Garden History - Tools

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Dear friends gave me an old dibble yesterday. To celebrate my great good fortune in both friends & dibbles, I am posting this non-American print of working in a more sophisticated European 18th-century garden. Enjoy, while I will be caressing my smooth, smooth old hand-carved wooden dibble.

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American Seed Catalogs from Smithsonian Institution Libraries

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Garden History - Seed Dealers & Nursery Owners of South Carolina

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Charles Fraser (1782-1860) Golden Groves The Seat of Mrs (John) Sommers Stono River. Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum, Charleston, South Carolina.

.After my earlier posting on seed dealers & nursery owners from the Mid-Atlantic to the Upper South-Virginia, some readers complained, that I did not include enough of the specific plants that dealers had for sale. See a very basic discussion of acquiring seeds & plants for early American gardens in this posting.

It is difficult to strike just the right balance for a diverse audience of readers. Some are plant historians, who want to know precisely what plants are being sold when.

Other readers are interested in the development of an industry & its marketing tactics of appealing to & changing the needs & desires of their customers. Those readers usually don't care exactly what is being sold, except as it changes from utilitarian to ornamental.

In this posting, I will include more specific plant listings. (I will also ask you to return to an earlier posting for the basics of seed saving, one of the most important ways of having seeds to plant the following year for all 18th century gardeners.)

c 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Detail of Settee on a Hill at Rice Hope Plantation from One of the Rice Fields. South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. Dr. Read had been a Surgeon in the Continental Line during the Revolution. The name Rice Hope was one of the many such hopeful combinations; there were also a Silk Hope, a Salt Hope & a Brick Hope near the Cooper River.

I want to use the watercolors of Charles Fraser to let us feel the South Carolina landscape around us as we learn how it was being groomed & planted. Thanks to South Carolina native Charles Fraser (1782 - 1860 ) we have a chance to see, through his eyes, the homes & gardens there as he was growing up. Although he was primarily known his miniature portraits, he also created watercolors of historical sites, homes, & landscapes. He painted while working as a lawyer, historian, writer, & politician. Today, many of Fraser's works are displayed at the Carolina Art Association & the Gibbes Art Gallery in Charleston. I will also include a painting by Thomas Corum (1756 – 1811), who taught Charles Fraser to paint.

South Carolina was a world of its own in the early 18th century, and it might be interesting to compare & contrast the marketing of plants & the growth of professional seed & plant dealers there with the more northern colonies.

Trading seeds & plants with other gardeners

In warm, nearly tropical South Carolina, naturalists Mark Catesby (1682-1749) & John Bartram (1699-1777) both visited the intriguing colony, increasing botanical awareness in the area. Catesby & Bartram took samples of new plants they found and traded them with others, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
John Bartram, the Philadelphia gardener, explorer, & botanist, regularly sent plants to English merchant & botanist Peter Collinson (1649-1768). His famous garden at Mill Hill contained many American plants.


1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Arbor for Gatherings. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

South Carolina gardener Martha Logan ((1701-1779) carried on a lively correspondence with Philadelphia botanist John Bartram. Bartram wrote to his English mentor Peter Collinson in May of 1761, that she was “an elderly widow lady who spares no pains on cost to oblige me: her garden is her delight and she has a fine one; I was with her about 4 minutes in her company yet we contracted such a mutual correspondence that one silk bag of seed bath repast several times.”

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Dr. Alexander Garden (1746-1802), who practiced medicine in Charleston, made important contributions to plant identification later in the 18th century. Garden also traded seeds & plants with others interested in botany on both sides of the Atlantic. He is most remembered for the gardenia named in his honor by Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who established the modern system of plant classification.

Everyday gardeners, gentry & common folk, traded both useful & ornamental seeds & plants with each other regularly throughout the 18th century in South Carolina.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) 1803 Richmond, the Seat of Edward Rutledge in St. John's Parish. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. The Richmond house stood on a hill overlooking the Eastern branch of the Cooper River. It had belonged to Colonel John Harleston, one of the oldest Cooper River families. From him it had passed to his daughter Jane Smith Harleston, the wife of Edward Rutledge, whom she married in 1794. The house at Richmond is one of the most typical Low Country plantation houses sketched by Fraser. The high foundation of masonry, the two stories of wood, the high hipped roof, the single piazza with its wide brick stairway flanked by ramps of the same material that flare out at the ground into cylindrical newels-all these repeat themselves endlessly through the Low Country, with only minor local variations.(Mixup in converting slide to jpg caused house to reverse, sorry.)

Ordering seeds & plants from English factors

Whether planting their lands for necessity or pleasure, early South Carolina gardeners were initially bound to write back to England for gardening manuals and for many of the specific plants and seeds they were familiar with from their mother country. But soon commercial seed dealers and nursery owners began importing plants to sell directly to South Carolina gardeners.

Many South Carolina gardeners ordered their seeds directly from England. In the December 19, 1754, issue of the South Carolina Gazette, Captain Thomas Arnott noted that he brought a box of “Tulip, Narcissus, and other Flower Roots” from England “supposed to have been ordered by some person of this province” and that the “person that can properly claim them, may have them.”

Newspaper advertisements, broadsides, & estate inventories give a fairly accurate reflection of the seeds & plants early South Carolina gardeners purchased in the marketplace before 1820. The South Carolina Gazette was Charleston’s first newspaper commencing publication in January 1732. Most early seed dealers used this newspaper as a vehicle for marketing their wares.

30 May 2, 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Buying seeds from ships arriving in South Carolina

The earliest seed dealer advertising there was Samuel Everleigh, although his ads weren’t specific. In the December of 1732 issue, he offered for sale “divers sorts of best Garden seeds,” and 3 years later in December of 1736/7, Everleigh again advertised, “Garden seeds fresh and good.” On March 29-April 6, 1739, he offered “Grass and Garden Seeds.”

When young Charles Pinckney opened his “new store on the Bay” in the 1740s, he advertised “garden seeds Just imported from London” in the South Carolina Gazette. His competitor, Robert Pringle, whose store was also “on the Bay” advertised garden seeds imported from London.

In 1748, Frederick Merckley & Thomas Shute advertised for sale “sundry sorts of Garden Seeds” which were imported from Philadelphia rather than London. However, England remained the dominant source for plant stuffs.

Samuel Came fist appeared in the February 12, 1753 issue of the South Carolina Gazette declaring that he had “Imported from London, an assortment of useful garden seed, some flower roots and seeds, Windsor and kidney beans, dwarf, marrow-fat and Ormond Hotspur Peas.” Came advertised again in the January 1764 issue that he had “a assortment of Garden Seeds, flower roots, etc.”

The domestic commercial sale of plants continued to grow in popularity. In January 1764, Thomas Young advertised in the South Carolina Gazette that he had imported, “A greet Variety of kitchen-garden and flower Seeds, which are very fresh, having had a short passage; which, with some flower roots, eta. he will salt reasonably, at his house at the west-end of Broad-street.”

In the December issue of the same year, Young was about to move from his house, and he advertised “a parcel of seeds to dispose of cheap; also some shrubs, trees, roots, etc. among which are a great number of Cork, walnut, with some chestnut and almond trees, with squill and other medical roots and seeds.”


John Edwards came to South Carolina, from New York, in 1764. He advertised in the March 3, 1764, South Carolina Gazette that he brought with him “a large collection of English garden and flower seed” which he had raised himself.

In January of 1765, Lloyd & Neyle advertised that they had just imported from London and Bristol “garden seeds and flower roots, amongst which are the best orange carrots Turkey renunculas roots, Dutch tulips, fine anemones, double poppies, double larkspur.”

