


"With all the imperfections, however, to which hedges may be liable, we consider them a much safer protection to the growing crop, and...less expensive, than the wooden fences which at present are commonly made in this Country.

"Instead of plashing the hedge, a substitute is recommended by Mr. Main, of Georgetown, which he has found effectual. This is to cut or trim the top of the hedge down to an even height, of about 3 and a half, or 4 feet, and then to lay thereon light durable poles, tied together at the ends; and presently the new shoots will start up on each side of the poles, and thus hold them to their places...the young hedge soon becomes enabled to withstand the attempt if any creature to push its way through...


"The Palmetto Royal ( Yucca Aloefolia) is said to make the best hedge that is known; but it will not endure the severity of the Winters of the more northerly States. It is well adapted to the more southerly part of this Country.

"Mr. Kirk, of Pennsylvania, particularly recommends his method of making hedges. He makes them of the common Locust. He merely makes a furrow, with the plough run once or twice each way, to serve as the bed for the young trees. These are to be of 2 years growth when set out in the furrow; they are to stand at the distance of about 11 inches from each other, and they are to be set leaning, or slanting, alternately in opposite directions, in order to be plashed or wove together, and tied in that position...


"In 4 or 5 years, Mr. Kirk says, the young hedge, when thus made, will form a sufficient fence; and as the shade of locust is not injurious to the growth of the adjoining grain, and is even beneficial to that of grass, the hedge may be suffered to grow up as high as it will.

"In about 30 years after planting, it will reach the full meridian of its growth; when the whole may be cut down, at the height ot about 5 feet from the ground, and then the stumps, thus left, will stand and serve as an impenetrable fence for as much as 15 years more; giving about 40 years as the length of time which that growth of locust will serve the purpose of a fence.


"Mr. Kirk says that, on cuting the locust down, a new growth of sprouts will start up in abundance; from which sufficient may be selected for training up a new hedge, to supply the place of the stumps when they shall have failed...

"The culture of locust, for hedges, we should be disposed to place this tree in the first rank...It forms a timber of the first rate for every use, where hardness, durability, and strength are required: It is also rapid in its growth, and excelent for fuel...


"Mr. Taylor, of Caroline, Virginia, makes his hedges of cedar; and he says that, in 7 years, a hedge made of this tree becomes as close, from bottom to top, as box, of a breadth not exceeding tour feet; and that it is more likely to prove effectual against Hogs, than any of the family of shrubs, as it unites great density...

"The boughs of this tree, being pliant, are easily wove between the bodies of the trees, without any bending of them, for the purpose of plashing...


"Mr. Peters, of Pennsylvania, thinks that, in point of elegance at least, the common hemlock (Pinua Abies Ccmadenais) is entitled to a preference to cedar...

"M. De La Bigarre recommends the white-mulberry for hedges, particularly on account of the value of the leaves of this tree for feeding silkworms."
.

.







.

Fences in Early America-Utility

.
A fence is a structural barrier built of wood, or other materials, used to define, separate, and enclose areas like fields, pastures, yards, and gardens. Some of the earliest legislation in the colonies were directives for fencing in cultivated grounds and other spaces requiring protection from animal & human intruders. Land in early America was often refered to as "well-fenced," "under a good fence," and "within fence."

In 1623, the Virginia General Assembly declared "that every freeman shall fence in a quarter of an acre of ground before Whitsuntide next to make a garden."

Fences were actually required by law in many of the colonies. An act of the Virginia General Assembly of 1705, intended to protect the gardens from stray pigs, horses & cattle, required the owners of every lot on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, to "inclose the said lots, or half acres, with a wall, pales, or post and rails, within six months after the building, which the law requires to be erected thereupon, shall be finished." The minimum height of the fence was set at four & one-half feet & many were built higher. Brick walls were usually confined to enclosing the grounds of public buildings. Most homes & gardens were "well paled in."

1803 Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Utility fence depicted in A Bason & Storehouse Belonging to the Santee Canal. Carolina Art Association. Charleston, South Carolina.

New Yorker John Nicholson suggested a few practical, utilitarian fence designs in The Farmer's Assistant in 1820, "Log-fences are often made on new-cleared lands...White-pine log-fences are very good, and will last 20 years without any essential repairing. Clear white-pine timber may, however, be split into rails, which are very durable. All kinds of wood will last much longer in rails, when the bark is peeled off.


1780 Unknown Artist. The End of the Hunt. Reproduction at encore.com.

"What are called worm-fences are made with most ease, but require more timber than some other kinds. If, therefore, timber be scarce, post-and-rail fences...ought to be prefered, where good durable posts can be had.

1790. Man at a Gate. Worcester Art Museum, Massachusettes.

If the posts are too small to have holes made through them, the rails may be flated at the ends and fastened to the posts with spikes.. or with wooden pins well secured.

18th Century Painting of the Thomas Banister House. Utility fences, when painted, were usually reddish in color. More formal fences were usually painted white.

"Post-and-rail fences...arc very good where the soil is dry, and the same may be observed of board fences; but, where the soil is wet, the posts will be thrown out by the frosts. In all cases, the posts ought to be set at least 2 feet in the ground.

1816. Charles Willson Peale. Belfield Farm in Pennsylvania. Detroit Institute of Art.

"Red-cedar is best for posts. Locust, chesnut, butternut, and black-walnut are also good. Good oak will also last pretty well. Burning the ends of the posts which go into the ground, so as to make them black, will make them last longer...

"It is advisable to have a close high fence round your kitchen and fruit-gardens. This, in the first place, renders every thing within it secure from Pillagers; and also serves to keep out fowls. Another, benefit consists in keeping off the strong cold winds of the Spring, which are very injurious to the young plants, and also to the fruit, which is then about puting forth."

