Garden Design - 18C Garden Furniture from England to the British American colonies

As the British American colonies became more secure & furniture became more plentiful in the early 18th century, colonists often moved routine daily chores outdoors as soon as the weather allowed. Preparing vegetables & fruits; churning butter; washing, spinning & sewing; studying schoolwork; and practicing musical instruments all became outdoor activities during the hot, humid summers along the shores of the Atlantic.

In England. Household chairs and tables are carried outdoors.  1738 William Hogarth, (English artist, 1697-1764) The Hervey Converstion Piece - The Holland House Group

Traditionally the formal pleasure gardens of the British gentry, living in servant-laden households, had served as pleasure grounds for promenading, playing at games & sport, meditating, romancing, or entertaining.  It is clear from English paintings, that even the gentry were using their household furniture outdoors.

In England. Here the wife sits on a garden bench.  1763 Arthur Devis (English artist, 1712-1787) Francis Vincent, his Wife Mercy, and Daughter Ann, of Weddington Hall, Warwickshire. Detail
18th Century English Woodcut

By mid-century, the up-to-date colonial gardener knew that the latest taste dictated placing seats & benches to emphasize a focal point in the garden; to terminate an impressive vista on the property; to view the garden or an impressive vista; or to catch a cooling breeze under trees or by the water. As early as 1669, English garden writer John Worlidge had instructed his readers in Systema Agriculturae that proper garden seats should be placed "at the ends of your walks...that whilst you sit in them you will have the view of your garden."

In England. Here the gentleman sits on a bench which is clearly placed at a focal point in his garden.  1749 Arthur Devis (English artist, 1712-1787) The Thomas Cave Family

In his 1718 garden writings, Stephen Switzer, Iconographia Rustica or the Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardeners' Recreation makes a direct reference to the Windsor chair. By 1730, a London newspaper advertisement offered for sale "All sorts of Windsor Garden Chairs."
Like their less wealthy neighbors, colonial gentry usually carted common chairs outside, whenever the weather permitted. Gardens & yards served as welcome extensions of cramped indoor living spaces. Small, close living quarters were the rule in the colonies, even for the rich in the first decades of the 18C, and this encouraged a variety of sedentary outdoor leisure activities across all classes such as doing chores, chatting, reading, gambling, & eating.

In America. Scenes from a Seminary for Young Ladies. St. Louis Art Museum.

Colonials needed something to sit on & something to put things on, indoors & out. Common household furniture including chairs, benches, & tables regularly found their way outdoors. Most British American colonials looked for some balance between the functional & the ornamental. The ordered, geometric gardens of the gentry in the colonies were a combination of ornament & function. Most colonists, even the wealthy Charles Carroll in Annapolis, grew edible plants in their formal terraced garden parterres.

In England. Here the lady of the family sits in a Windsor type chair.  1749 Arthur Devis (English artist, 1712-1787) Mr and Mrs Van Harthals and Son

As the consumer revolution reached full-tilt mid-century, British American colonial gentry occasionally ordered special garden furniture from local craftsmen or from English factors. Garden furniture was part of the competitive furniture trade in England. Most furniture designers offered a few examples in their style books. Although Thomas Chippendale's furniture stylebook was the most influential of the period, enraver & London furniture designer Matthew Darly, who flourished between 1754 & 1778, seemed to have led the way toward this new design.

In England. This tables & chairs sit far from the house in this painting.  1750 Arthur Devis (English artist, 1712-1787) Henry Fiennes Clinton,9th Earl of Lincoln, with his wife Catherine and his son George on the great terrace at Oatlands

Always searching for the latest trend in the mid 1700s, British tastemakers were drawn to rustic or "forest" furniture style for their new natural gardens. No more of the stiff classic benches dotting those old-fashioned Dutch influenced William & Mary English formal gardens.
The 1761 3rd edition of Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, contained a single plate called "Designs for Garden Seats," engraved by Matthew Darly, of rococo French chair with a possible rustic leg, a gothic French settee, & a "grotto chair." Matthew Darly was a London printseller, furniture designer, and engraver who owned a very successful print shop with his wife Mary.

