Plants in Early America - The Christmas Poinsettia

Christmas poinsettia by Joel T Fry, curator at Bartam's Garden in Philadelphia. (Joel T. Fry, B.A., Anthropology, Univ. of Penn. M.A., American Civ./Historical Archaeology, Univ. of Penn.)

America's First Poinsettia: The Introduction at Bartram’s Garden Poinsettia's first public display was in 1829 at the PHS Flower Show by Joel Fry, Curator, Bartram's Garden - 12/12/2011

 The Cuetlaxochime were sacred plants in what is now known as the early America Western Hemisphere that were used in ceremonies to celebrate the birth of Huitzilopochtli during winter solstices. They were also used for medicinal and healing purposes to cure sicknesses, aid the flow of breast milk, as well as for dyeing fabrics. Pronunciation: Kwe•tla•so•cheetl

"It is a little known fact that the poinsettia was introduced to the gardening world from the Bartram Botanic Garden in 1829. This international symbol of winter cheer was first successfully grown outside its Mexican homeland by Robert and Ann Bartram Carr at the Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia. The plant now known as poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima, is native to the pacific coast of Mexico and has an ancient history of human use. It was almost certainly seen by early European explorers and colonists, but somehow never entered cultivation in Europe. It was re-discovered or at least brought to the attention of the outside world in the 1820s by an American, Joel Roberts Poinsett (1778-1851).

"Poinsett, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, held various diplomatic and political positions through his life, but always continued a strong interest in natural science and horticulture. He first served as a special envoy to Mexico in 1822-1823, and when the new Mexican Republic was recognized in 1824, Poinsett was first U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary. He resided in Mexico from 1825 to early 1830. During this period, perhaps in the winter of 1827-1828 Poinsett encountered the unnamed plant that now bears his name.

"As part of his mission to expand cooperation between the two countries, Poinsett shipped plants and seeds between Mexico and the United States. At present there is evidence that four different collections of seeds and plants were sent from Mexico to Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia in the period 1828-1829. Poinsett was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in early 1827, and this seems to have cemented his connection with the Philadelphia scientific community and with Bartram’s Garden .In early 1828, William Maclure, a longtime friend of Poinsett, and Thomas Say, a Bartram nephew, travelled to Mexico, visiting Vera Cruz and Mexico City. William Keating, a geologist from the University of Pennsylvania also traveled to Mexico in 1828 to prospect for American mining interests. Poinsett, Maclure, Say, and Keating all arranged for Mexican seeds of plants to be sent to Bartram’s Garden.

"Thomas Say sent over a hundred varieties of seeds from Mexico, “of my own collecting” in a letter to Robert Carr dated July 23, 1828. This list is in large part made up of fruits and vegetables offered in the markets in Mexico, but some trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants from the wild were included, notably several forms of cactus. William Maclure returned briefly to Philadelphia in the fall of 1828, and he brought yet more Mexican seeds and plants with him. This is the most likely route for plants of the poinsettia to Bartram’s Garden.

"Robert Buist, a Philadelphia nurseryman, remembered seeing the first poinsettia roots unpacked at Bartram’s Garden in 1828: “On my arrival in this country from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, in 1828, I paid a visit to the famed “Bartram Botanic Garden,” and there saw two cases of plants which had just arrived from Mexico. Among the contents were the stumps of a strange-looking Euphorbia, which, after a few months’ growth, showed some very brilliant crimson bracts.” (The young Buist soon built a very successful career on the new scarlet plant, and as a result he was credited with the introduction of the poinsettia to Europe in 1834.)

"The paper trail of the poinsettia next appears at “The first semi-annual Exhibition of fruits, flowers and plants, of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society,” held June 6, 1829. This was the first public show of the PHS, a tradition continued today as the Philadelphia Flower Show. One of the noteworthy exhibits was “A new Euphorbia with bright scarlet bracteas or floral leaves, presented to the Bartram collection by Mr. Poinsett, United States Minister to Mexico.” There can be no doubt that this was the poinsettia, now known as Euphorbia pulcherrima. The plant on display, apparently the original sent from Mexico, was still colorful in early June. And while we now take for granted the connection of poinsettias and Christmas, it would take a while for nurserymen to reliably flower the new scarlet plant in time for the early winter holidays.

"A year later, in July 1830 a committee of the PHS, “For visiting the Nurseries and Gardens in the vicinity of Philadelphia,” made particular note of the “Euphorbia heterophylla, with its large scarlet flowers,” as well as “some curious species of Cactus, lately received from Mexico” at the Bartram Botanic Garden. At this early stage, the appropriate scientific name for the poinsettia was still in doubt. Poinsettia resembled a known North American native, Euphorbia heterophylla and so for a time it was referred to under that name. Philadelphia nurserymen also used the name “Poinsett’s euphorbia” and around 1832 Robert Buist began using “Euphorbia poinsettia” for the new plant. Between 1833 and 1836 the poinsettia went through a rapid series of scientific names as it was described and published in the US and Europe—first Pleuradena coccinea, then Poinsettia pulcherima, and finally Euphorbia pulcherima. (Although there is still some debate whether some North American Euphorbia species should be split off into a new genus Poinsettia.)