An earlier posting explored fences at the country seats of the gentry.

Another entry briefley looked at the fences around the gardens of slaves.
.

.







.

Early American Beer -- Garden Products

.
New Yorker John Nicholson wrote about early American beer in The Farmer's Assistant in 1820,


"To make Spruce beer. Boil some spruce boughs with some wheat-bran till the water tastes sufficiently of the spruce; strain the water, and stir in at the rate of 2 quarts of molasses to a half-barrel; work it with the emptyings of beer, or with yeast if you have it. After working sufficiently, bung up the cask, or, which is better, bottle its contents.

"To make Molasses beer. Take 5 pounds of molasses, half a pint of yeast, and a spoonful of powdered ginger; put these into a vessel, and pour on 2 gallons of scalding hot soft water; shake the whole till a fermentation is produced; then add of the same kind of water sufficient to fill up your half barrel...Let the liquor ferment about twelve hours; then bottle it, with a raisin or 2 in each bottle.
"If honey instead of molasses be used, at the rate of about 12 pounds to the barrel, it will make a very fine beverage, after having been bottled a while.

"To make Beer with Hops. Take 5 quarts of wheatbran and three ounces of hops, and boil them 15 minutes in 15 gallons of water; strain the liquor; add 2 quarts of molasses; cool it quickly to about the temperature of new milk, and put it into your half barrel, having the cask completely filled. Leave the bung out for 24 hours, in order that the yeast may be worked off and thrown out; and then the beer will be fit for use. About the 5th day, bottle off what remains in the cask, or it will turn sour, if the weather be warm. If the cask be new, apply yeast, or beer-emptyings, to bring on the fermentation; but, if it has been in this use before, that will not be necessary.

"Yeast, particularly the whiter part, is much fiter to be used for fermenting, than the mere grounds of the beerbarrel ; and the same may be observed, in regard to its use in fermenting dough for bread.


"To recover a cask of stale Small beer. Take some hops and some chalk broken to pieces; put them in a bag, and put them in at the bunghole, and then stop up the cask closely. Let the proportion be 2 ounces of hops and a pound of chalk for a half-barrel.

"To cure a cask of Beer. Mix 2 handsful of beanflour with one handful of salt, and stir it in.

"To feed a cask of Beer. Bake a rye-loaf well nutmeged; cut it in pieces, and put it in a narrow bag with some hops and some wheat, and put the bag into the cask at the bunghole.


"To clarify Beer. For a half-barrel, take about 6 ounces of chalk, burn it, and put it into the cask. This will disturb the liquor and fine it in 24 hours.
"It is also recommended, in some cases, to dissolve some loaf-sugar and add to the above ingredients.


"We omit going into any description of the method of making strongbeer, as the necessity for it among Farmers, as a household beverage, seems to be greatly obviated by that of smallbeer, which is much less intoxicating, and by cider, a stronger drink, which is readily afforded from apple-orchards, which are more or less natural to almost every part ot the United States, except a little of its southern border, where the grape can be cultivated to advantage...

"It is indeed true, that many Farmers in Great Britain brew their own strongbeer; but there is but little of that country where apple-orchards are natural...It is an expensive liquor tor the Farmer to make much use of, as it requires 4 bushels of malt to make a barrel, even of common ale, and 8, for a barrel of beer ot the strongest kind."
.

.







.

Vines in Early American Gardens

.
During the 18th century, American gardeners trained vines to grow on wooden fences, brick walls, columns, dwellings, arbors, and outbuildings. Vines are plants with supple stems that can climb, trail, or creep which need some support to grow erect. Some are rambling, some twining, and some sprawling.

American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens)

Trained climbing vines could supply early American gardeners with some edibles; dramatic decoration; cooling shade; food to attract songbirds; some privacy; & lingering fragrances as well as softening the lines of buildings & screening undesirable views. Fast-growing plants, like the Carolina Trumpet Vine, could offer a relatively quick solution to hide an unsightly area. Climbing vines could break up stiff horizontal and vertical lines. And most of the vines could be found in the surrounding woods.

Balsam Apple (Momordica balsamina)

Among the hardy vines in early American gardens were the Carolina Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans), Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla), Virgin's Bower (Celmatis virginiana), honeysuckles, and rambling roses like sweetbriars, treasured for both their fragrant leaves & flowers. The orange, red, & yellow flowers of the Trumpet Honeysuckles (Lonicera sempervirens) are an excellent source of nectar for hummingbirds.

Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens)

Thomas Jefferson grew the lush purple Hyacinth Bean (Dolihos lablab) as well as Scarlet Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus). He called the wonderfully scented Snail Flower or the Caracalla Bean (Vigna caracalla) with its twining stalk, "The most beautiful bean in the world." Philip Miller's 1768 edition of The Gardener's Dictionary noted that in Europe, "the inhabitants plant it to cover arbours and seats in gardens for which it is greatly esteemed...for its beautiful sweet smelling flowers."

Carolina Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans)

Jefferson also grew the Nasturtium (Tropaeloum majus) as both a vegetable & an ornament in 1782. In Bernard M'Mahon's 1806 American Gardener's Calendar, he recommended the Balsam Apple (Momordica balsamina) as a tender annual flower of the "twining sort." Balsam Apple has lobed, glossy-green leaves, delicate tendrils, and soft pale-yellow flowers. But the resulting fruits are anything but delicate spikey yellow-green pods which turn a bright yellow-orange before bursting open with sticky bright red seeds. Jefferson tried this vine in his gardens, along with the Cypress Vine (Ipomoea quamoclit), the seeds of which he sent Patsy to grow indoors at Monticello in 1790.