In England. Just throw the fish on the table!  1773 Edward Smith (English artist) An Angling Party (perhaps The Willyams Family at Carnanton)

Even though English garden designers would soon be rebelling against the French & Dutch formal influence in the gardens of the gentry, Chippendale & Darly were introducing a fairly formal serpentine & rococo into the garden with these design patterns. Matthew (also called Mathias) Darly earlier had designed "root chairs and tables," whimsical garden furniture to be made out of gnarled roots, for Edwards & Darly's, A New Book of Chinese Designs published in 1754.
In his 1765 design book The Cabinet and Chair-maker's Real Friend and Companion, English furniture designer Robert Manwaring described his garden seat designs, "designs given for rural Chairs for Summerhouses finely ornamented with Carvings, Fountains, and beautiful Landscapes, with the Shepherd and his flock, reaper, etc. Also, some very beautiful designs, supposed to be executed with Limbs of Yew, Apple, or Pear Trees, ornamented with Leaves and Blossoms, which if properly painted will appear like Native."
Manwaring's 1765 Rural Garden Seat design included classical busts as finials on the back posts. The basic Gothic design incorporated many of painter William Hogarth's serpentine curves. Hogarth had published a treatise on esthetics in 1753, The Analysis of Beauty, which promoted the serpentine curve as the true "line of beauty."
An 1735 inventory of Andrew Allen at Goose Creek, South Carolina did record "an Old Forest Chair." It is not clear whether this refers to one of the simple outdoor chairs which were known in England as forest chairs, or whether "forest" referred to the (beech) forests of the English the Chilterns where many of them were produced or to the shades of green in which they were painted.  There were also a few less practical "designer" forest garden chairs available in Britain.

1786 Unknown artist. John Coakley Lettsom (1733–1810), with His Family on an ornamental Garden Bench, in the Garden of Grove Hill, Camberwell
One of Matthew Darly's root designs.

Life in the colonies was difficult, where many grew old & infirm quickly. For those who could not yet walk or no longer stroll & strut around their grounds, there was the "garden machine" or "rolling chair." A depiction of a "Garden Machine" appeared at the top of a trade card in late 18th century London, which also advertised "all Sorts of Yew Tree, Gothic, and Windsor Chairs."

In the last quarter of the century, 2 South Carolina inventories each boasted "1 Mahogany Roling Chair." Focusing on the special needs of the elderly & the infirm, Charleston cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe advertised in 1751, that he made "All kinds of Machine Chairs...for sickly or weak people."

In America.  This is a rolling chair built for a child.  1751 John Hesselius (1728-1778). The Grymes Children- Lucy Ludwell Grymes 1743-1830, Philip Ludwell Grymes 1746-1805, John Randolph Grymes 1747-96, & Charles Grimes 1748-?  They were the children of Phillip Grymes and his wife Mary Randolph who were born at "Brandon" on the Rappahannock River in Middlesex County, Virginia. In the year following this painting, another daughter, Susanna Grymes was born into the family. Similar rolling chairs & variations which appear to be a cross between a carriage or wagon & a rolling chair are found in British paintings.

In England.  1747 Arthur Devis (English artist, 1712-1787) Richard, Mary, and Peter, Children of Peter and Mary du Cane Detail

In 1752, a South Carolinian offered his plantation on the Ashley River for sale including "several handsome garden benches." Many garden seats appear in colonial inventories with no specific description, making identification of the style of garden furniture impossible.

In England. Here both mother & father have Windsor chairs. 1751 Arthur Devis (English artist, 1712-1787) The James Family

Two 1755 Charleston inventories of record each of the deceased owning 2 "garden chairs." In 1767, Charleston turner John Biggard specifically advertised that he could produce both "Windsor and Garden chairs." The difference is not spelled out, and without a sketch, it is difficult to know the particularity of each.

In America.  Scenes from a Young Ladies Seminary. St. Louis Art Museum.