In March of 1791, Charles McDonald at 186 Meeting Street advertised “Fresh Garden Seed, a SMALL assortment of Flower and other GARDEN SEED, Just imported from London.”

In the 1803 Charleston Courier, Tait, Wilson & Co advertised: "Early Chariton Peas, London Cauliflower, Dwarf Marrowfat do., Early Cabbage Lettuce Coss, Early Frame do.,Cabbegge of all sorts, Crown, Transparent, and White and Black Mustard, Tail Sugar do., Solid Celery, Dwarf White Kidney Beans, Curled Parsley, Canary and Rape Seeds, Green Curled Endive, Early ad Imperial York, Long Prickley Cucumber, Cabbage, Red Beet, Early Sugar-loaf do., Large Norfolk Turnip, Drumhead do., Round Spinnage, Green Glazed do., Portugal Onion, Battersea do., Garden Cress, Cornish York do., Salmon Reddish, Early Penton Cabbage, Scarlet Salmon Reddish, Red Pickling do., Short Top do., Early Purple Brocoll, Turnips do., Late do., Naples do., Siberian do., London Leek, White do., Choux de Milan, Large Green Savoy, Brussels Sprouts, Dwarf do, White Scariat Runners, Yellow do."

In the next year, Simmons & Sweeny, at the corner of East Bay & Broad Streets, advertised in the January of 1804, issue of the Charleston Courier, “JUST received and for sale by the subscribers a few bundles FRUIT TREES, of the best quality; each containing twenty-four TREES, 1 Honey CHERRY, 1 Amber do., 1 Early White Nutmeg Peach, 1 Green do., 1 Early red, or rare ripe do., 2 large yellow Lemon clingstone do., 1 White Blossom do., 1 English Swalsh, (or Nectarine), 1 Green Catherine do., 1 Late October Clingstone do., 1 Red Pine Apple do., 1 Early black Damask Plumbs, 1 Magnum Bonum, or Yellow Egg Apple, 1 large Early Harvest do., 1 large Red Spitzenburgh do., 1 Fall Pippin do., 1 Newton do., 1 Early Sugar Pear, 1 Jergonel, or large flavored Summer do., 1 Vergeline or fine Melting Fell do, 1 Almond, 1 Nectarine, 1 Apricot."


J. F. Gennerick, who was selling seeds at 150 King Street advertised in the Charleston Courier on June 18, 1807: “ELEGANT FLOWER ROOTS, RANUNCULUS, Antimonies, Imperical Manager, Blue unbellated Crechum, The Striped Lilly, Scarlet Caledonian do., Double Scarlet do., Dotted Arcadian do., The Two Stage Martagon, Variegated Colechicums, Double do., Broad leafed Poncratium, Purple Fiemanthus, Geurnsey Lilly.”

1800 View of Mulberry, House and Street, Thomas Coram (1756 – 1811), The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. This is the earliest known depiction of a plantation house with rows of single-room slave cabins leading to the powerful owner's house.


Buying directly from local plantation & nursery owners in South Carolina

In the September, 1745 issue of the South Carolina Gazette, Richard Lake advertised for sale at his plantation on the Ashley River, “Lemon Trees with Lemons on them, in boxes, Lime Trees and Orange Trees in Boxes, and several curious Plants in Pots, also variety of young Fruit Trees, particularly white Mulberry and Orange Trees.”

In January of 1749, Lake advertised his entire plantation for sale in the South Carolina Gazette. He used his large & diverse orchard & kitchen gardens as an advertising enticement. He stated that it had a very large garden both for pleasure and profit. It contained all sorts of fruit trees consisting of many thousands, a great deal of fine asparagus, and all kinds of kitchen-garden stuff, a young nursery with a great number of grafted pear and apple trees, thousands of orange trees, and several lemon and lime trees in tubs and boxes, with fruit on them.

Rose Hill c 1820. Unidentified artist. Charleston Museum, South Carolina. Home owned by Nathaniel Heyward (1766-1851) & his wife Henrietta Manigault (1769-1827), the rice plantation Rose Hill on the Combhee River was home to 152 slaves. Rose Hill is also illustrated in the marginialia of the diary of their son Charles (1802-1866) which is at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston.

Importing experimental plants into South Carolina

During the 1770s-1780s grapes were becoming a popular item in both South Carolina & Georgia, where a friendly competition was growing between the neighbors.

The March 1772, issue of the South Carolina Gazette announced, “Yesterday also arrive here, with Captain John Turner, the ship Carolina Packet, from London…30,000 plants of Vines producing true Champagne and Burgundy Grapes, procured by the Assiduity of Mr. Masnil de St. Pierre (from the French settlement at Longcanes, called now New-Bourdeaux) who has received great encouragement in London, to perfect his scheme of making wines in the province, and obtained from the Society of Arts a Gold Medal.”

By the 1750s Benjamin Franklin had his hand in potential domestic wine production. The May 1, 1783 issue of the Gazette in Savannah noted, “Sometime ago Dr. Franklin sent to South Carolina nine vine dressers from Burgundy, and 1,200,000 sets of plants of vines, to try whether those plants would thrive there. Our merchants do not wish they may.”

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

On September 29, 1774 the South Carolina Gazette was carrying news of another experimental plant. Aaron Loocock was promoting & selling the dying root madder. “Those Gentlemen who chose to make Trial of this valuable and profitable article may depend on not being disappointed of Plants, if they order them in Time, either delivered at my Plantation at Goose Creek, or to any of their friends at Charles-Town, at Five Pounds a Thousand. Printed directions, from experiences in this Province, will be given.”

Evidently Looncook’s were successful, for almost 20 years later in the June 21, 1794 issue of the Augusta Chronicle and Gazette his “printed directions” appeared under this introduction “As the soil and climate of this country is said to be well adapted to the cultivation of that valuable dying-root, Madder, and as the planting, mercantile, and manufacturing interest of the United States may be very much benefited by its cultivation: I make no doubt but that a publication of the following observations on it will be very acceptable…written twenty years ago, by a gentleman in South Carolina…”

On January 9, 1796 in the City Gazette and the Daily Advertiser, Robert Day offered for sale “To Lovers of Improvement Five to Six Hundred LOMBARDY POPLAR TREES, one year old, from ten to sixteen feet high they are the first in America of their age or kind. Also, Two Hundred PLANTS of the large purple sweet WATER GRAPE, One Box, containing Two or Three Hundred PLANTS of the large Cork ASPARAGUS, two years old."

Jacques Burkhardt (1818-1867). Home of Gabriel Manigault.


Emerging professional gardeners, seed dealers & nursery owners in South Carolina

Just as it had in the Mid-Atlantic & Upper South, the method of selling seeds & plants changed dramatically in South Carolina at the end of the century. However, in South Carolina, the change began well before the American Revolution. The growth of urban economies gave rise to new commercial gardening ventures, nurseries & seed stores, operated by professional gardeners who initially imported & then grew their own seed & plant stock.

Plant Dealer & Garden Writer Martha Logan


Martha Logan (1701-1779) first advertised her gardening wares in November 1753 in the South Carolina Gazette. She offered for sale “seeds, flower roots, and fruit stones at her house” on the Green, near Trotts Point. Martha Logan was the daughter of Robert Daniell, Landgrove and Deputy Governor of South Carolina. She was born December 29, 1704, and married George Logan, Jr. on July 30, 1719. Widowed by 1741, she was keeping a boarding school for children where they would be “carefully taught to read, write, dance and work several kinds of needle-work” in a “pleasant, airy situation” on the green near Mrs. Trott’s point. But her first love was gardening.

Martha Logan wrote a “Gardener’s Kalendar” that appeared until well past the turn of the 19th century in various almanacs. In the March 14, 1768, South Carolina Gazette she advertised seed imported from London: “A Fresh assortment of very good garden seeds and flower roots, with flowering shrubs and box edging beds, now growing in her garden.” Her notice establishes that box was used for edging in pre-Revolutionary gardens.