Cypress Vine (Ipomoea quamoclit)

My favorite from the period is the Carolina Trumpet Vine. Its 3-inch-long tubular, horn-like, orange flowers are an amazing, defiant show of color blooming throughout the summer. For some garden visitors direct contact with the vine can result in skin irritation. I also enjoy the Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) which keeps it shiny dark green leaves year-round & shows vivid yellow blossoms. A shrubby, vine of moderate growth, jessamine climbs by twining its stem around a supporting structure. The fragrant, tubular, yellow flowers form in clusters during the early spring.

Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla)

Also used in early gardens was American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) whose orange & red berry-like fruits & seeds of are showy and provide winter food for wildlife. The leaves are glossy dark green, oval shaped, and turn yellow before dropping in the fall. Native American Bittersweet vine is often confused with the invasive, weedy pest Oriental Bittersweet, which appears to be reducing the number of American Bittersweet plants.

Hyacinth Bean (Dolihos lablab)

Some theorize that vines were not much used as ornaments in gardens in the colonial & early republic periods of our county's history. Gardens during the 18th-century Age of Reason are thought to be too orderly to tolerate vines. The 19th century would bring in the passionate, vine-filled, romantic garden. But, early American gardeners were intentionally planting vines on their grounds long before the Romantic period.

Nasturtium (Tropaeloum majus)

Early in the 18th century, Robert Beverley reported in in History and Present State of Virginia about the garden at Westover, "Have you pleasure in a Garden?....Colonel Byrd, in his Garden, which is the finest in that Country, has a Summer-House set round with the Indian Honey-Suckle..."

Scarlet Runner Bean (Phaseolus coccineus).

In 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote of William Middleton's Crow-field in South Carolina, "The house stands a mile from, but in sight of the road...as you draw nearer new beauties discover themselves, first the fruitful Vine mantleing up the wall loaded with delicious Clusters..."

Snail Flower Vigna caracalla).

George Washington seemed to enjoy planting vines to soften the look of his covered walkways at Mount Vernon in Virginia. In March of 1785, he noted, "Planted the Scarlet or French honey suckle...at each Column of my covered ways, as also against the circular walls between the Store house."

Sweetbriar Rose

When Manasseh Cutler visited the public pleasure grounds in 1787, Gray's Garden near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he wrote, "At every end, side, and corner, there were summer-houses, arbors covered with vines or flowers or shady bowers encircled with trees and flowering shrubs, each of which was formed in a different taste."

Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens).

Francois Jean Marquis De Chastellux visited Westover many years after Beverley in 1782, noting, "As for the hummingbirds...the walls of the garden and the house were covered with honeysuckle, which afforded an ample harvest for these charming little animals."

Virgin's Bower (Celmatis virginiana).

Several years after planting his honeysuckle vines, George Washington wrote, "I desire that the honey suckles against the Houses and brick walls, may be nailed up and made to spread regularly over them. Should those near the Pillars of the Colanades, or covered ways, be dead, their plants should be supplied with others; as I want them to run up, and Spread over the parts which are painted green." Washington apparently liked the sweet smell of his honeysuckle vines and did not worry about the vine's affect on his wooden columns. Here was a man known to like the tried and true; and his fragrant, familiar honeysuckle provided him with that comfort.

Vines in Early American Paintings

Detail. 1772 William Williams (1727-1791). The William Denning Family.

1787 Detail. Salem, North Carolina.

Detail Lewis Miller (1796-1882) Lewis Miller Sketchbook.
.

.







.

Walks-Private & Public in Early America

.
Most 18th century Atlantic coast gardens & grounds contained pathways of brick, grass, crushed oyster shells, or gravel dividing & connecting various components of the grounds & connecting the gardens with nearby buildings.

Any walk is a place prepared or set apart for humans to walk. These particular walks were the skeleton of the 18th century garden defining distinct areas, while directing walking pathways & lines of sight.

The pragmatic aspect of garden walks was equally important. Pathways of heavily rolled grass & gravel assured firm & relatively level ground underfoot. Remember, these folks were pretty heavy drinkers, from hard cider to more ardent spirits. They just didn't trust well water, often with good reason; and one fall or broken bone could be disasterous.

Practical gravel & brick walks often connected the dwelling with the "necessary" & other utility outbuildings & yards, which the garden owners & their servants would have to walk day & night, good weather & bad. Not many indoor options existed.


Grass walks invited more leisurely dry-weather strolls. Some walks led through the garden, so that the visitor could get a close-up view of the skills & the horticultural knowledge of the gardener & his plantings.

Some walks meandered around the wooded edge of the garden grounds leaving more time for talking about the news of the day. And some garden walks lead through a well-thought-out thick wilderness to ensure added privacy.


Walks were places for public & private exercise, serious romance, and other less physical & emotional social interactions.

And then, there was also the question of how you portrayed yourself to visitors & to those passing by your property. The gentry, cut off from their traditional heredity paths to power, needed to convince the locals; that they were meant to be in charge in this new land. They needed to be on the highest prospect, and their house & grounds needed to be the most impressive in the area.

So, early American landscape planners enjoyed playing with optics, when they designed gardens & grounds. Sometimes optics were used in pleasure grounds to make a walk appear longer, the width would decrease as the walk lead away from the main building, making the grounds seem larger. Occasionally, the width of the walk would increase as the walk lead away from the dwelling, making the house seem more imposing.


Often growing towns, as well as established cities, would plan walkways for public gathering & promenading around a square, riverside, or shoreline. Walks along a roadway offered a clean pedestrian path away from messy horse & carriage roads, which could certainly ruin one of those elegant long dresses.