After the Revolution, gardening burgeoned into a democratic pursuit, needing to satisfy both the functional & the ornamental goals of the new nation. Lightweight, orderly, simple Windsor chairs--that could be used indoors or out--seemed to fill the bill & appealed to all levels of society in the new republic. Sensible, airy Windsor chairs, painted or stained, became the most popular garden furniture in America.
Green windsor garden chairs had been popular in the South well before the Revolution. At first, merchants offered imported chairs to their stylish customers. In the 1764 Charleston inventory of John McQueen was "1 Windsor Garden Seat." In 1766, Charleston merchants Sneed & White offered "Windsor Chairs ... and settees ... walnut ... fit for piazzas or gardens," imported Philadelphia.
18th Century English Woodcut

Aiming to cut out transportation costs & the middlemen, Philadelphia turner John Biggard moved to South Carolina in 1767, opening a "turner shop" advertising "Windsor and Garden chairs... cheaper than could be imported."
One 1775 Charleston inventory revealed 2 specialized windsors, "In the Passage...2 green Garden Windsor Chairs...2 Children do (garden Windsor Chairs)."  Most inventories noted that the Windsor chairs were painted green. The 1783 South Carolina inventory of Benjamin Cattell listed 12 green Windsor chairs.

In England.  Here the Windsor chairs are brought out to the statue in the garden.  1763 Johann Zoffany (German-born English painter, 1733-1810) The Mathew Family at Felix Hall, Kelvedon, Essex

A year later, inventory takers noted 12 green Windsor chairs in another Charleston entrance hall lined up like soldiers ready to see if their next engagement would be indoors or out. Charleston's leading professional gardener John Watson's 1789 inventory listed green Windsor chairs in his seed sales room plus garden tools & books. On his piazza, he had 4 out-of-the-ordinary teal benches & one normal green bench.
Outdoor Windsors were often painted green to blend with nature. Englishman Uvedale Price wrote in his "Essays on the Picturesque" that white seats created unnatural spots in their green surroundings.

In England. In this group portrait, the gentlemen have taken a variety of household furniture outdoors.  1780 Johann Zoffany (German-born English painter, 1733-1810) A Group of Gentlemen

Thomas Dobson's first American edition of his Encyclopedia or Dictionary of Arts and Science in Philadelphia in 1798, recommended, "To paint arbours and all kinds of garden work, give a layer of white ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts...then give two layers of green...This green is of great service in the country for doors, window shutters, arbours, gardens seats, rails either of wood or iron; and in short for all works exposed to the injuries of the weather."
Charleston wasn't the only city with a local suppy of windsor chairs. In New York City, Andrew Gautier advertised in the 1765 New York Journal, "a large and neat assortment of Windsor Chairs, made in the best and neatest manner, and well painted. Chairs and settees fit for piazza or garden."

In America. Detail 1772 William Williams (American artist, 1727-1791). The William Denning Family

Marylander John H. Chandless advertised in the 1792, Baltimore Daily Repository "a large assortment of Windsor Chairs, of the newest fashions and painted in the best manner...Chairs, Settees, Garden Seats & Made and painted to particular directions." During the last decade of the 18C Baltimore furniture makers were arguably the best in the United States.

A rare surviving wooden bench is the late 18C “Almodington Bench,” a diagonally slatted back design of yellow pine which was originally made for the Somerset County Maryland, plantation named “Almodington.” This is the oldest known piece of American garden furniture, which is now in the collection of the Museum of Southern Decorative Arts at Old Salem in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
In America. This appears to be a small bench rather than a Windsor chair.  1793 James Peale (American artist, 1749-1831). The Ramsey-Polk Family in Cecil County, Maryland.

In the Virginia, inventories often listed "green chairs in the passage," meant to be used indoors & out. George Washington purchased 27 windsor side chairs for his piazza at Mount Vernon from Philadelphia Chairmakers Robert & Gilbert Gaw in 1796. The 1800 inventory of Mount Vernon recorded "in the Piazza...30 Windsor Chairs."
Virginian John Randolph's Tagewell Hall included "5 green windsor chairs and one green settee belonging to my summer house." Mary Page of Spotsylvania County, Virginia ordered "one dozen Windsor Chairs for a passage."

In eastern North Carolina, David Stone's Hope Plantation contained 12 Windsors in the hall passageway running from the front door to the back door, a design encouraging both air circulation & the moving of chairs in & out of doors.
Wooden chairs aged a little faster outdoors. In the Fayetteville North Carolina Minerva in 1796, Vosburgh & Childs advertised that they could make, paint, & repair Windsor chairs, probably the victims of a little rain and humidity now & again. Hall's North Carolina Wilmington Gazette on February 9, 1797, advertised "Windsor Chairs of every description...elegant settees of ten feet in length or under, suitable to either halls or piazzas...garden chairs suitable to arbors." A premature war between the North & the South was on as the ad noted, "those that are imported...are always unavoidably rubbed and bruised."