"In the summer of 1833, the botanist Constantine Rafinesque published the first scientific description of the poinsettia in Philadelphia, for his Atlantic Journal. Rafinesque recorded the brief history of the plant in Philadelphia to date: “The Botanical Garden of Bartram received some years ago from Mr. Poinsett our ambassador in Mexico, a fine new green-house shrub, akin to Euphorbia, with splendid scarlet blossoms, or rather bracts. It has since been spread in our gardens near Philadelphia, and is know in some as the Euphorbia Poinseti; but appears to me to form a peculiar genus or S. G. at least”

"In the early 1830s Robert Buist began sending plants or cuttings of poinsettia to Europe, and particularly to his friend James McNab at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. Buist had trained at the Edinburgh garden, and he returned to Scotland in 1831 to acquire stock for his new nursery business. James McNab also visited Philadelphia, and Bartram’s Garden in the summer of 1834, and probably took the first successful poinsettia plants back with him to Edinburgh in the fall.

"The poinsettia flowered in Edinburgh for the first time in the spring of 1835, but imperfectly. When it flowered again in 1836 it was drawn for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. The new euphorbia was re-named Poinsettia pulcherrima by Robert C. Graham, Regius Professor of Botany at Edinburgh, in an article prepared both for Curtis’s and the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. The modern common name “poinsettia” arose from Graham’s description, and as the plant spread rapidly in cultivation in the UK and Europe it was known under the name poinsettia. Unfortunately for history, Graham relied on Buist’s own incorrect account of the introduction of the plant, and omitted any mention of the Carrs or Bartram’s Garden. (Graham’s new genus Poinsettia has since been returned to Euphorbia.)

"It has long been the story that Poinsett personally introduced the poinsettia first to Charleston, bringing the plant on his return from Mexico, and from there it was discovered or sent to the Carrs in Philadelphia. This is impossible for the poinsettia was shown to the Philadelphia public in June of 1829, over six months before Poinsett returned from Mexico. All available evidence suggests that the poinsettia was first sent to the Bartram Garden in Philadelphia in the fall of 1828. The successful transport of live plants from Mexico to Philadelphia in 1828 was almost certainly due to the fact that a number of friends of Bartram’s Garden were on the scene in Mexico. After the new scarlet euphorbia was introduced to the public in 1829, the plant was widely propagated, and became a popular mainstay of the Philadelphia florist trade. The young gardener, Robert Buist, returned to Europe in 1831 and found the scarlet flower was unknown. Buist was a great popularizer of the new plant, but has undeservedly received major credit for its introduction. When Poinsett began to grow his namesake plant in Charleston after his return, it probably returned to him via the Philadelphia nursery community."

A little more to the tale...

Poinsettia plants are native to Central America, especially an area of southern Mexico known as 'Taxco del Alarcon,' where they flower during the winter. The ancient Aztecs called them 'cuetlaxochitl'. The Aztecs had many uses for them including using the flowers (actually special types of bright leaves known as bracts rather than flowers) to make a purple dye for clothes & cosmetics The milky white sap, latex,was made into a medicine to treat fevers.

Poinsettias were cultivated by the Aztecs of Mexico long before the introduction of Europe's Christianity to the Western Hemisphere. These plants were highly prized by Kings Netzahualcyotl & Montezuma, but because of climatic restrictions could not be grown in their capital, which is now Mexico City.

Perhaps the1st religious connotations were placed on poinsettias during the 17C. Because of its brilliant color & convenient holiday blooming time, Franciscan priests, near Taxco, began to use the flower in the Fiesta of Santa Pesebre, a nativity procession. 

The poinsettia may have remained a regional native American sacred plant for many years to come had it not been for the efforts of Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779 – 1851). The son of a French physician, Poinsett was appointed as the first United States Ambassador to Mexico (1825-1829) by President James Madison. Poinsett had attended medical school himself, but was a dedicated, almost obsessive botany-lover.

A German botanist, Wilenow, named it Euphorbia pulcherrima (most beautiful) in 1833, the scientific name to this day. The common name we use today was believed to have been coined around 1836. Philadelphia nurseryman Robert Buist 1st sold the plant as Euphorbia poinsettia, although a German botanist had already given the plant the botanical name Euphorbia pulcherima.

The Poinsettias is native to southern Mexico & Mesoamerica, unlike today’s commercial cultivars, grow into straight& tall trees. Often these trees can reach heights up to 10 feet tall. Through selection & breeding by growers, many cultivars have been developed in the United States & Europe.

After its introduction in Philadelphia, the "poinsettia" was shipped around 19C United States during the 1800's, usually as an outdoor plant for warm climates. 

Around 1920 in southern California, a horticulturist named Paul Ecke became the next key person to promote the poinsettia. He felt this shrub growing wild along roadsides would make a perfect Christmas flower, so set about producing these in fields in what is now Hollywood. 

A few years later, due to the commercial & arts development in Hollywood, he was forced to move south to Encinitas, where the Paul Ecke Ranch produced poinsettias. Through the marketing efforts of Paul Ecke and his sons, the poinsettia became symbolic with Christmas in the United States. 

"On July 20, 2002, the House passed H. Res 471 designating a National Poinsettia Da on December 12, the day of the death of Joel Poinsett, as National Poinsettia Day to commemorate man and the native Mexican Aztec plant.

Travel Dreams & Memories - Metal & Clay Garden Cloches

Chelsea Physic Garden

Monticello's version of a clay cloche
Terracotta rhubarb
A bell-shaped terracotta rhubarb forcer with lid, about 13" high

I have been taken to task by one of my friends for being politically incorrect in my biased presentation of glass cloches. He is correct, of course. The only fair thing to do here is show you the other types of cloches from the 17th, 18th, & 19th centuries, some still in use today. They do deserve equal time. In this political season, this is my attempt at trying to be "fair & balanced."