The walk was first connected to the garden in Geoffrey Chaucer's Knight's Tale. "The gardyn...Ther as this fresshe Emelye...Was in hire walk, and romed vp and doun." In 1693, John Evelyn pronounced that "A Walke must be broad enough for two Persons to walk a-breast at least...without which it would no longer be a real Walk, but a large Path."

Private Garden Walks

During Jasper Danckaerts' 1680 visit to New York, he reported, "We had nowhere seen so many vines together as we saw here, which had been planted for the purpose of shading the walks on the river side, in between the trees."

In 1722, Hugh Jones wrote about his visit to Williamsburg, Virginia, "...the Palace or Governor's House, a magnificent structure built at the publick Expense, finished and beautified with Gates, fine Gardens, Offices, Walks."

1765. Boys on a Walk within a Walled Garden. John Durand. Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford.

Judge Sewall wrote with melancholy when describing his garden in 1726 Boston, Massachusettes, "I miss my old friends and the charming garden and walks which are all vanished."

On February 2, 1734 in Charleston, the South Carolina Gazette advertised, "To Be Let or Sold...on an island...A delightful Wilderness with shady Walks..."

Brick Walk to a "Necessary" in Williamsburg, Virginia.

When Thomas Hancock signed a contract in Boston with Will Griff in 1736, to prepare his grounds, Griff agreed to, "oblidge myself...to fill all the walks with Gravel."

From Virginia, John Bartram wrote to Peter Collinson in England on July 18, 1740, "Colonel Byrd is very prodigalle...new Gates, gravel Walks, hedges, and cedars finely twined..."

Entrance Walk from Road to Dwelling.

In May of 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote describing William Middleton's Crow-Field in South Carolina, "From the back door is a spacious walk a thousand foot long; each side of which nearest the house is a grass plat ennamiled in a Serpentine manner with flowers."

Also in South Carolina in 1749, in Charleston, a landowner advertised, "A garden, genteelly laid out in walks and alleys, with flower-knots, & laid round with bricks" for sale in the South Carolina Gazette. Some gardeners called walks between beds of plants bordered by low-growing shrubs alleys.

Walks inside a Walled Garden.

In 1749, Peter Kalm wrote from the College of the Jesuits in Quebec, "a fine garden, full of all sorts of fruit trees and pot-herbs divided by walks."

Ezra Stiles described Springettsbury near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1754, "passing a long spacious walk, set on each side with trees, on the summit of a gradual ascent...besides the beautiful walk, ornamented with evergreens."

Walks Defining the Garden Beds at Paca House in Annapolis, Maryland.

Hannah Callender reported in 1762, on William Peters' Belmont near Philadelphia, "A broad walk of English cherry trees leads down to the river. The doors of the house opening opposite admit a prospect of the length of the garden over a broad gravel walk to a large handsome summer house on a green."

The Charles Norris House of 1767, in Philadelphia, was described by Deborah Norris Logan, "...laid out in square parterres and beds, regularly intersected by graveled and grasswalks and alleys...with a grass plot and trees in front, and roses intermixed with currant bushes, around its borders."

Walk at the Fish Pond at Monticello in Virginia.

In 1769 Oswego, New York, Anne Grant noted, "A summer house in a tree, a fish-pond, and a gravel-walk were finished before the end of May."

By the fall of 1769, William Eddis wrote of the Governor's House at Annapolis, Maryland, "The garden is not extensive, but it is disposed to the utmost advantage; the center walk is terminated by a small green mount, close to which the Severn approaches..."

Brick Walks to Outbuildings at Riversdale in Maryland.

New Jersey schoolmaster Philip Vickers Fithian wrote in his journal in 1774, about the practical buildings at Nomini Hall, Virginia, "The area of the Triangle made by the Wash-house, Stable, & School-House is perfectly level, and designed for a Bowling-Green, laid out in rectangular Walks which are paved with Brick, & covered with Oyster-Shells."

In the midst of the Revolution in 1777, John Adams visited Mount Clare in Baltimore, Maryland, and observed, "There is the most beautiful walk from the house down to the water; there is a descent not far from the house; you have a fine garden then you descend a few steps and have another fine garden; you go down a few more and have another."


When Ebenezer Hazard visited in 1777 at Williamsburg, he wrote in his journal, "At this Front of the College is a large Court Yard, ornamented with Walks, Trees cut into different Forms, & Grass."

In 1787, Manasseh Cutler noted of Robert Morris' The Hills near Philadelphia, "...the gardens and walks are extensive...a commanding prospect down the Schuylkill."

Walk Dissecting the Garden at Berkeley in Charles City, Virginia.

Abigail Adams wrote in 1790, of Bush Hill in Philadelphia, "A beautiful grove behind the house, through which there is a spacious gravel walk, guarded by a number of marble statues."

In April of 1791, William Loughton Smith visited Mount Vernon near Alexandria, Virginia, "two pretty gardens, separated by a gravel serpentine walk, edged with willows and other trees."

Garden Walks at Carter's Grove in Virginia.

Henry Wansey noted of Philadelphia's public pleasure garden called Gray's Gardens in 1794, "The ground has every advantage of hill and dale, for being laid out in great variety; and it is neatly decorated with alcoves, arbours, shady walks, etc."

Five years later, Benjamin Henry Latrobe also visited Mount Vernon, noting, "The ground on the West front is laid out in a level lawn bounded on each side with a wide but extremel formal serpentine walk, shaded by weeping Willows."

Walks Defining Garden Beds in Charleston, South Carolina. Charles Fraser.

Alexander Graydon wrote of Israel Pemberton's garden near Philadelphia, in his memoirs, "...laid out in the old fashioned style of uniformity, with walks and allies nodding to their brothers, and decorated with a number of evergreens, carefully clipped into pyramidal and conical forms."