In America.  Here the ladies sit on rather delicate chairs, while they gather around the pond to watch the gentlemen fish.  1770 Henry Benbridge (American colonial era artist, 1743-1812). The Tannatt Family

While in Wilmington, North Carolina, Eliza Clitherall recorded seats under trees in the more shady recesses of the Big Garden. William D. Martin recorded in his journal while visiting a "Girls Boarding School Pleasure Garden in Salem, North Carolina," Next I visited a flower garden...situated on a hill, ...At the bottom of this terrace were arranged circular seats, which, form the height of the hill in the rear were protected from the sun."
18th century English Woodcut.

In 1801, Virginian Thomas Jefferson designed "benches for Porticos & Terraces...the back Chinese railing...to be painted green." Jefferson also noted "the seats at Washington by Lenox are 8 ft. long 21 I high, & the seat is 15 I broad, of five laths 2½ I wide." Peter Lenox (1771-1832) was the head carpenter, foreman, & clerk at the President's House in Washington, District of Columbia.
In America. c 1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860) Detail of Settee on a Hill at Rice Hope Plantation Taken from One of the Rice Fields. South Carolina.

Not all gardeners relied on the simple Windsor chair for their gardens. A grey garden bench appears in the 1771 Charles Wilson Peale painting of the Edward Lloyd family of Wye House in Talbot County, Maryland. The bench had rolled arms & a latticed back. Peale wrote in his autobiography that in Pennsylvania, "The proprietor [Peale himself] made summer houses (so called), roots to ward off the Sunbeams with seats of rest. One made of the Chinese taste, dedicated to meditation, with the following sentiments within it. "Mediate on the Creation of Worlds, which perform their evolutions in prescribed periods!"
In America.  1771 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) Edward Lloyd Family wife Elizabeth Tayloe and dau Anne.

For those not satisfied with ordinary wood furniture, both English & local craftsmen also fashioned cast iron garden furniture including chairs, benches, & tables during the early federal period. Weight would have been a consideration in importing them from England. The Robert Wood foundry in Philadelphia produced cast iron garden furniture between 1804 -1858.

In America.  Here the American grandmother is clearly sitting in a Windsor chair.  1787 Henry Benbridge (American artist, 1743-1812). The Hartley Family.

Henry Benbridge painted stone garden seats in paintings of a Charleston family; the Enoch Edwards family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Taylor family of Norfolk, Virginia, during the last 2 decades of the 18C. 

In America. 1779 Henry Benbridge (American artist, 1743-1812). The Enoch Edwards Family.

Whether these stone benches were real or fanciful is unclear. What is clear is that the dark green Windsor chair was the most enduring piece of garden furniture in practical 18C America. The use of everyday chairs for garden events continued into the 19C & early 20C.
In 19C America. Photo Maryland Historical Society

To follow the development, diversification, & distribution of Windsor Chairs see any of these books by Nancy Goyne Evans, (2005) Windsor-Chair Making in America: From Craft Shop to Consumer; (1997) American Windsor Furniture: Specialized Forms; and (1996) American Windsor Chairs.

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Comfrey

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Comfrey

Comfrey, Symphytum...Is good for healing wounds, being a great vulnerary, and is to be propagated by parting the roots, and planting them in the fall, eighteen inches asunder, or from the seed. It is hardy, will grow any where, and will last long.

South Carolina - 18C A Man-made agricultural Byway Bason & Storehouse on the Santee Canal

 South Carolina. This was the storehouse at Simpson's Lock on the canal 

between the Santee & Cooper Rivers

Charles Fraser (1782-1860). A Bason & Storehouse Belonging to the Santee Canal in South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston.

The watercolors of Charles Fraser allow us feel the South Carolina landscape around us as we learn how it was being groomed & planted. Thanks to South Carolina native Fraser, 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.

Seeds & Plants - Tho Jefferson - A Botanical Anniversary

Thomas Jefferson by Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko (1746 - 1817) 

A Botanical Anniversary

On May 18, 1792, six men gathered in Philosophical Hall for the Friday meeting of the American Philosophical Society. Benjamin Smith Barton, professor of botany and natural history at the University of Pennsylvania, rose to read a letter he had written to a European botanist. In it he described an American wildflower, traced its short path through the scientific literature, and concluded that, as a genus "distinct" from any other, it was in need of a new name.