Handmade terra-cotta cloches have existed nearly as long as the blown-glass examples. They often have ventilation holes to prevent spoilage from excessive heat & humidity.

Gardeners often used terra-cotta cloches slow the growth of lettuce.
Terre cotta rhubarb pots at Knightshayes Garden, Tiverton, Devon, England

Other terra-cotta cloches, often about 30" high & similar in shape to chimney pots, were used for forcing rhubarb. Some of these had lids.
Barnsdale Gardens, Exton, Oakham, Rutland, England.

Gardeners also used metal-framed glass cloches during the period.

In metal-framed cloches, one of the glass panes could be removed by the gardener for fresh air ventilation. Sometimes gardeners temporarily would paint the glass white to shade tender plants from direct sunlight.
Audley End Kitchen Garden, English Heritage, Essex, England

Today, these architectural tents or pavilions are more often employed for decorative purposes.

I found only one depiction of a completely metal cloche made in France about 1900.

Let me close by admitting what you surely already realize, I just love those plain, bell-shaped glass cloches...

Very clever make-do cloches.  Lined basket food covers.

Flower Pots, Planting Boxes & Tubs, and Vases

Garden pots as well as vases appear early in the records of the 18th century British American colonies. At Bacon's Castle inn the 1728 inventory of Arthur Allen in Surry County, Virginia, clerks recorded "2 flower potts and 2 watring potts." In 1736, another Virginian John Custis recorded in his letterbook, "6 flower pots painted green to stand in chimney to put flowers in the summer time with 2 handles to each pot."

Early depictions of flower pots in colonial American paintings were large, sculptural urns, wooden planting pots & tubs, and vases.  These types of pots were often used to grow garden plants.  Garden pots, large & small, were usually made of clay & earthenware and often left unglazed.  Most small pots had simple decoration, often in the shape of the rim.  Larger pots & urns intended to contain plants were sometimes more decorated and stylized. Large urns meant to contain plants could be made of brass, lead, marble, stone, & stucco.  During the 18th century, European garden writers suggested their use in groves, parterres, and at the end of walkways & vista views.  In colonial American paintings, artists place them indoors & on porticos in portraits.  Few landscape paintings were produced in British colonial America.

1729 John Simbert (American colonial painter, 1688-1751) Mrs Francis Brinley & son Francis

Much later in the century in 1789, at the Woodlands near Philadelphia, as he began to collect exotic plant specimens owner William Hamilton instructed, "Hilton should mark immediately on the pot of each transplanted exotic...all exotics should be arranged according to their sizes in the way I directed particularly the pots on the shelves...in a warm situation screen'd from the noon day sun & gently watered every two or three days...no soul should be allowed in the pot & Tub enclosure."

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson also described planting seeds from an exotic specimen plant from the East Indies, which he sowed, "a few seeds in earthen pots. It is a most precious thing if we can save it."

Annapolis, Maryland silversmith William Faris kept his pots outdoors in the summer and moved them in for the winter months. In 1792, he noted in his diary, "I moved the Potts into the seller for the Winter"

1731 Gerardus Duyckinck (American colonial painter, 1695-1746) Pierre Van Cortlandt

Grant Thornburn wrote of painting pots in 1801, which lead to his flourishing New York seed business, "About this time the ladies in New York were beginning to shew their taste for flowers; and it was customary to sell the empty flower pots in the grocery stores; these articles also comprised part of my stock...

1737 Gansevoort Limner (Possibly American colonial painter Pieter Vanderlyn) Young Lady With Fan

"In the fall of the year, when the plants wanted shifting prepatory to their being placed in the parlour, I was often asked for pots of a handsome quality, or better made...

1760 William Williams (American colonial painter, 1727-1791) Deborah Richmond

"I was looking for some other means to support my family. All at once it came into my mind to take and paint some of my common flower-pots with green varnish paint, thinking it would better suit the taste of the ladies than the common brick-bat colored ones.

1762 Joseph Blackburn (fl in American colonies 1752-1778) Woman

"I painted two pair, and exposed them in front of my window. I remember, just as I had placed the two pair of pots in front of my window on the outside, I was standing on the sidewalk, admiring their appearance, a carriage came along, having the glasses let down, and one lady only in the carriage. As the carriage passed my shop, her eye lit on the pots; she put her head out at the windown, and looked back, as far as she could see, on the pots...

1765 John Singleton Copley (American painter, 1738-1815) Elizabeth Oliver (Mrs. George Watson)

"They soon drew attention, and were sold. I painted six pair; they soon went the same way. Being thus encouraged, I continued painting and selling to good advantage. These two pots were links of a chain by which Providence was leading me into my present extensive seed-establishment...

1770 Daniel Hendrickson (American painter, 1723-1788) Catharine Hendrickson

"One day, in the month of April following, I observed a man for the first time selling flower-plants in the Fly market, which then stood in the foot of Maiden Lane. As I carelessly passed along, I took a leaf and rubbing it between my fingers and thumb asked him what was the name of it. He answered, a rose geranium. This, as far as I can recollect, was the first time that I ever heard that there was a geranium in the world; as before this, I had no taste for, nor paid any attention to, plants. I looked a few minutes at the plant, thought it had a pleasant smell, and thought it would look well if removed into one of my green flower pots, to stand on my counter to draw attention...I did not purchase this plant with the intention of selling it again, but merely to draw attention to my green pots, and let people see how well the pots looked when the plant was in them. Next day, some one fancied and purchased plant and pot."