Adrian Valeck's estate was advertised for sale in the 1800 Federal Gazette of Baltimore, "A large garden in the highest state of cultivation, laid out in numerous and convenient walks and squares bordered with espaliers."

Walk up to Gunston Hall in Virginia through the Garden from the River.

Elizabeth Clitherall wrote in 1801 of a garden in Wilmington, North Carolina, "There was alcoves and summer houses at the termination of each walk, seats under trees in the more shady recesses of the Big Garden."

Manasseh Cutler wrote to Mrs. Torrey in November, 1803, of visiting William Hamilton's Woodlands in Philadelphia, "We then walked over the pleasure grounds, in front, and a little back of the house. It is formed into walks, in every direction, with borders of flowering shrubs and trees."

Walk at Belvedere, Home of John Eager Howard, Baltimore, Maryland, 1786-1794, painting by Augustus Weidenbach c 1858. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.

John Gardiner & David Hepburn wrote in their book The American Gardener in 1804, in Washington, District of Columbia, that January was the time to, "Roll your grass and gravel walks one a week at least if you wish to have them neat."

Fellow garden writer Bernard M'Mahon wrote in his 1806 The American Gardener's Calendar in Philadelphia, "With respect to walks, some ought to be made of gravel, and some of grass; the former for common walking, and the latter for occassional walking in the heat of summer... gravel walks however should lead all round the pleasure-ground, and into the principal internal divisions...As to the distribution of gravel walks...first a magnificient one from 15 to 20 or 30 feet wide, should range immediately close and parallel to the front of the house, and be conducted across the lawn into the nearest side shrubberies."


Elbridge Gerry Jr noted in his diary in 1813 that at the White House in Washington, D. C., "Lengthways of the house, and thro' the hall, is a walk, which extends on a terrace at each end for some way...The terrace was to communicate to each building connecting the three."

Public Walks

Many colonial and early American towns also maintained public walks. Walkways separataed the pedestrians from the muddy roads where horse-drawn carriages transported people & goods and from herds of animals being transported to market.

Detail of Walk on John Street in New York City near the United Methodist Church. 1768. Joseph Beekman.

Lord Adam Gordon wrote in 1765, of Philadelphia, "...everyone of note has a residence in Town, which is all built of brick, and well paved, with flat foot walks in each side the streets."

Portside Walks at the Home of Johsua Winsor. 1795 Rufus Hathaway. Boston. New England Historical Society.

Luigi Castiglioni wrote of Albany, New York in 1785, "The streets...are very wide...some of them furnished with a sidewalk."

Walk in Front of Bridewell & Charity School at Broadway Opposite Chamber Street in New York City. Baroness Hyde de Neuville. 1808.

Two years later, Manasseh Cutler wrote of the mall in Philadelphia, "The numerous walks are very well graveled and rolled hard; they are in a serpentine direction, which heightens the beauty, and affords constant variety."

Walk at a Corner of Greenwich in New York City. 1810. Baroness Hyde de Neuville.

Lt. John Enys reported on Boston's mall in the winter of 1787 & 1789, "After Dinner we took a walk on the Mall as it is called which is a very excellent Gravel walk about half a Mile in Length with Trees on each side which is kept in very good order and is by far the best thing of the kind I have yet seen in America...On the west side of the town is the mall, a very beautiful public walk, adorned with rows of trees, and in view of the common, which is always open to refreshing breezes."

Walk in Front of The Bank of Columbia in Georgetown near Washington, District of Columbia. August Kollner (1813-1906).

Enys also visited New York City in 1789, reporting that, "Water-street and Queen-street, which occupy the banks of East River, are very conveniently situated for business, but they are low and too narrow; not admitting, in some places, of walks on the sides for foot passengers."

Much Too Busy & Narrow Streets in New York City in 1798. Francis Guy. Tontine Coffee House. New York Historical Society.

In his 1789 Geography, Jedidiah Morse reported on Philadelphia, "The state house yard, is a neat elegant and spacious public walk, ornamented with rows of trees; but a high brick wall, which encloses it, limits the prospect."

1790s Walk in Front of President George Washington's House in Philadelphia.

Moreau de St. Mery noted in the 1790s Philadelphia, "Several streets have trees, usually elms, planted on the outer edge of the sidewalk...Some persons considered them helpful in hot weather; others believed they prevented the free circulation of air and attracted insects, especially mosquitoes. Since then Italian poplars have been put at both ends of each street, as well as on all sides of the city's principal square on Market Street between the Delaware and the Schuylkill...Trees have been planted on both sides of every street, the Italian poplar being the one most in favor."

Walks on State Street in Boston in 1801. James Brown Marston. Massachusettes Historical Society.

In 1794, Henry Wansey also reported on the mall in Boston, "On the south west side of the town, there is a pleasant promenade, called the Mall, adjoining to Boston Common, consisting of a long walk shaded by trees, about half the length of the Mall in St. James's Park. At one end you have a fine view of the sea. The Common itself is a pleasant green field, with a gradual ascent from the sea shore, till it ends in Beacon Hill, a high point of land, commanding a very fine view of the country."

Walks in Front of the White House. August Kollner (1813-1906).

John Drayton also visited Boston's mall in 1794, "There is a public walk in Boston, called the mall; which is very beautiful. It is upwards of half a mile long; and offers to your choice both a gravel and turf walk; shaded by beautiful elm trees. A street runs parallel with it on one side; and on the other a large common; where hundreds of cattle feed during the day."

J. L. Bouqueto de Woiseri, Detail of New Orleans "Under My Wings, Everything Prospers", Louisiana Purchase, 1803.

Two years later in 1796, Francis Baily wrote of New Orleans, "When I was at New Orleans...The levee which formed its boundary was a handsome raised gravel walk planted with orange trees, and in the summer time served as a mall...and in the evening was always a fashionable resort for the beaux and belles of the place."