1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). View from Mr. Fraser’s City Residence from untitled sketchbook, The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently Fraser lived on King Street with his widowed mother.

Gardener & Plant Dealer John Watson

One of the most important working gardeners & seed dealers of the last half of the 18th-century in South Carolina was John Watson. He came to the province seeking work as a gardener from London in 1755. By December 10, 1763 he advertised in the South Carolina Gazette that he had imported from London, “a proper assortment of garden seed, flower roots, me, which he will sell reasonably.”

In 1764, when John Laurens built his "large, elegant brick house of sixty feet by thirty-eight," with piazzas on the south & east sides overlooking the marshes & Cooper River. He & Martha Laurens created a 600' by 450' brick-walled botanical garden, containing such exotics as orange, olive, lime, capers, ginger and guinea grass, with the aid of John Watson.

By September of 1765, Watson advertised an expanded line of garden wares advertised in the South Carolina Gazette. Beside garden seeds and flower roots, he offered “…a great collection of fruit trees, Of all kinds, which have been grafted and budded from the best fonts in the province, with a great variety of English grape vines.”

On February 4, 1778, Watson added clover seeds to his offerings. By the November issue of the South Carolina Gazette for the same year, he noted for sale “a great variety of Tulips, hyacinths, lilies, anemanies, ranuculuses, double jonquils” as well as asparagus roots.

His wares became more exotic by his November 28, 1776, notice in the South Carolina Gazette, Watson offered for sale “Sweet Almonds, Filberts, English Quinces, Olives, China double flowering Peaches, Almonds and Pomegranates.”

On January 1, 1778 his ad in the South Carolina and American General Gazette offered “Hazel Nuts Nutmeg, Myrtle flowering Trees….Magnolia or Laurels fit for Avenues, etc. any height from three to twenty, Artichoke.”

John Watson’s last notice appeared in February of 1789, when he offered “seedling cassenas for hedges, tallow trees for exportation.” In March 1789, John Watson died. His sons James Mark and John ran the nursery, until young John left South Carolina in 1802, finally selling “Watson’s Gardens.”

c 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Rice Hope Taken from One of the Rice Fields. South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Gardener William Bennet

Another gardener who came from England to South Carolina seeking work was William Bennet. In his initial ad for public work in the South Carolina and American General Gazette on May 13, 1771, he also noted “Seed to be sold,” which he had apparently brought with him from England. In the October 1, 1778, issue of the same publication he was still offering unspecified garden seeds for sale.

In in 1786 & 1787, someone claiming to represent Peter Crouwells, a well-known Philadelphia florist, who had immigrated from Holland, advertised in the South Carolina Gazette on December 11, 1786, “for sale, an extensive variety of the most rare and curious Bulbous Flowers, Roots & Seeds, which have never appeared in this country before they are just imported from Amsterdam…the most choice sorts of Hyacinths, double Jonquillea, Polyanthos, Narcissusses, Tarcetts, Tulips, double Tuberoses, Pasetouts, Carnations, with a great variety of double Ranunculas and Anemonies, a sort of Rose Bushes, etc.” Ladies and Gentlemen could get a catalogue giving the names and colors of all the Bulbous Flowers.

In February of 1790, “John Chalvin & Co. Florists and Gardeners, from France” announced that they had brought “from France a great variety of Seed and Plants or flowering trees, lilly roots, jacinths, and crow feet of the scarcest and prettiest qualities; rose bushes of different colours; es also a great variety of pot and herbs seeds” which they had for sale at a very moderate price at No. 8 Elliott-street.

1800. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Brabants on French Quarter Creek, The Seat of the Late Bishop Smith. South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. This plantation lies on French Quarter Creek, a tributary of the Eastern Branch of the Cooper River. The original grant to Francis Pagett in 1704, was later joined a tract granted in 1709 to Daniel Brabant, a surgeon whose name became that of the plantation. It amounted to 3,000 acres, when Elizabeth Pagett married the Reverend Robert Smith, rector of St. Philip’s Church in Charles Town. He became the 1st Bishop of the State of South Carolina, and was the First Principal of the college of Charleston, where Charles Fraser was one of the students.

Gardener & Plant Dealer John Bryant

John Bryant was an English gardener who arrived in South Carolina, sometime before his 1794 marriage to Jane Thornton in St. Phillip’s Parish in Charleston. He first advertised in the City Gazette and the Daily Advertiser on June 6, 1795 as a gardener for hire, but also noted that, “like wise imports, on commission, all kinds of trees, shrubs and seeds, either useful or ornamental, from England, Philadelphia and New York.”

By his April 15, 1796 notice in the City Gazette and the Daily Advertiser, Bryant was importing seed for speculation rather than commission, “just Imported, a small assortment of seeds.” Bryant gained confidence in his buying public as the years passed, and by the December 15, 1807 issue of the Charleston Courier, he was advertising, “A QUANTITY of FRUIT TREES, FLOWERING SHRUBS and PLANTS, of the most esteemed for quality and beauty. The Fruit Trees consist of Peaches, Nectarines, Pears, Cherries, Plumbs and Quinces, of the largest size ever imported, for their age, into this state.”

In 1807, Bryant eventually became the Clerk of Market Hall, where many plants & seeds were sold & exchanged; but in the fall of 1808, Bryant died. His wife Jane kept the garden operating into the spring of the next year. She advertised in the February 13 issue of the Charleston Times “For sale at the late John Bryant’s Garden, upper end of King Street - grafted Peach, Nectarine, Apricot, Plum and Apple Trees; Pride of India…Pine Apple plants…Geranium, and other Green House Plants.” She did not advertise again.

But it seems that someone bought Bryant's store & stock. The Charleston Times of January 16, 1811, announced the opening of a new seed store King Street. The unidentified proprietor advertised: “New Seed and Plant Store, Wholesale and retail 200...220 KING STREET RECEIVED from London an extensive assortment of choice Garden, Field, Flower and Bird Seeds, the growth of 1810. Also, by the ship Minerva, from New York, a large supply of fresh American SEEDS, together with the former Stock of fresh Seeds on hand, making the most complete and extensive assortment of Seeds ever offered for sale in this city. On hand, a large assortment of inoculated FRUIT TREES, among which are all the most approved kinds of Peach, Pear, Apple, Cherry, Plum, soft shelled Almond, Dwarf Pear, Dwarf Apple; Fruit and Flowering Shrubs, Red and White Antwerp Raspberry, that gives remarkable large Fruit, Red and White Currant, English yellow Jesamine, Lilach, with a large assortment of Plants, Garden Tools, Flower Pots, Hyacinth Glasses, Bulbous Roots, Split Pease, Oat Meal, Flour or Mustard, Etc.”

c 1799. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). View of a South Carolina Plantation Barn. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Botanist, Nusreryman, Gardener, & Writer Robert Squibb

Robert Squibb, botanist, nurseryman, gardener, and writer, had published his catlogue-style book, The gardener's calendar, for South-Carolina, Georgia, and North-Carolina: Containing an account of work necessary to be done in the kitchen and fruit gardens every month in the year, with instructions for performing the same. Also particular directions relative to soil and situation, adapted to the different kinds of plants and trees most proper for cultivation in these states. He called himself a nursery and seedsman of Charleston, South-Carolina. The book was printed by Samuel Wright and Co. for R. Squibb, and recorded in the secretary of state's office, agreeable to the act of Assembly. (Price six shillings.), in 1787.

Squibb had announced his upcoming book with no undue modesty in the Charleston Evening Gazette of July 4, 1786. He declared that his patrons needed a gardening book to fit their particular coastal climate, and English books only mislead them with their instructions.