 1773 John Singleton Copley (American painter, 1738-1815) Rebecca Boylston (Mrs Moses Gill)

In 1803, Rosalie Steir Clavert (1778–1821) wrote of her pots at Riversdale in Maryland, "I have arranged all the orange trees and geraniums in pots along the north wall of the house, where they make a very pretty effect, and the geraniums, being shaded, beat many more blossoms and are growing well."

1801 Rembrant Peale (American painter,1778-1860) Rubens Peale with Geranium

Practical wooden planting boxes often replaced breakable large vases in both greenhouses and home settings in the Early Republic. George Freeman (Connecticut artist, 1787-1837) Widow Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper 1816

Pots, planting boxes & tubs, and vases appear in several American paintings of the period, accompanied by the eternal question of what is real and what is simply the artist's imagination.

An unusual early American garden + a little gossip in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

In 1740, Nathaniel Merserve (1705-1758) built his dwelling on the tidal North Mill Pond near his shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was the owner of the largest shipyard in Portsmouth, by then famous for its shipbuilding facilities. His home was contiguous to his shipyard; where he constructed a 50 gun frigate in 1749, for the Royal Navy called The America.  In the capture of Louisburg from the French in 1745, he was Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment which New Hampshire raised for the expedition; & in 1758, he sailed for the 2nd siege of the place with 168 carpenters. Soon after their arrival at Cape Breton, "his whole party, except sixteen, were seized with smallpox, of which disorder Colonel Meserve & his eldest son died." (1913 Harold Hotchkiss Bennett)

1774 The South West Prospect of the Seat of Colonel George Boyd of Portsmouth, New Hampshire

In 1763, the house was purchased by Peter Livius (1739-1795), son of a Hamburg German employed in an English factory at Lisbon. His British mother sent him to school in England where, in 1758, he married the daughter of wealthy Colonel John Tufton Mason.  In 1763, the newly rich Livius moved from England to New Hampshire, where his wife’s family had large land claims. He immediately established a lavish style in Portsmouth, showing a remarkable ability to generate personal animosities.  He attempted to buy his credentials in New England colonial society by a large gift of books to Harvard College in 1764, from which he did receive an honorary degree 3 years later. In September 1765, his wife's English connections put him on the council of New Hampshire; & in 1768, he became justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas. He was accused of partiality as a judge, even of counseling litigants who were to appear before him. Governor Benning Wentworth, with whom he had earlier quarrelled over land grants, even alleged that Livis had been “a principal Abettor in the Disturbances at the Time of the Stamp Act.” In 1772, Wentworth removed Livius from the bench.  The irate Livius returned to London.

Col. George Boyd,  one of Portsmouth’s wealthiest merchants before the Revolution, "purchased ... the mansion & ship-yard, of Peter Livius...He enlarged the house, materially. His garden in front extended to the site of the present depot...& water bounded his premises on the east. It was a magnificent seat, such as a nabob might envy, enclosed within a white open fence, & at regular intervals of some forty or fifty feet, those handsomely carved towering Grenadier's heads were placed on posts, & presented a very unique appearance...His gardener, John Cunningham, (who died a few years since, at the age of ninety-four) he also sent over from England, at an earlier date." (1859 Charles Warren Brewster)

1774 The South West Prospect of the Seat of Colonel George Boyd of Portsmouth, New Hampshire Detail

Boyd's garden is somewhat of a curiousity, even beyond the Grenadier's heads on the fence posts.  Boyd fenced his newly enlarged pleasure grounds with white fences painted red on the side near the road, which was popular in New England a that time.  The garden had a traditional central walkway leading out from the main door of the house, but here the plan diverged from the conventional.  In the middle of the garden, Boyd placed a basin, perhaps to contain fresh water, rather than salt water, for his garden, or perhaps as a home to fish.  He had probably seen such basons on his trips to England to purchase goods.  He built 5 walkways, not the usual 4, radiating from his bason in an irregular pattern, & along only one side he dug a canal, the length of the garden.  From the many buildings of one color which he erected, his estate became known as the "White Village."

Much to the consternation of the local patriotic officials, "during the Revolution, Colonel Boyd found it convenient to live in England, but upon the conclusion of peace, decided to return, bringing a new & handsome coach, an English coachman ... & an elegant monument for his grave at some future time. He found an earlier use for this possession than he anticipated, for two days before the arrival of the ship, on October 8, 1787, he died, and took his place in the North Cemetery instead of in his magnificent mansion with it's spacious garden." (1913 Harold Hotchkiss Bennett)

1774 The Estate of Col. Nathaniel Meserve 1705-1758 Portsmouth, NH 1740 Portsmouth Times, 18 October 1924

In the year 1832, George Raynes (1799-1855) bought the estate, & the family maintained a shipyard there until 1865, building between 60 & 70 vessels.  After George Raynes' death, the family entered a lawsuit contesting the will & the ownership of the business, which lasted for years.  The mansion on the south shore of the North Mill Pond, was demolished in 1938.  Rather amazingly, a depiction of the house & garden remains from a Portsmouth newspaper article published in 1924.