Walks at Market Square in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1820, Detail. William Britton.

In nearby Savannah, Georgia in 1803, according to the Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, an ordinace was passed in that city for "the effectual protecting and preserving the trees in this City, and the turf, pavements, and other means which have been used to render the ground firm, and the walks pleasant to the Citizens, a number of posts have been erected and set up...for the purpose of preventing persons with carriages and horses from riding or driving within, or between the posts and trees so planted...and over the turf, pavements, or ways intended for foot passages."

A Walk under Savannah's Saved Trees.
.

.







.

James Peale (1749-1831) Early 19th Century American Fruits & Vegetables

.
1795 Detail. James Peale (1739-1741). Artist & His Family. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

In the recent posting on early American orchards, I included one painting by James Peale (1749-1831) of his family with his young son offereing fruit to his sisters. James Peale's fascinating life was reviewed in an earlier blog posting.

Peale painted miniatures, portraits, & historical paintings in his early career. By the turn of the century, he began to explore still lifes & landscapes. Between this period & the end of his life, when he painted the fearsome sublime in landscapes of thunderstorms, violently uprooted trees, & towering mountains, Peale painted exquisite neo-classical still lifes.

James Peale, who straddles both the 18th & 19th century, painted many of the fruits & vegetables grown in American gardens in the early 19th century. Here are a few of my favorites.

James Peale (1749-1831). A Porcelain Bowl with Fruit. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

James Peale (1749-1831). Still Life with An Abundance of Fruit. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1820 Still Life Balsam Apples and Vegetables. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1824 Still Life. Honolulu Academy of Arts.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1824 Still Life with Chinese Basket. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Reproduction at Easyart.com.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1824 Still Life with Chinese Export Basket.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1824 Still Life with Watermelon.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1829 Still Life.

James Peale (1749-1831). c 1829 Still Life with Fruit on a Tabletop. Reproduction at Bestpriceart.com.

James Peale (1749-1831). Fruit in a Basket. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

James Peale (1749-1831). Fruits of Autumn.

James Peale (1749-1831). Still Life with Apples, Grapes, Pear. Reproduction at Mystudios.com.

James Peale (1749-1831). Still Life with Grapes and Apples on a Plate. Reproduction at Butlerart.com.

James Peale (1749-1831). Vegetable Still Life. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.
.

.







.

Orchards, Cider, & Portraits of Americans with Fruits

.
Most colonists planted at least a few fruit trees or a larger orchard as soon as possible, when they settled on their land. An orchard is an enclosed garden used to grow fruit trees which provided both food and drink to the colonial family.

Cider was one of the most important drinks of the colonial period. Growing barley for beer, or any other traditional European grains that the settlers might have been accustomed to raising, required the use of a plow. Because the colonists' lands were freshly cleared; stumps remained dotting the landscape, and the use of a plow was nearly impossible.

In 1655, Adrian Van der Donck observed, "The Netherlands settlers, who are lovers of fruit, on observing that the climate was suitable to the production of fruit trees, have brought over and planted various kinds of apples and pear trees which thrive well...The English have brought over the first quinces, and we have also brought over stocks and seed which thrive well and produce large orchards."


In Jamestown, Virginia, it was reported that by 1656, "Orchards innumerable were planted and preserved." Jamestown, more than many other settlements, needed to grow domestic fruit to convert into a safe liquid to drink. Illness was a serious problem in early Jamestown due, in part, to the settlers' drinking water from shallow wells often polluted by the risky high water table. The colonists did not seem to mind the mellowing alcohol content of the quickly fermented apple juice either.

A 1 to 6 acre apple orchard became a rather common feature on farmsteads & plantations in the British American colonies. Apples were grown primarily for their juice, which was the most common colonial beverage of choice, because well-water generally was regarded as unsafe. Everyone in the family drank the hard cider year-round, and most families produced 20 to 50 barrels of cider each autumn for their own consumption & to use as barter for other goods & services.

Peach Blossoms

Some settlers also converted distilled cider into "applejack," which was even stronger than hard cider. The first hand-cranked cider mills appeared in the colonies around 1745. Prior to this cider was made by pounding apples in a trough & draining the pomace.

Gabriel Thomas wrote of Pennsylvania in 1698, "There are many Fair and Great Brick Houses on the outside of the Town which the Gentry have built for their Countrey Houses... having a very fine and delightful Garden and Orchard adjoyning it, wherein is variety of Fruits, Herbs, and Flowers."

On a visit to Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1722, Hugh Jones noted that, "the Palace or Governor's House, a magnificent structure built at the publick Expense, finished and beautified with Gates, fine Gardens...Orchards."

A house-for-sale adverisement in the South Carolina Gazette in June of 1736, in Charleston, touted the orchard as a strong selling enticement, "To be Sold A Plantation containing 200 Acres...An orchard well planted with peach, apple, cherry, fig and plumb trees: a vineyard of about two years grownth planted with 1200 vines: a nursery of 5 or 600 mulberry trees about two years old, fit to plant out."

Pear Blossoms

In April of 1742, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote in South Carolina, "I have planted a large figg orchard with desighn to dry and export them. I have reckoned my expense and the prophets to arise from these figgs."

Peter Kalm noted on his travels through North America on September 18, 1748, "Every countryman, even a common peasant, has commonly an orchard near his house, in which all sorts of fruit, such a peaches, apples, pears, cherries, and others are in plenty."