Squibb offered seeds for sale in the newspaper on August 19, 1795 in an issue of the City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, “THE Subscriber, after many years practice in this state, is fully convinced that garden seeds saved here are much better than those imported and does hereby forewarn his friends and customers against depending on foreign seeds, in particular such as onion, leek, carrot, parsnips, parsley, celery, lettuce, endive and spinage.”

In 1801 Squibb advertised using much the same technique in the Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State of Georgia on March 14: “GARDEN SEEDS. THE Subscriber having taken up his residence in Augusta, as Market Gardener, and the saving of Seeds being a branch of his profession, intends from time to time, both to import and save seeds of the very best kinds."

Squibb declared that he was offering his services & plants out of a sense of public responsibility, "He considers it a duty he owes to himself and fellow citizens, to remind them of the numberless impositions that for some years past have taken place in this city, by sale of garden seeds, which from their age of the inexperience of the collectors, have either not vegetated or else produced a degenerated offspring, by which the public have been much discouraged in the cultivation of gardens. To remedy this evil he offers for sale a small assortment of SEEDS collected from his own plants."

However, in 1802, Squibb was back in Charleston at his old garden. Squibb called his garden and nursery, “The Botanic Garden.” In the June 8 1802, issue of the Charleston Times, he advertised, “that he has imported from London, a small assortment of GARDEN SEEDS, in excellent order. Also a few kinds of Seeds on his own saving, equal to any ever saved in this state. Market Gardeners may be supplied with London Salmon Redish Seed, at one dollar per pound.”

Robert Squibb died on April 22, 1806 at Silk Hope Plantation near Savannah, Georgia, and was buried there. However, an ad for the “Botanic Garden” appeared in the Charleston Courier on November 2, 1812, “At the Botanic Garden. A variety of Elegant PLANTS, Such as Liqusiriniums, Geraniums, Cleroaedrems, Rosa Multifloras, double and white Oleanders, Flowering Heaths, Laurustkius.”

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Gardener & Seed Dealer Charles Gross

Charles Gross was a gardener on King Street in the 1790 Charleston City Directory, who bought a lot for his garden in Hampstead in 1792. From there he continued to work as a gardener and sold seeds until his death in 1802.

Gardener & Seedsman Edward Otter
Edward Otter was another gardener & seedsman from England who brought garden seeds, peach trees, and Lombardy poplars with him when he came to Charleston In 1803.

1803. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Entrance to Ashley Hall near Charleston, South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. The 2nd Royal Governor William Bull inherited Ashley Hall in 1755. A medical doctor, he never wavered in his loyalty to his King. He left with the British in 1782, dying in London 9 years later. His will states: “I William Bull the late Governour of South Carolina for his Britanic Majestiy do …my worldly goods greatly deranged and lessened in value not by my Fault but by some unexpected contingencies I have met from peculiar situations wherein I have been placed during the late unhappy times in America…my plantation on Ashley River in Carolina where my Grandfather lived died and lies buried where my Father and all his children were born I wish to remain in the possession of one of his Posterity I therefore give to my nephew William his heirs…”

John Foy's Seed Store
John Foy’s Seed Store at 184 Meeting Street was especially active in 1810. In the November 14, 1810 issue of the Charleston Times he placed this notice: "A General Assortment of Choice Garden Flower, and Bird SEEDS FLOWER POTS, and some excellent APPLE TREES: ASPARAGIS-Gravesend; BEANS-Long Pod, Mangan, Windsor; BEET-Green, Blood Pled; BROCOLO-Purple, White; BURNET; CABBAGE-Early York, Heart Shaped, Sugar Loaf, early and later Battersea, Drum Head, Red Dutch, Green Glazed, Bergin, Green Savoy; CARROT-Early Mom, Orange, Yellow; CAULIFLOWER-Early and Late; CELERY-Solid, Italian, Chardoon, Chervil: CUCUMBER-Early Frame, Shod Prickly, Long Green roman: ENDIVE-Green Curled, White Curled, Broad Leaf or Bataivian; BEANS-Bush, China, Liver, Yellow, Refugee, RUNNERS-Scarlet, White; LEIUCE-Impoerial, Grand Admirable, Tennis Ball; ONIONS-Silver Skin, Large White. Red; LEEKS; PARSLEY-Double and single; PARSNIPS:PEASE- Early Frame, Golden Hospur, Early Charlton, Dwarf Marrowfat, Pearl and Prusian; Radish-Early Frame Salmon; White and Red do., White and Red Turnip, Saisafy, Sanzonara, Sorrel; SPINACH-assorted; TURNIP-assorted; BIRD SEEDS-Canary, Hopp, Maw, Rape; HERB SEEDS-assorted; FLOWER SEEDS-assorted; a few TULIPS and HYACINTHS; Assortment of most approved PEAR and APPLE TREES. JOHN FOY expects some PEACH and PEAR TREES, and also some APPLE TREES from the Botanic Garden, New-York."

By his December 24, 1810 ad in the same paper Foy added, “A HANDSOME assortment of FRUIT TREES."

c. 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Mepkin, The Seat of Henry Laurens, Esq., near Charleston, South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. Mepkin was comprised 3,000 acres. John Colleton of England, sold Mepkin in 1762, to Henry Laurens. After the destruction of the house during the Revolution, Henry Laurens built this one in which Henry Laurens, Jr. was living at the time of the sketch. As the latter had married a daughter of John Rutledge, Fraser was again among relatives.

Gardeners, Plant Dealers, & Botanists John Fraser & Sons

John Fraser & his son James were gardeners, botanists, & seed dealers active in Charleston from the 1780s, until James’ death in 1819. James remained in South Carolina during his father’s various returns to England.

In the Columbian Herald of December 17, 1795, James Placed the following advertisement. "GARDEN Seeds, JAMES FRASER, UP THE PATH. Has received 21 John Praiser, Nursery and Seedsman of Sloan Square, Chelsea, near London, per the ship Roebuck, A GENERAL ASSORTMENT OF CULINARY SEEDS."

In the December 6, 1808, Charleston Times, the following notice appeared, “FRASER & SON HAVE received by the schooner Blazing-Star from New-York, several hundred handsome PEACH, NECTARINE and APRICOT TREES a few handsome FLOWERS, SHRUBS, AND PLANTS.”
The June 1, 1806, issue of the Times carried a notice that, “Fraser & Son, Have imported from London, A GENERAL assortment of GARDEN and FLOWER SEEDS, which will be warranted as genuine, and all of the crop of 1808."

In 1810, they advertised, "A variety of English Garden & Flower Seeds; Flowers; Flower Pots; and a few rare Plants, the proper of Mr. John Fraser, botanist, having finished his collection of American plants. The seeds will be put up in convenient lots, for the accommodation of the purchaser. Any Ladies or Gentlemen who wish to be supplied annually with warranted Garden, Agricultural or Flower Seeds, and Roots, or choice Fruit Trees, will please send their orders to the said office, or address them to Messrs. MASERS & SONS Sloan Square, Chelsea, London."

c. 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Mepkin, The Seat of Henry Laurens, Esq., near Charleston, South Carolina.The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

William Dobbs Seed & Plant Store


William Dobbs operated a Seed & Plant Store at 315 King street. He advertised in the December 2, 1811 edition of the Charleston Times: "For sale at wholesale and retail, an extensive assortment of Choice Garden Flowers and Bird seeds, the growth of 1811. Also, a great variety of Double Flowering Hyacinths; double, single, parrot and sweet scented Tulips; Renunculus’s: Ixia Crocata; Persian Iris, white and yellow Narcissus; Gladiolius, Garden Tools, Flower Pors, Hyacinth Glasses. Upwards of 4000 Inoculated Fruit Trees, among which are all the most approved kinds of Apple; Pear, cherry, Plum, Peach, Apricot, Nectarine, Hughe’s Crab, Chinese, and Syberian Apple, soft shelled Almond. Quince, Goosebery, red white and black Currant, Filbert Nut, Antwerp Rapsberry. Ornamental Trees and Shrubs - doable flowering Peach, Cherry, and Almond, spired Fruitrix, Mountain Ash, English yellow Jessamine, dwarf variegated Althed, Venetian Shumach, Guilder Rose, Burgundy and Moss do. Balm of Gilead Fir."