~Charles Warren Brewster, William Henry Young Hackett, Lawerence Shorey.  Rambles about Portsmouth: Sketches of Persons, Localities, & Incidents of Two Centuries: Principally from Tradition & Unpublished Documents, Volume 1.  Published by C.W. Brewster & Son, Portsmouth Journal Office, 1859 - Portsmouth, N.H.
Caleb Stevens Gurney. Portsmouth, historic & picturesque: a volume of information. Self Published by C. S. Gurney, 1902 - Portsmouth, N.H.
~Harold Hotchkiss Bennett  Vignettes of Portsmouth: being representations of divers historic places in old Portsmouth. Published by H. Pearson & H. H. Bennett, 1913
~Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.  1771-1800 (Volume IV)
The New Hampshire Reports. Volume 54. New Hampshire. Supreme Court, Joel Parker. Capital Offset Company, 1875

1714 Purple Martins in Gourds

John Lawson records in History of Carolina (1714) “the planters put gourds on standing poles on purpose for these fowl to build in, because they are a very warlike bird and beat the crows from the plantations.”

Garden History - Batty Langley 1696-1751

Batty Langley Written by Mike Rendell

I love this blog posting by Mike Rendell about Battly Langley who wrote of English gardens in the 1st half of the 18C.  In fact, his entire blog, Georgian Gentleman, is fascinating!  Batty Langley's books often appeared in colonial British American libraries in the 18C.

Batty Langley, print made by J. Carwitham, 1741

"Many know of Capability Brown, some know of Humphry Repton, but one name largely overlooked is Batty Langley. Batty was baptised at Twickenham on 14th September 1696, the son of Daniel & Elizabeth Langley. His father was a jobbing gardener who seems to have been working for a David Batty, so the name may have been given to the baby in tribute to this patron. Batty Langley grew up in his father’s footsteps, keen on gardening but determined to spread his wings rather than pottering around with a spade & pruning knife.

"At the age of 23 Batty married, but his wife Anne died after producing 4 children from 7 years of marriage. He remarried & went on to sire another 10 children, to whom he bequeathed such fanciful names as Euclid, Vitruvius & Archimedes…

New Principles of Gardening, or, the laying out and planting parterres, groves, wildernesses, labyrinths, avenues, parks, c. London A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, 1728.

"Batty Langley received a commission to do some design work for Thomas Vernon at Twickenham Park. There he encountered a large sandpit & managed to convert “this perfect nuisance” into “a very agreeable beautiful” spiral garden, using hornbeam hedges. It was the start of a fascination with shapes & serpentine mazes which led him in 1728 to publish his oeuvre “New Principles of Gardening; or The Laying out & Planting Parterres, Groves Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues Parks etc”

"The sub-title gave claim to the fact that the methods described in the book were more ‘Grand & Rural’ than anything before, listing “Experimental Directions for raising the several kinds of fruit trees, Forest Trees, Ever Greens & Flowering shrubs with which gardens are adorn’d.”

New Principles of Gardening is profusely illustrated with 28 copperplate engravings.

"The book contained very little new, but the illustrations were influential in bringing to people’s attention the use of shapes & winding vistas – he wanted gardens to lead the visitor through the design, rather than have everything in full view. There should be surprises around each corner or, as he put in the introduction: ‘Nor is there any Thing more shocking than a stiff regular Garden; where after we have seen one quarter thereof, the very same is repeated in all the remaining Parts, so that we are tired, instead of being further entertain’d with something new as expected.’

"In other words it marked a move away from the rigidly, geometrical knot gardens favoured by the Elizabethan & Stuart gardeners, even if the world was not yet ready for the picturesque gardens of Capability Brown. Batty loved mazes, but often introduced swirls & patterns far removed from the traditional honeycomb designs.

Inspired by the gardens at Versailles Langley occasionally suggested improvements to their design

"In some ways his ideas were right at the start of the rococo movement; the problem was that this self-publicist thought that he was now the arbiter of taste in all areas of everyday life. He brought out books on carpentry & furniture design, prompting Horace Walpole to utter “All that his books achieved, has been to teach carpenters to massacre that venerable species, & to give occasion to those who know nothing of the matter, & who mistake his clumsy efforts for real imitations, to censure the productions of our ancestors, whose bold & beautiful fabrics Sir Christopher Wren viewed & reviewed with astonishment, & never mentioned without esteem.”

"He submitted a design for a new Mansion House in London in 1735, only to have it described in the ‘St. James’s Evening Post’ as ‘a curious grotesque temple, in a taste entirely new…’ Undeterred, he pursued his ideas of “arti-natural” gardens, linked with what is now termed “Batty Langley Gothic” architecture. He felt that his writhing shapes & flowing designs were ‘exceeding beautiful in building, as in ceilings, parquetting, painting, paving, &c.’

"He published numerous tomes on building techniques, & on architecture under such inspiring titles as ‘The Builders Compleat Assistant’ (1738); ‘The City & Country Builder’s & Workman’s Treasury of Designs’ (1740); ‘The Builder’s Jewel, or the Youth’s Instructor & Workman’s Remembrancer’ (1741); ‘Ancient Architecture, restored & improved, by a great variety of Grand & Useful Designs’ & in 1748 ‘A Survey of Westminster Bridge, as ’tis now Sinking into Ruin.’

"In general though, he was ridiculed for his designs for buildings. But for his gardening book he deserves to be remembered. ‘Arti-natural’ may not have been revolutionary but at least Langley encouraged trees to have a natural form rather than being pollarded out of existence. Look at a serpentine shape or a paisley design, & remember Batty Langley with affection.