In 1756, from Annapolis, Maryland, Elizabeth Brook wrote to her son Charles Carroll, who was attending school in England and France, "This place... is greatly improved, a fine, flourishing orchard with a variety of choice fruit." Charles Carroll of Annapolis and his son annually put away vast quantities of cider for their family and servants. In 1775, the elder Carroll put away 190 casks of "cyder" (he estimated 22,800 gallons) for the coming year.

Apple Blossoms

Peter Hatch, who manages Monticello's grounds, reports that, "between 1769 & 1814 Thomas Jefferson planted as many as 1,031 fruit trees in his South Orchard. This orchard formed a horseshoe-shape around the two vineyards & berry squares. It was organized into a grid pattern, in which he planted 18 varieties of apple, 38 of peach, 14 cherry, 12 pear, 27 plum, 4 nectarine, 7 almond, 6 apricot, and a quince.

"The earliest plantings, before 1780, reflect the experimental orchard of a young man eager to import Mediterranean culture to Virginia, and included olives, almonds, pomegranates, & figs. However, the mature plantings after 1810, included mostly species & varieties that either thrived through the hot, humid summers & cold, rainy winters of central Virginia, such as seedling late-season peaches or Virginia cider apples."

In 1782, Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur (1735–1813) described drying apple slices on wooden platforms erected on poles. The fruit was spread out on wooden boards, where it was soon covered with "all the bees and wasps and sucking insects of the neighborhood," which he felt accelerated the drying process. The dried apples were used in preparing a variety of dishes throughout the year. Peaches & plums were also dried but were considered more of a delicacy & were saved for special occasions. Many families stored their dried apples in bags hung high in building rafters to keep them dry & away from mice.

J. F. D. Smyth described Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1784, "Plantations are generally from one to four or five miles distant from each other, having a dwelling house in the middle... at some little distance there are always large peach and apple orchards."


In 1796, New Englander Amelia Simmons published the first truly American cookbook, American Cookery. Her view of the raising of apples had more to do with morality than with functionality.

"Apples are still more various, yet rigidly retain their own species, and are highly useful in families, and ought to be more universally cultivated, excepting in the compactest cities. There is not a single family but might set a tree in some otherwise useless spot, which might serve the two fold use of shade and fruit; on which 12 or 14 kinds of fruit trees might easily be engrafted, and essentially preserve the orchard from the intrusions of boys, &c. which is too common in America.

If the boy who thus planted a tree, and guarded and protected it in a useless corner, and carefully engrafted different fruits, was to be indulged free access into orchards, whilst the neglectful boy was prohibited--how many millions of fruit trees would spring into growth--and what a saving to the union. The net saving would in time extinguish the public debt, and enrich our cookery."

English agriculturalist Richard Parkinson noted in 1798, Baltimore, Maryland, "My orchard contained about six acres, three of which were planted with apples, the other three with peaches of various sorts."

In the 1790s, Captain John ODonnell (1749-1805) settled in Baltimore, Maryland, naming his country seat after his favorite port of call, Canton. And account of Canton given by a visitor noted that O"Donnell had planted orchards of red peaches on his 2500 acre estate in hopes of manufacturing brandy for trade but had met with limited financial success.

"For although Mr. O'Donnell's orchard had come to bear in great perfection and he had stills and the other necessary apparatus, the profit proved so small that he suffered the whole to go to waste and his pigs to consume the product."
A house-for-sale advertisement in the 1800 Federal Gazette in Baltimore, Maryland, described, "That beautiful, healthy and highly improved seat, within one mile of the city of Baltimore, called Willow Brook, containing about 26 acres of land, the whole of which is under a good post and rail fence, divided and laid off into grass lots, orchards, garden...The garden and orchard abounds with the greatest variety of the choicest fruit trees, shrubs, flowers...collected from the best nurseries in America and from Europe, all in perfection and full bearing."

Keeping apples overwinter in America during the 18th & 19th centuries was important and theories abounded about the proper method.

New Yorker John Nicholson wrote in The Farmer's Assistant in 1820, "In gathering apples, for Winter-use, they should be picked from the tree, and laid carefully in a heap, under cover, without being bruised. After they have sweated, let them be exposed to the air and well dried, by wiping them with dry cloths; then lay them away in a dry place where they will hot freeze. The time requisite for sweating will be six, ten, or fifteen days, according to the warmth of the weather...

"The fruit should not be gathered till fully ripe, which is known by the stem parting easily from the twig. It should also be gathered in dry weather and when the dew is off...

"It is confidently asserted by many, that apples may be safely kept in casks through Winter, in a cold chamber, or garret, by being merely covered with Linen cloths."

John Beale Bordley had written An Epitome of Mr. Forsyth's Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees in 1804, noting that William Forsyth wrote "the most complete method of saving them, so as to preserve them the greatest length of time, is to wrap them in paper and pack them away in stone jars between layers of bran; having the mouths of the jars covered so close as to preclude the admission of air, and then keep them in a dry place where they will not be frozen."

In the 1790s, Samuel Deane wrote in his New England Farmer of his method of preserving Winter apples, "I gather them about noon on the day of the full of the moon which happens in the latter part of September, or beginning of October. Then spread them in a chamber, or garret, where they lie till about the last of November. Then, at a time when the weather is dry, remove them into casks, or boxes, in the cellar, out of the way of the frosts; but I prefer a cool part of the cellar. With this management, I find I can keep them till the last of May, so well that not one in fifty will rot...

"In the Autumn of 1793, I packed apples in the shavings of pine, so that they scarcely touched one another. They kept well till some time in May following; though they were a sort which are mellow for eating in December. Dry sawdust might perhaps answer the end as well. Some barrel them up, and keep them through the Winter in upper rooms, covering them with blankets or mats, to prevent freezing. Dry places are best for them."