Unfortunately, Dobbs died in the fall of 1812. His inventory of December 3, 1812, gives a glimpse of the property owned by the seeds: “Rose Apple Trees, Rosemary, Squills, Double Tube Roses, Amaryths, Peach Trees, 40 Canary Birds, Seeds, Bird Seed, shovels, spades, bird cages, pees, 2 green Houses and glasses, garden tools, Glasses for Roots, Shelves of Jars with Seeds in them Double Seeds Box”

In October 1812, Dobbs property was put up at auction through ads in the October 13 and 22 editions of the Charleston Courier. “All the Personal Estate and Stock in Trade of WM. DOBBS, late of Charleston, Seedsman, deceased; consisting of a variety of elegant and choice Plants and Shrubs, in boxes and pots, various kinds of Seeds and Roots; Gardening Utensils; a variety of empty Flower Pots; an assorting of Crockery Ware: together with his elegant collection of Singing Birds; consisting of Canary and Mocking Birds; a Glass Case, containing stuffed Birds; empty Bird Cages; a few Botanical Books; Also, his two Green Houses with sashes. ALSO Several hundred choice Fruit Trees, now in the ground.”


Charles Fraser (1782-1860) The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Philippe Stanislaus Noisette (1772-1835) Nurseryman & Seed Dealer

Another gardener & seedsman active in Charleston in the same period was Philippe S. Noisette. Philippe was a member of a distinguished family of nursery owners who had been gardeners to French nobles. He first moved from Paris to Haiti, when he was a young man and fell in love with a dark-skinned Haitian woman whose name was Celestine. In 1794, because of the Haitian slave revolution, he & Celestine relocated to Charleston, where he was offered a position as Superintendent of the South Carolina Medical Society Botanical Gardens.

He was especially interested in the production of sugar cane & ran this ad in the November 14, 1814 edition of the Courier. "P.S.NOISETTE begs leave to inform the Planters of south Carolina that he has successfully cultivated, for some pears past, in his garden at Romney Village, opposite Mr. Turpires farm, the Sugar Cane; and that he has at this moment canes form which Sugar may be extracted. In consequence of this great advantages likely to be drived to this state, from this valuable plant, he offers cuttings for sale, to such as which to increase their wealth, and that of their country, et the rate of Five Dollars for a hundred buds, or eyes."
"He has also in his garden, a great quantity of FRUIT TREES, grafted by himself of the best kinds from Europe; such as different kinds of Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, Plumbs, Pears, Apples, Figs and Grapes; as well as many foreign, Ornamental Trees, Shrubs and Plants. Also for sale, a collection of garden SEEDS, FLOWER SEEDS & FLOWER."

Philip Noisette's personal life was as interesting as his professional accomplishments. Because of the miscegenation laws of South Carolina, Philippe was forced to declare his wife, Celestine, his slave. They had 6 children who also became his slaves. The 1830 Federal Census recorded him as a single white man owning eight slaves, who are believed to be his wife & at least five of his six children.

In 1821 Charleston, records show that Phillipe Stanislaus Noisette, "Botanist of Charleston," stated that "under peculiar circumstances" he became "the Father of Six children, begotten upon his faithful Slave named Celestine." For many years it had been his intention to free his family, but the "passage of the late Law upon this subject" prompted him to seek their freedom now by the passage of a legislative act.

Shortly before his death, in 1835, Philippe petitioned the state of South Carolina for the emancipation of his faithful wife, now his slave, Celestine & their six children. Philippe died without knowing the results of his petition. Philippe’s family was in fact later emancipated and allowed to secure their inheritance & remain in the state of South Carolina.

In 1859, the South Carolina House of Representatives was petitioned to let the "mulatto" children of Philip Stanislas Noisette remain in South Carolina, as free persons of color. By his will Noisette had directed that the children, born of his enslaved wife, Celeste, be removed to some other country, where they would be free. The children, however, were "attached to the laws of the County, and very unwilling to remove."

Intrigue also followed Noisette's botanical accomplishments. An 1889 journal on botany reported the following information, "The Noisette Rose is a daughter of America. She was born one day in the garden of a brave citizen of Charleston, South Carolina, Mr. John Champney. It was obtained by fertilizing a Musk Rose, Rosa Moschata, by pollen from the China or Bengal Rose. Botanists called the new creation Rosa Moschata hybrida, and Rosa champneyana indifferently. But after awhile the name was superseded by that of Rosa Noisettiana in this way: At Charleston there lived a gardener named Philip Noisette, who was of French origin. This man fertilized one of Champney's hybrids, Champney's Pink Cluster, and getting from it another variety sent it in 1814 to Louis Freres, of Paris. The Rose became rapidly famous, and the name of Noisette replaced the first name of Champney, for the new race... The flowers of the Noisette are highly fragrant; they are numerous, double, and charm by the variety and delicacy of their colors." John Champneys, who lived southwest of Charleston, was an import-export merchant, whose trade was so successful, that he had his own wharves on Johns Island.

c. 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). The Seat of James Fraser, Esq., Goose Creek, South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. James Fraser was the older brother of Charles. The house was called Wigton.

Comparison of seed dealers & nursery owners in South Carolina & the Mid-Atlantic & Upper South

The pattern established by the growing South Carolina seed & nursery trade is similar to that of the Mid-Atlantic & Upper South, but there are some significant differences. In the extended Chesapeake region, gardeners & plant dealers dedicated to promoting & selling plants found their most secure footing after the Revolution.

Female Pennsylvania & South Carolina nursery owners & seed merchants successfully began selling both useful & ornamental plants decades before the Revolution. In South Carolina, much seed & plant material was imported from England, both before & after the Revolution.

In the Chesapeake, the earliest seed merchants & nursery owners, appearing after the Revolution, were from France & Germany. After the war, Dutch bulbs & roots found their way into South Carolina as well; and itinerant French seed merchants also peddled their wares in Charleston, but English nursery proprietors continued to own the majority of Carolina businesses.

In both regions, English gardeners & nursery owners came to dominate the local seed & nursery trade by the turn of the century. Both Chesapeake & Carolina garden entrepreneurs offered a full range of stock from greenhouse plants to seeds for field crops, from traditional medicinal herbs to fragrant shrubs by the beginning of the first decade of the 19th-century.

Seed merchants & nursery owners in both areas aggressively advertised their services & stock (at both retail and wholesale prices) in regional newspapers, & sometimes offered free printed catalogues to prospective clients. Gardeners in both regions sold seeds & plants at their nurseries & stores; at local farmers’ markets; and through agents at various locations throughout their regions.

Gardeners from both regions sold seeds & plants imported from Philadelphia & New York, as well as those from their local suppliers. A new nationwide network of capitalistic nursery & seed business was nipping at the heels of traditional garden barter exchanges in the Mid-Atlantic, Upper South, & South Carolina as the 19th-century dawned over the horizon.

1803. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). A Bason & Storehouse Belonging to the Santee Canal in South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. This was the storehouse at Simpson's Lock on the canal between the Santee & Cooper Rivers..