"He died at his Soho home in London in 1751."

1782 John Jay's wife on Gardens in France

Robert Edge Pine's (English-born American artist, 1730-1788) drawing of Sarah Van Burgh Livingston Jay daughter of the Governor of New Jersey William Livingston and wife of John Jay

In 1774, John Jay (1745-1829) married New Jersey Governor William Livingston's 17 year-old daughter Sarah (1756-1802).  Five years later, with the American Revolution in full fury, John Jay, president of Congress, was sent to Spain in an unsuccessful search of support for the democratic effort.  In 1782, he traveled to France to join Benjamin Franklin.  His young wife accompanied him on this trip.  She later wrote of France, "I could not but remark their natural inclination for chearful objects displayed in their little flower gardens, for there is scarce a peasant’s cottage without the appurtenance of a garden & many of them have little bowers that discovers a very pretty taste..."

1700s Colonial American portraits with Garden Fountains

1767 John Singleton Copley (Colonial American artist, 1738-1815). Portrait of Rebecca Boylston.  Unfortunately, Copley often used English prints as the format for his portraits, so it is impossible to know if this fountain, or even the lady's dress were actually in Colonial America.

1700s Colonial American portraits with Garden Fountains

1763 John Singleton Copley (Colonial American artist, 1738-1815).  Alice Hooper. Unfortunately, Copley often used English prints as the format for his portraits, so it is impossible to know if this fountain, or even the lady's dress were actually in Colonial America.

1700s Colonial American portraits with Garden Fountains

1763 John Singleton Copley (Colonial American artist, 1738-1815). Mary Turner (Mrs. Daniel Sargent).  Unfortunately, Copley often used English prints as the format for his portraits, so it is impossible to know if this fountain, or even the lady's dress were actually in Colonial America.

18C American Cultural Landscape -

18C New England

18C American Garden & Cultural Landscape -

18C American Cultural Landscape - New England Farm

Michele Felice Corne (1752–1845) Ezekiel Hersey Derby Farm

1704 connection between Massachusetts & the Gardens at Dyrham in Gloucestershire, England

Engraving of Dyrham Park by Johannes Kip, 1712. In 1688, William Blathwayt  (1649-1717) inherited the Dyrham estate in Gloucestershire upon the death of his father-in-law. Blathwayt was a civil servant & politician who played an important part in administering the British American colonies.  He joined the diplomatic service in 1668, to serve at a post at the English embassy in The Hague.  In 1680, he became the 1st auditor-general of royal revenues in America; & after 1685, became the secretary of the Privy Council's committee on trade & foreign plantations, a key figure in American affairs. He was responsible for establishing the charter of the Crown colony of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which would become the state of Massachusetts.  He promoted trade in America & the Caribbean, which included the slave trade, & reportedly he benefited considerably from "gifts"  received in connection with his office (as was the usual practice in his day). In 1686, he married Mary Wynter, a wealthy heiress. It was her father who died, leaving his estate to Blathwayt only 2 years after their marriage.  Diarist John Evelyn commended him as "very dexterous in business" & as a man who had "raised himself by his industry from very moderate circumstances."

Michael Dahl (1659–1743) Portrait of Colonial Secretary William Blathwayt (1649-1717)

Soon after Blathwayt inherited Dyrham, he commissioned an estate plan to be drawn in the Dutch style he had seen as a young man in The Hague.  Formal Dutch & French style gardens were the height of fashion in England from about 1660 to 1715.  Completed in 1704, William Blathwayt’s Dutch garden to the east & west of the mansion was geometric in design. The west garden had a cascade, 2 pools, a fountain & flower beds planted in a fashionably sparse style. The east garden had a canal, fountains & a cascade.  There there were parterres cut out of grass & filled with colored gravel; shrubs in tubs clipped into formal shapes of cones & spheres; & terraces on the slopes from which visitors could admire Blathwayt's creation.

18C Benjamin Franklin & 19C Mark Twain write of visiting Versailles

1767 David Martin (1737-1797) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) in France

Benjamin Franklin wrote of Versailles to his daughter Polly on September 14, 1767:

"Versailles has had infinite Sums laid out in Building it and Supplying it with Water: Some say the Expence exceeded 80 Millions Sterling. The Range of Building is immense, the Garden Front most magnificent all of hewn Stone, the Number of Statues, Figures, Urns, &c in Marble and Bronze of exquisite Workmanship is beyond Conception.

"But the Waterworks are out of Repair, and so is great Part of the Front next the Town, looking with its shabby half Brick Walls and broken Windows not much better than the Houses in Durham Yard.

"There is, in short, both at Versailles and Paris, a prodigious Mixture of Magnificence and Negligence, with every kind of Elegance except that of Cleanliness, and what we call Tidyness."

1668 Pierre Patel (French artist, 1605-1676) Versailles

Just over a century later, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) wrote of Versailles in his 1869 The Innocents broad:

"Versailles! It is wonderfully beautiful! You gaze, and stare, and try to understand that it is real, that it is on the earth, that it is not the Garden of Eden—but your brain grows giddy, stupefied by the world of beauty around you, and you half believe you are the dupe of an exquisite dream. The scene thrills one like military music!