New Yorker John Nicholson suggested some amazing cures--including chalk, bloody meat, raw eggs, & milk--for American cider in The Farmer's Assistant in 1820, "Cider may be kept for years in casks, without fermenting, by burying them deeply under ground, or immersing them in spring water; and when taken up the cider will be very fine.

"A drink, called cider-royal, is made of the best runing of the cheese, well clarified, with six or eight gallons of French brandy, or good cider brandy, added to a barrel: Let the vessel be filled full, bunged tight, and set in a cool cellar, and in the course of a twelvemonth it will be a fine drink. If good rectified whiskey be used, instead of brandy, it will answer very well.

"A quart of honey, or molasses, and a quart of brandy, or other spirits, added to a barrel of cider, will improve the liquor very much, and will restore that which has become too flat and insipid. To prevent its becoming pricked, or to cure it when it is so, put a little pearl-ashes, or other mild alkali, into the cask. A lump of chalk broken in pieces, and thrown in, is also good. Salt of tartar, when the cider is about to be used, is also recommended.

"To refine cider, and give it a fine amber-color, the following method is much approved of. Take the whites of 6 eggs, with a handful of fine beach sand, washed clean; stir them well together; then boil a quart of molasses down to a candy, and cool it by pouring in cider, and put this, together with the eggs and sand, into a barrel of cider, and mix the whole well together. When thus managed, it will keep for many years. Molasses alone will also refine cider, and give it a higher color; but, to prevent the molasses making it prick, let an equal quantity of brandy be added to it. Skim-milk, with some lime slacked in it, and mixed with it, or with the white of eggs with the shells broken in, is also good for clarifying all liquors, when well mixed with them. A piece of fresh bloody meat, put into the cask, will also refine the liquor and serve tor it to feed on.

"To prevent the fermentation of cider, let the cask be first strongly fumigated with burnt sulphur; then put in some of the cider, burn more sulphur in the cask, stop it tight and shake the whole up together; fill the cask, bung it tight, and put it away in a cool cellar.

"To bring on a fermentation, take 3 pints of yeast for a hogshead, add as much jalup as will lie on a sixpence, mix them with some of the cider, beat the mass up till it is frothy, then pour it into the cask, and stir it up well. Keep the vessel full, and the bung open, for the froth and foul stuff to work out. In about 15 days, the froth will be clean and white; then, to stop the fermentation, rack the cider off into a clean vessel, add two gallons ot brandy, or well-rectified whiskey, to it, and bung it up. Let the cask be full, and keep the venthole open for a day or two. By this process, cider that is poor, and ill-tasted, may be wonderfully improved...

"To cure oily cider, take one ounce of salt of tartar, and two and a half of sweet spirit of nitre, in a gallon of milk, for a hogshead. To cure ropy cider, take six pounds of powdered allum, and stir it into a hogshead; then rack it off and clarify it.

"To color cider, take a quarter of a pound of sugar, burnt black, and dissolved in half a pint of hot water, for a hogshead; add a quarter of an ounce of allum, to set the color.

"Cider-brandy mixed with an equal quantity of honey, or clarified sugar, is much recommended by some lor improving common cider; so that, when refined, it may be made as strong, and as pleasant, as the most of wines."

Portraits of Americans with Fruit Grown on Trees

Throughout the 18th century, artists painted portraits of British colonials & early Americans holding fruits that the viewer might reasonably suppose came from the trees in their orchards. Some scholars look to period emblem books and attribute complicated symbolism to each type & quantity of fruit depicted in these portraits. Some do not. Here are a few of my favoite portraits containing tree fruit as props.

1679 Detail. painting attributed to Thomas Smith (1650-1691). Mrs. Richard Patteshall (Martha Woody) and Child. Museum of Fine Art, Boston.

1732 Detail. John Smibert (1688-1751). Jane Clark (Mrs. Ezekiel Lewis). Massachusettes Historical Society. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1750 Detail. Charles Bridges (1670-1747). Mrs Augustine Moore. Colonial Williamsburg Foundataion.

1750 Detail. Joseph Badger. Portrait of Elizabeth Greenleaf of Charlestown. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

1755 Detail. Joseph Blackburn (fl in the colonies 1753-1763). Isaac Winslow and His Family. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

1757 Detail. John Wollaston (1710-1775). Probably Elizabeth Dandridge. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

1767 Detail. James Claypoole (1743-1814). Ann Galloway (Mrs Joseph Pemberton). Philadelphia Academy of Arts.

1769 Detail. John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Martha Swett (Mrs Jeremiah Lee). Wadsworth Atheneum. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1769 Detail. John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Elizabeth Murray (Mrs. James Smith). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

1771-73 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). The Peale Family. New York Historical Society. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1771 Detail. John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Elizabeth Lewis (Mrs. Ezekiel Goldthwait). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1772 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). General John Cadwalader, his First Wife, Elizabeth.

1773 Detail. John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Hannah Fayerweather (Mrs. John Winthrop). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1774 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Isabella and John Stewart. Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Spain. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1774 Detail of painting attributed to Ralph Earl (1751-1801). Elizabeth Perscott (Mrs. Henry Daggett).

1785 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Ann Marsh (Mrs David Forman) & Child. Brooklyn Museum.

1787 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Deborah McClenahan (Mrs. Walter Stewart). Yale Univeristy Art Gallery.

1788 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Benjamin & Eleanor Ridgley Laming. National Gallery of Art. Reproduction at 1st-art-gallery.com.

1788 Detail. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). William Smith & Grandson. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

1795 Detail. James Peale (1739-1741). Artist & His Family. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.


For additional paintings of colonial Americans holding the fruits supposedly from their gardens, see this earlier blog posting.
.