American Seed Catalogs from Smithsonian Institution Libraries

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Garden History - Design of South Carolina Gardens

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Landowners in eighteenth century South Carolina tended to jeep one eye on the sun and the other on the latest, most fashionable garden design, as they planned the gardens and grounds around their homes. Carolina gardeners used the same traditional European design components as their fellow colonists up and down the Atlantic coast, but they seldom forgot to plan for the oppressive Carolina summer heat. Shady trees and cooling water played a large part in the colonial South Carolina garden design.

Trees - Alleys and Avenues

Garden planners charted walkways, alleys, and avenues to form the basic skeleton of their gardens. Most colonial British Americans called the entire outdoor area surrounding their living quarters “gardens.” Property owners often divided these garden areas into geometric beds for growing flowers and vegetables; yards for enclosing a variety of outdoor work; and larger turfed open areas for playing lawn games or visiting with friends and family.

South Carolinians especially enjoyed alleys of trees, because they offered cooling shade for year-round exercise. Alleys also directed the onlooker’s line of sight, defined garden compartments, and added ornament to the grounds. Gardeners usually planned an alley as a walkway bordered with single or double rows of trees or hedges. Alleys leading from a center door of a dwelling through the center of an adjoining garden were wider than subsidiary intersecting walkways. Occasionally garden architects intentionally manipulated the perspective, so that the apparent size of an alley was lengthened by gradually narrowing the width of the alley towards the far end. Some gardeners called those walkways between beds of plants bordered by low-growing shrubs alleys. On May 22, 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.

Plantation owners in mid-eighteenth century South Carolina often employed even larger avenues of trees as well. Garden architects designed avenues as wide, straight roadways approaching plantation houses or public buildings lined with single or double rows of trees and often cutting through a lawn of grass. Planners left avenues wide enough for a horse or carriage to pass, and some were much wider with many being the width of the house. Avenues leading to the entrance façade of a dwelling were wider than subsidiary intersecting ones and often were wide enough that the entire façade of the house was visible from the far end. Usually a 200’ long avenue was about 14-15’ wide, a 600’ avenue was about 30-36’ wide, and a 1200’ long avenue was about 42-48’ wide. Gardeners occasionally manipulated the perspective of even these broad avenues as well, so that the apparent size of an avenue was lengthened by gradually narrowing the width of the avenue towards the far end. In the colonies, the term avenue also referred to a public tree-lined town street.

In May, 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote from Charleston, “I…cant say one word on the other seats I saw in this ramble, except the Count’s large double row of Oaks on each side of the Avenue that leads to the house--which seemed designed by nature for pious meditation and friends converse.” Growing an avenue of trees took special planning and many years. Often the avenue of trees was planted years before the house was built on the property. On June 18, 1753, William Murray wrote to John Murray Esquire of Murraywhaithe in Charleston, “By all means mention the fine Improvements of your garden & the fine avenues you’ve raised near the spot where you’r to build your new house.”

Twenty years later, commercial nurserymen promoted grown trees for sale to the Charleston public. On January 1, 1776, an advertisement in the South Carolina and American General Gazette offered, “For sale…Magnolia or Laurels fit for Avenues…any height from three feet to twenty.” By this time a French visitor noted that avenues of trees lined the public streets of Charleston as well. He wrote in 1777, “There are trees along most of the streets, but there are not enough of them to make it pleasant to promenade along the streets in the heat of the day.”

Nurseries growing trees for decoration and for food flourished in South Carolina. Planters usually enclosed private or commercial nursery gardens to grow young plants, especially fruit trees which were practical as well as ornamental. On June 5, 1736, landowner Daniel Wesshuysen advertised, “A Plantation containing 200 Acres…An orchard well planted with peach, apple, cherry, fig and plumb trees; a vineyard of about two years growth planted with 1200 vines; a nursery of 5 or 500 mulberry trees about two years old, fit to plant out” in the South Carolina Gazette. Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote in 1742, “I have planted a large figg orchard with design to dry and export them. I have reckoned my expense and the prophets to arise from these figgs.”  Nearly 20 years later in 1761 she was still fretting about a nursery when she wrote, “I will endeavor to make amends and not only send the Seeds but plant a nursery here to be sent you in plants at 2 years old.”

David Ramsay noted that Henry Laurens’ Charleston garden was “enriched with everything useful and ornamental that Carolina produced or his extensive mercantile connections enabled him to procure from remote parts of the world. Among a variety of other curious productions, he introduced olives, capers, limes, ginger, guinea grass, the alpine strawberry, bearing nine months in the year, red raspberries, blue grapes; and also directly from the south of France, apples, pears, and plums of fine kinds, and vines which bore abundantly of the choice white eating grape called Chasselates blancs."  Gardeners up an down the Atlantic seacoast experimented with growing grapes for wine throughout the eighteenth century.

Trees - Clumps, Groves, and Thickets

Owners of larger plantations also used clumps of trees for shade and decoration. They often intentionally planted clusters of trees or thickets of shrubs on the pleasure grounds near their dwellings to relieve the monotony of open ground. Some South Carolinians were lucky enough to have their clumps ready made. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt noted on his 1796 visit to Drayton Hall, “The Garden here is better laid out…in order to have a fine garden, you have nothing to do but to let the trees standing here and there, or in clumps, to plant bushes in front of them, and arrange the trees according to their height. Dr. Drayton’s father…began to lay out the garden on this principle and his son…has pursued the same plan."

Trees - Birdsongs, Dovecotes

Landowners also took advantage of shady groves, which were small clusters of large, spreading shade trees either occurring naturally and intentionally left in the landscape or purposefully planted in the pleasure grounds near a swelling in the eighteen century. Usually the term grove referred to large trees whose branches produced food attracting local songbirds. At Crowfield Eliza Lucas Pinckney noted “a thicket of young tall live oaks where a variety of Airry Chorristers pour forth their melody.” Birds were prized in South Carolina for both their songs and their taste. In the South Carolina Gazette on June 5, 1736, an advertisement for the sale of a plantation near Goose Creek offered “A Plantation containing 200 Acres…a necessary-house neatly built, and above it a dove-house with nests for 50 pairs of pigeons.” And a 1772 ad in the South Carolina and American General Gazette offered a plantation to be rented on the Ashley River near Charleston which contained “two well contrived AVIARIES.”

But Eliza Lucas Pinckney also realized that to some colonials, a grove was a solemn place for spiritual contemplation. She worried about the symbolism when she wrote to a friend in 1742, “You may wonder how I could in the gay season think of planting a Cedar grove, which rather reflects an Autumnal gloom and solemnity than the freshness and gayty of spring. But so it is…I intend then to connect in my grove the solemnity (not the solidity) of summer or autumn with the cheerfulness and pleasures of spring, for it shall be filled with all kind of flowers, as well wild as Garden flowers, with seats of Camomoil and here and there a fruit tree-oranges, nectrons, Plumbs."  A 1770s poem commemorates Alexander Garden’s Otranto near Charleston, “There midst the grove, with unassuming guise/But rural neatness, see the mansion rise!”

Trees - Wilderness, Mazes, and Labyrinths

South Carolina planters also adopted the European concept of wilderness for their pleasure grounds. A wilderness was an ornamental grove of trees, thicket, or mass of shrubbery intentionally set in a remote area of an eighteenth century pleasure ground, pierced by walks often forming a maze or labyrinth. Gardeners designed these green puzzles to confound guests as well as to offer cool exercise and privacy for courting.

On February 2, 1734, a landowner advertised in the South Carolina Gazette “To Be Let or Sold…A delightful Wilderness with shady Walks and Arbours, cool in the hottest seasons.” In May, 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote of William Middleton’s Crowfield, “My letter will be of unreasonable length if I don’t pass over the mounts, Wilderness, etc.”