"A noble palace, stretching its ornamented front block upon block away, till it seemed that it would never end; a grand promenade before it, whereon the armies of an empire might parade; all about it rainbows of flowers, and colossal statues that were almost numberless, and yet seemed only scattered over the ample space; broad flights of stone steps leading down from the promenade to lower grounds of the park—stairways that whole regiments might stand to arms upon and have room to spare; vast fountains whose great bronze effigies discharged rivers of sparkling water into the air and mingled a hundred curving jets together in forms of matchless beauty; wide grass-carpeted avenues that branched hither and thither in every direction and wandered to seemingly interminable distances, walled all the way on either side with compact ranks of leafy trees whose branches met above and formed arches as faultless and as symmetrical as ever were carved in stone; and here and there were glimpses of sylvan lakes with miniature ships glassed in their surfaces.

"And every where—on the palace steps, and the great promenade, around the fountains, among the trees, and far under the arches of the endless avenues, hundreds and hundreds of people in gay costumes walked or ran or danced, and gave to the fairy picture the life and animation which was all of perfection it could have lacked.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"It was worth a pilgrimage to see. Everything is on so gigantic a scale. Nothing is small—nothing is cheap. The statues are all large; the palace is grand; the park covers a fair-sized county; the avenues are interminable. All the distances and all the dimensions about Versailles are vast. I used to think the pictures exaggerated these distances and these dimensions beyond all reason, and that they made Versailles more beautiful than it was possible for any place in the world to be. I know now that the pictures never came up to the subject in any respect, and that no painter could represent Versailles on canvas as beautiful as it is in reality. I used to abuse Louis XIV for spending two hundred millions of dollars in creating this marvelous park, when bread was so scarce with some of his subjects; but I have forgiven him now. He took a tract of land sixty miles in circumference and set to work to make this park and build this palace and a road to it from Paris. He kept 36,000 men employed daily on it, and the labor was so unhealthy that they used to die and be hauled off by cartloads every night. The wife of a nobleman of the time speaks of this as an "inconvenience," but naively remarks that "it does not seem worthy of attention in the happy state of tranquillity we now enjoy."

"I always thought ill of people at home who trimmed their shrubbery into pyramids and squares and spires and all manner of unnatural shapes, and when I saw the same thing being practiced in this great park I began to feel dissatisfied. But I soon saw the idea of the thing and the wisdom of it. They seek the general effect. We distort a dozen sickly trees into unaccustomed shapes in a little yard no bigger than a dining room, and then surely they look absurd enough. But here they take two hundred thousand tall forest trees and set them in a double row; allow no sign of leaf or branch to grow on the trunk lower down than six feet above the ground; from that point the boughs begin to project, and very gradually they extend outward further and further till they meet overhead, and a faultless tunnel of foliage is formed. The arch is mathematically precise. The effect is then very fine. They make trees take fifty different shapes, and so these quaint effects are infinitely varied and picturesque. The trees in no two avenues are shaped alike, and consequently the eye is not fatigued with anything in the nature of monotonous uniformity. I will drop this subject now, leaving it to others to determine how these people manage to make endless ranks of lofty forest trees grow to just a certain thickness of trunk (say a foot and two-thirds); how they make them spring to precisely the same height for miles; how they make them grow so close together; how they compel one huge limb to spring from the same identical spot on each tree and form the main sweep of the arch; and how all these things are kept exactly in the same condition and in the same exquisite shapeliness and symmetry month after month and year after year—for I have tried to reason out the problem and have failed.

"We walked through the great hall of sculpture and the one hundred and fifty galleries of paintings in the palace of Versailles, and felt that to be in such a place was useless unless one had a whole year at his disposal. These pictures are all battle scenes, and only one solitary little canvas among them all treats of anything but great French victories. We wandered, also, through the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, those monuments of royal prodigality, and with histories so mournful—filled, as it is, with souvenirs of Napoleon the First, and three dead kings and as many queens. In one sumptuous bed they had all slept in succession, but no one occupies it now. In a large dining room stood the table at which Louis XIV and his mistress Madame Maintenon, and after them Louis XV, and Pompadour, had sat at their meals naked and unattended—for the table stood upon a trapdoor, which descended with it to regions below when it was necessary to replenish its dishes. In a room of the Petit Trianon stood the furniture, just as poor Marie Antoinette left it when the mob came and dragged her and the King to Paris, never to return. Near at hand, in the stables, were prodigious carriages that showed no color but gold—carriages used by former kings of France on state occasions, and never used now save when a kingly head is to be crowned or an imperial infant christened. And with them were some curious sleighs, whose bodies were shaped like lions, swans, tigers, etc.—vehicles that had once been handsome with pictured designs and fine workmanship, but were dusty and decaying now. They had their history. When Louis XIV had finished the Grand Trianon, he told Maintenon he had created a Paradise for her, and asked if she could think of anything now to wish for. He said he wished the Trianon to be perfection—nothing less. She said she could think of but one thing—it was summer, and it was balmy France—yet she would like well to sleigh ride in the leafy avenues of Versailles! The next morning found miles and miles of grassy avenues spread thick with snowy salt and sugar, and a procession of those quaint sleighs waiting to receive the chief concubine of the gaiest and most unprincipled court that France has ever seen!"

Garden Ornaments - The Ornamental Urn

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 & Roman forms of ornamental garden urns are the tazza, a cup-shaped form whose width exceeds it height; & the campana, or upturned bell-shaped form.

Because early urns also were used to hold ashes of the departed, urns are usually solemn ornaments of reverence, taste, & refinement. Cremation was prevalent among the Greeks & during the Roman Empire, 27 B.C. to 395 A.D., it was widely practiced. The custom called for cremated remains to be stored in urns, which were sometimes elaborate & often placed within detached columbarium-like buildings in Roman & Greek gardens.
Detail of Closed or Lidded Campana Urn on an oversized Pedestal. 1772 William Williams (American artist, 1727-1791). The William Denning Family.

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.

In fact, it was news in the colonies, when urns filled with charred remains were found in Ireland in 1733. The South Carolina Gazette reported, "Dublin, Octob . 31. Last Week as some Workmen were digging up Stones for the Buildings at Power's Court, in turning over some great Rocks, they found several great curious Pieces of Antiquity, being 3 old Urns of a very uncommon Make, deposited together, and filled with Ashes, supposed to belong to some of the Danes, or old Roman People, who formerly visited this Island."
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).

In 1737, the South Carolina Gazette also reported on an extract of a letter from England, "There was lately discover'd on Mr. Campton's Estate, at Coddlestock, near Oundle in Northhamtershire a beautiful Roman Pavement 20 Foot square and very little defac'd by Time; near it were found Bones, Ashes, and Pieces of Urns , an Indication that the Body of some noted Heathen had been buryed there."

Thirty years later in 1767, the Virginia Gazette reported similar findings "from Perth, that as some labourers were sinking a well near Abernethy, in Scotland, they discovered two urns , containing several pieces of antique silver coin, and from their inscriptions it appeared that that place had formerly been a Roman station." Later in the same year, they noted that in "Glasgow that some fishermen lately drug up, in the island of ST. Kilda, two antique urns , containing a quantity of Danish silver coin, which by the inscription appears to have lain there upwards of 1800 years."
Closed or Lidded Campana Urn. 1784 Charles Willson Peale.(1741-1827). Mrs. Thomas Russell.


The South Carolina Gazette printed a pastoral elegy to a local gentleman in 1757, which not only referred to urns but also to the crop he must have grown, rice. "Port-Royal plains! let never balmy dew, Pouring from chrystal sluices, water you, Nor, from their silver urns , the Pleiad 's poar The fruitful rain and soft prolific show'r. May blights and mildews on your fields remain. And wormy insects gnaw your ricy grain: For in your neld's, entomb'd, does Damon lie. Port-Royal gods! Why did my Damon die?"

Urn-shapped tea ware, usually silver-plated or japanned & often called Roman urns, appeared in the colonies by the 1760s. In October of 1764, the Pennsylvania Gazette was advertising classical tablewar, including urns, "Just imported in the Philadelphia Packet, Captain Budden, and Sparks, from London, and to be sold on the lowest and best terms...silver pillared and fluted candlesticks of the Corinthian order...chased and plain ewers, urns and milkpots."
Detail Closed or Lidded Campana Urn on a Stone Wall. 1787 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) Mrs. John O'Donnell (Sarah Chew Elliott).

In the same year, jeweler Philip Tidyman of Charlestown, South Carolina advertised, "just imported, in the Friendship, Capt. Bail, and Heart of Oak, capt. Gunn...a few articles of plate of the most fashionable kind, viz. fine pierced and polish'd bread baskets, orange strainers, punch ladies, chais'd urns and ewers."

By 1769, Jacob Hanke placed an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette to announce his architectural ornaments, "THE subscriber takes this method of informing the public, that he has set up the Turnerbusiness (which he formerly followed in this city) and makes and sells...columns, urns , newel posts, bannisters, and all kinds of Turnerwork, at his shop, at the Sign of the Spinning Wheel...in Spruce street, near the Drawbridge."

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

Mantle ornaments in the shape of urns appeared in 1773, when Nicholas Langfore, a bookseller in Charlestown advertised in the local newspaper, " a Consignment of a Set of Ornaments for a Chimney Piece, confisting of seven Petrifactions of Water from Derhyshire, resembling Jasper, in the Form of Altars, Urns , Vasses, &c. most elegantly mounted in Or Moule, which are to be sold at a small Advances, on the first Cost."

An intriguing carved walking cane went missing in Charleston in 1774, "With a golden Head, engraved with Urns and Festoons."

Few garden 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 portraits.

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."

The 1778 South Carolina Gazette advertised the property of Thomas Loughton Smith for sale after his death, noting, "there are a few elegant urns and statues in the garden which will be sold with the premises."

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.
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 19C, 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.

By the time of George Washington's death in late 1779, the weeping willow tree was firmly established as a solemn memorial; as the Pennsylvania Gazette reported on Mount Vernon high above the Potomac River in Virginia, "Now the flocks, the shades, the walks, the weeping willows, the mourning bird of night, the pensive streams, and the sad murmurs of the broad Potomac, which in pride rolled its waves before the mansion of its great improver, call, again and again, the sad story which has filled the world with sorrow, that the illustrious Chief of Mount Vernon is no more."

The emerging middle-class of the early republic & later Industrial Revolution embraced classic Roman & Greek literature & motifs. Urns appeared on imported wallpapers; on mourning jewelry; as furniture inlay; on funeral carriages; as knife cases; and as architectural 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.

Samuel McIntire, South Front of the Greenhouse in the East Building Elias Hasket Derby House

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. In 1795, he recorded in his journal paying for "Carving 4 Vases for the Summer House." The Elias Hasket Derby House, also in Salem, built in the late 1790s, had a roof balustrade with pilasters supporting 6 urns. 

Urns remained in the landscape designs of the Early Republic.  Urns & weeping willow trees dotted 19C 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).