Hedges

South Carolina gardeners also planted hedges or bushes or woody plants in a row to act as defensive fences, decorative land dividers, or windbreaks. On May 22, 1749 notice was given in the South Carolina Gazette that land, “Will be raffled…a garden, genteelly laid out in walks and alleys, with… cassini and other hedges.” Charles Fraser remembered that in the 1790s in Charleston, “Watson’s gardens (was), a beautiful cultivated piece of ground, between Meeting and King-streets..adorned with shrubbery and hedges.”

Arbors and Bowers

South Carolina garden planners often trained plants into living arbors or bowers, which were open structures formed from trees, shrubs, or vines closely planted and twined together to be self-supporting or climbing up latticework frames. The size of eighteenth century arbors varied greatly. Arbors offered shade, privacy, or protection to many people such as gatherings of troops, picnickers, or worshipers or to a few people such as an arbor over as bench in a garden. Some colonials referred to a shaded alley or walkway as an arbor. On February 2, 1734, a landowner advertised in the South Carolina Gazette property “with shady Walks and Arbours, cool in the hottest seasons.”

Water - Basons and Canals

Water played a more important part in colonial South Carolina gardens than those to the north. Gardeners often dug basons or reservoirs of water into their pleasure grounds near their dwellings. In 1743 Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote that at William Middleton’s Crowfield, “As you draw nearer…a spacious bason in the midst of a large green presents itself as you enter the gate that leads to the house..” Richard Lake advertised in the South Carolina Gazette on January 30, 1749, “To be sold…a very large garden…with a variety of pleasant walks, mounts, basons, and canals.”

Some affluent south Carolina homeowners constructed artificial canals near their gardens and homes, some were even navigable. These waterways afforded irrigation, decoration, and fish. On May 22, 1749, the South Carolina Gazette noted that in Charleston land was to be, “raffled…a garden…at the end of which is a canal supplied with fresh springs of water, about 300 feet long, with fish.” A French traveller wrote in 1769 that at Middleton Place, “the river which flows in a circuitous course, until it reaches this point, forms a wide, beautiful canal, pointing straight to the house.”

Water - Fountains, Cascades, Grottoes, and Bath Houses

More elaborate waterworks were also available to South Carolinians. On November 17, 1752, in the South Carolina Gazette a professional garden architect offered, “To Gentlemen…as have a taste in pleasure..gardens…may depend on laving them laid out, leveled, and drained in the most compleat manner, and politest taste, by the subscriber, who perfectly understands…erecting water works…fountains, cascades, grottos.” A cascade is an artificial rocky waterfall that noisily breaks the water as it flows over stone steps. In the eighteenth century, cascades usually were designed so that the water splashed over evenly stepped stone breaks with a slight lip on the top of each course. A grotto is an artificial subterraneous cavern meant to add mystery, ornament, coolness, bathing, and privacy to a garden.

Some South Carolina grounds contained bath houses sitting ready for a cooling dip. In 1733 an ad in the South Carolina Gazette noted “A Plantation about two Miles above Goose-Creek Bridge..[had] frames, Planks & to be fix’d in and about a Spring within 3 Stones throw of the House, intended for a Cold Bath, and a House over it.”

Water - Fish Ponds

But by far the most popular South Carolina garden water decoration was also the most practical, a fish pond. Landowners usually dug these ponds close to their homes to serve as an artificial fresh water reservoir stocked with fish. On August 4, 1733 an advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette noted, “To be sold…a garden on each side of the House…a fish-pond well stored with pearch, roach, pike, eels, and cat-fish.” In the same paper on June 5, 1736 another ad told of a “Plantation containing 200 Acres…An artificial fish-pond, always supplied by fresh water springs, and well stored with several sorts of fish.”

Eliza Lucas Pinckney described Crowfield’s pond in May, 1743, “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 as a roman temple. On each side of this are, other large fish ponds.” (13) Another South Carolina Gazette notice on July 13, 1745 advertised, “To be sold…six Acres of Land, with a Dwelling house, Kitchen, two Summer houses, a large Garden and a Fish Pond.” A similar South Carolina Gazette ad on July 9, 1748, noted property, “TO BE SOLD…a beautiful Pond, supplied with Fish at the End of the Garden.” Richard Lake’s January 30, 1749 South Carolina Gazette notice also promoted “a very large garden…with a large fish-pond.” Again on May 22 of 1749 a South Carolina Gazette ad touted “a kitchen garden, at the end of which is a canal supplied with fresh springs of water, about 300 feet long, with fish.”

On June 18, 1753, William Murray advised John Murray Esquire of Murraywhaithe of Charleston, “You’ll certainly dig a Fish pond & another for geese & Ducks & one Swan.” Charles Fraser remembered French Quarter Creek near Charleston as the Seat of the Lake Bishop Smith “Brabant, or Brabants…having a fine garden, shrubbery and ornamental lake…long known as ‘the Bishop Fish Pond’.”

Plants - Beds, Edging, and Borders

However, trees and water did not push traditional garden components out of South Carolina gardens, especially those gardens on smaller plots in the town of Charleston. The flower knots mentioned in the May 22, 1749 South Carolina Gazette ad were flower beds formed into curious, intricate, and fanciful figures meant to please the eye especially when seen from a higher elevation such as a second story window, a mount, or a belvedere. Gardeners planned knot designs to be symmetrical. Sometimes they imitated the intricate shapes and patterns of the embroidery and cut work done by contemporary needleworkers. Flower knots were separated by paths and walks. The length of the flower know was generally about one and a third times the width, sometimes up to one and a half times but seldom longer. Beds separated by narrow paths were usually mirror images with patterns repeated at the ends and sides of quarters.

The term bed commonly was used to describe a level or smooth piece of ground in a garden, often somewhat raised for the better cultivation of the plants with which it is filled. Often beds were also referred to as squares, and they were usually designed in geometric shapes. Beds were separated by walkways and were often two, three, or four times the width of the central garden walks. Most beds were used to grow vegetables, although beds of flowers certainly existed in eighteenth century South Carolina. In 1756, Martha Daniell Logan advised, “Trim and dress your Asparagus-Bed.”

Plants - Greenhouses and Botanical

Some South Carolina gardeners planted tender plants in wooden-box beds and pots in glass greenhouses where delicate plants could be pampered away from winter weather. An advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette on November 14, 1748 offered a, “Dwelling-house…also a large Garden, with two neat Green Houese for sheltering exotic Fruit Trees, and Grape-Vines.” Exotic plants captured the fancy of colonials early in the century; and by the end of the eighteenth century, formal botanical gardens dotted the Atlantic coast. These were both outdoor and indoor, public and private garden areas, where proud collectors displayed a variety of curious plants for purposes of science, education, status and art.

One notice in the Charleston Courier on May 11, 1807 extolled the “Botanick Garden of South Carolina…as large a collection of plants, as any garden in the United States, and it is peculiarly rich in rate and valuable exoticks…Lovers of science…acquire a knowledge of the most beautiful and interesting of the works of nature. The Florist may be gratified with viewing the productions of the remotest clime, and the Medical Botanist with the objects of his study…affords an agreeable recreation both to those who visit it merely for amusement, and who seek…information.”

Sites and Sights - Seated, Command, Eminence, Vistas and Prospects

Collecting rare plants gave the colonial gardener status, but even more important was where the owner built his home and how he designed and maintained the grounds surrounding it. South Carolina homeowners in the eighteenth century knew that their home and grounds were a direct reflection of themselves and other ability to control their affairs. The eighteenth century was the culmination of thousands of years of agrarian society. The nineteenth century would bring the industrial revolution. But until then, mankind based its economy on its ability to manipulate nature in order to raise an trade crops. The work day was measured by the rising and the setting of the sun. One strong storm or flood could ruin a year’s work. And when people could raise enough crops and food to sustain a comfortable life, they challenged nature even further by manipulating their outdoor environment into a living art form, a garden. Most societies even gave the garden religious symbolism. The garden was the balancing point between human control on the one hand and mystical nature on the other. In the garden one could create an idealized, highly personal order of nature and culture.

Visitors judged both towns and homes on where and how they were planned by their originators. Both houses and towns were esteemed if they were “seated” on the highest “eminences” with the most advantageous “prospects” and “vistas.” Lord Adam Gordon visited Charleston on December 8. 1764; and he declared that “The Town of Charleston is very pleasantly Seated, at the conflux of two pretty rivers, from which all the Country product is brought down, and in return all imported goods are sent up the Country.” Towns and houses were noted to “command” vistas and prospects of the neighboring countryside. There was a component of inherent power in being able to survey and control the land around.

When Jedidiah Morse wrote his 1789 American Geography he noted that in Charleston, “The streets from east to west extend from river to river, and running in a straight line…open beautiful prospects each way…These streets are intersected by others, nearly at right angles, and throw the town into a number of squares, with dwelling houses in front, and office houses and little gardens behind.”

Colonial men usually planned the home and garden sites and escorted visitors around the grounds; bit the colonial woman usually managed the maintenance of the garden once it was in place. Henry Laurens noted in 1763, “Mrs. Laurens is greatly disappointed, as she is not yet able…to get into our new House & become mistress of that employment which she most delights in, the cultivating & ornamenting her Garden.”

A French visitor reflected on the site of a “small plantation, named Fitterasso..situated on a small eminence near the river. The site for the house, for none has hitherto been built, is the most pleasant spot which should be chosen in this flat, level country, where the tedious sameness of the woods is scarcely variegated by some houses, thinly scattered and where it is hardly possibly to meet with a pleasant landscape. His garden is separated from the River by a morass, neatly drained; the whole extent of the northern bank of the river is nearly of the same description. Dr. Baron intends to purchase the intervening space, and to convert it into meadow-ground. This alteration will improve the prospect, without rendering it a charming vista.”

A February 2, 1734 advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette offered a house, “on an island which commands an entire prospect of the Harbor.” The term prospect appears time and again in colonial references to gardens. A prospect was an extensive or commanding sight or view of vital importance in closing a site for a dwelling or garden in the eighteenth century. When describing William Middleton’s mount at Crowfield in 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney noted, “upon it as 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.”

On May 22, 1749, the house “Belonging to Alexander Gordon…From the house Ashley and Cooper rivers are seen, and all around are vista’s and pleasant prospects” was advertised in the South Carolina Gazette. Vistas were planned as intentional viewpoints for surveying pleasant aspects of the adjoining landscape in eighteenth century gardens and pleasure grounds up and down the Atlantic seacoast.

Sites and Sights - Mounts

Colonial gardeners often constructed artificial viewing sights to survey their gardens and the nearby countryside. These mounts usually consisted of a pile of earth heaped up to be used as the base for another structure such as a summerhouse or as an elevated site for surveying the adjoining landscape or as an elevated post for defensive reconnaissance or just a spot for fresh and cooling air in the summer. Occasionally gardeners planted their mounts with ornamental trees and shrubs. Mounts were often formed from the earth left from digging of cellars and foundations. Walks leading up the slope of a mount sometimes had their breadth contracted at the top by one half to add the illusion of greater length.

Eliza Lucas Pinckney described Crowfield’s mount in 1743, “to the bottom of this charming sport where is 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.”  Many gardeners constructed more than one mount on their grounds. An advertisement offered for sale “a very large garden both for pleasure and profit, with a variety of pleasant walks, mounts, basons, canals” in the South Carolina Gazette on January 30, 1749.

Mounts and bowling greens were components of English gardens long before the natural garden movement swept England in the eighteenth century. Colonials looked to traditional English garden design for their models as an ad in the 1739 South Carolina Gazette attests, “To be sold a Plantation…on Ashley River, within three Miles of Charleston…the Gardens are extensive, pleasant and profitable, and abound with all sorts of Fruit trees, and resemble old England the most of any in the Province.”

Bowling Greens

The British American colonial bowling green evolved from a formal space dedicated to playing bowls to an open level green where people gathered for recreation and social affairs. Bowling greens were found in both public and private garden spaces and offered a smooth level turfed lawn which certainly could be used for playing bowls. Bowling greens could be circular or rectangular, those often measuring 100’ x 200’, and they were often sunken below the general level of the ground surrounding it. Eliza Lucas Pinckney noted that at Crowfield, “is a large square boleing green sunk a little below the level of the rest of the garden with a walk quite round composed of a double row of fine large flowering Laurel and Catalpas which form both shade and beauty.”

Sometimes called a square in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century America, the bowling green offered beauty and ornament as well as recreation. Bowling greens appeared early in South Carolina. A traveller noted on July 30, 1666, in Port Royal South Carolina, “a plaine place before the great round house for their bowling recreation.” An ad in the South Caroline Gazette on October 10, 1740 noted, “TO BE LET…the house near Mrs. Trott’s Pasture, where the Bowling Green sits.”

English Style - Natural, Romantic

Certainly components and concepts of the natural English garden abounded in the South Carolina countryside as Eliza Lucas Pinckney noted in mid-century. Apparently she planter her fig orchard in something other than rigid rows. In April, 1742 she wrote, “I have planted a large figg orchard…but was I to tell you…how to be laid out you would think me far gone in romance.” She also noted at Crowfield that “From the back door is a spacious walk a thousand foot long; each side of which nearest the house is a grass plat enameled in a Serpenting manner with flowers.”  Another natural garden component was the use of vines trained to grow up wood and brick walls and columns of dwellings and outbuildings offering fruit, decoration, shade, bird food, and fragrance. In 1743 Pinckney noted that Middleton’s “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.”

Despite the preponderance of traditional English garden components, South Carolinians attempted to adopt the new English garden designs which were more natural than geometric. Even so, a French traveller noted in 1796 that Middleton “is esteemed the most beautiful house in this part of the country…The ensemble of these buildings calls to recollection the ancient English country seats…badly kept…the garden is beautiful, but kept in the same manner as the house.”

As late as 1806 emulation of English gardening concepts was a selling point as property changed hands in South Carolina. In the Charleston Courier in 1806 an advertisement for a plantation for sale outside of Charleston noted “the handsomest Garden in the state, and laid out when belonging to the late Mr. Williamson, by English Gardeners…and has since been much improved and additions made also by another English Gardener.”

South Carolina gardeners used the beauties of the natural countryside and adopted those European concepts that were both pleasing to the senses and practical to adorn the landscape they worked and played in daily. Whether these Carolina gardeners possessed a formal education and knew of Dutch, French, and English garden influences or knew nothing of classic design, most of them maintained their grounds as an art form, where they manipulated nature into their own unique concepts of order, utility, and beauty.
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American Seed Catalogs from Smithsonian Institution Libraries

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Garden History - Late 18th-Century Landscapes of South Carolina

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South Carolina artist Charles Fraser (1782-1860) painted some watercolors of the landscapes he saw around him in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These are from the Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

The South View of Fort Mechanic Charleston, July 4, 1796.

South West View of Newport.

Sheldon.

Near Charleston, June, 1805.

Capt. Frederick Fraser's Place, Prince William's Parish.

Another View of Richmond.

A View on Mepkin.

A View Near Charleston , 1801, Where St. Paul's Church Now Stands, Ratcliffe Lands.

A View Mr. Lindsay's From South Bay, May 10th.
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