"I take the liberty," said Barton, "of making it known to the botanists by the name of J E F F E R S O N I A in honour of Thomas Jefferson, Esq. Secretary of State to the United-States." He added that his purpose was not to honor Jefferson's political character or his reputation for general science and literature. "My business was with his knowledge of natural history," he said. "In the various departments of this science, but especially in botany and in zoology, the information of this gentleman is equalled by that of few persons in the United-States."

The Society member honored in this act of scientific classification was absent--one would like to think because his mind was on zoology rather than botany. Earlier that day Jefferson had invited James Madison to his house to examine the difference between a "Northern hare" and a "common" one from the market, before they continued to Edmund Randolph's lodgings to dine.

But Jefferson's attendance at the meetings of the Philosophical Society had fallen off since the previous year, when he and Dr. Barton had collaborated energetically on investigations of the Hessian fly. The Society's minutes record the presence of their vice-president at only two of the Friday meetings in 1792, a year filled with the "hateful labours" of office and the intensifying disputes of partisan politics.

In this spring of 1792 Jefferson was abused as well as honored for his interest in natural history. In April he had been the target of the first round fired in the partisan pamphlet wars. 

Massachusettensis (now thought to be British consul Sir John Temple), after attacking Jefferson as the intriguing "tool of a party," called for his "speedy retreat" to Monticello. There he could "range the fields of science, and the natural history of his country" without doing lasting harm to the nation. Jefferson's response was predictable: "However ardently my retirement to my own home and my own affairs, may be wished for by others as the author says, there is no one of them who feels the wish once where I do a thousand times."

His letters in this year are full of laments about being "shut up drudging within four walls" in Philadelphia and longing for the "tranquil" occupations of the fields and gardens at Monticello. And beyond Monticello was a whole unexplored continent to be studied--"What a feild have we at our doors to signalize ourselves in!" Having chosen the path of public leadership, Jefferson had to remain on the sidelines, cheering on American naturalists to their goal of revealing to the world the rich flora and fauna of the young nation.

Benjamin Smith Barton was perhaps Jefferson's greatest hope for leading the American team to eminence. The plant he had rescued from the wrong genus is what we know as twinleaf, a spring-blooming perennial of the woodlands of eastern North America. It entered scientific literature in 1753, when Linnaeus assigned it to the genus Podophyllum in his Species Plantarum. This work became our starting point for the naming of plants by introducing the binomial system which substituted two Latin names for the cumbersome Latin descriptions then current. Linnaeus likened his improvement to "putting the clapper in the bell" and sixty years later Jefferson was grateful. In 1814 he wrote that, "fortunately for science," Linnaeus had brought order out of chaos by providing a "universal language" for naming and classifying nature's productions.

Linnaeus had made his identification of twinleaf from a non-flowering specimen sent to him by a Virginian, John Clayton. Jefferson called the clerk of Gloucester County "our great botanist," and used the Flora Virginica, a compendium of Clayton's discoveries, when preparing the plant lists for his Notes on the State of Virginia. The first twinleaf to bloom before the eyes of botanists was collected in Virginia' Blue Ridge Mountains by Andre Michaux. Michaux's root first flowered in Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia in the spring of 1791 and was observed by Dr. Barton and William Bartram, who "together" made the first drawings of it.

Soon Jeffersonia became a feature of the gardens of Philadelphians, presumably those with republican leanings, but its namesake may never have seen it in the wild. Barton first saw it in its natural habitat at a site Jefferson had visited too late in the season. In 1802 Jefferson was living in "splendid misery" in the executive mansion and Barton was planning a botanising tour into the southern mountains. "I really envy your journey," wrote the President, "but I am a prisoner of state." He had to content himself with solitary rides out of Washington, during which, as Margaret Bayard Smith recalled, he would dismount "to climb rocks, or wade through swamps to obtain any plant he discovered or desired."

Passing through the Blue Ridge at Harper's Ferry in July, Barton saw "immense quantities" of twinleaf, past flowering, but could not find "even a single seed-vessel." He carried with him Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, which contained a highly charged account of the meeting of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers at this spot. Barton confided to his journal that what Jefferson called "one of the most stupendous scenes in nature" did not equal his expectations.

Barton arrived at the author's house in August, crossing the Rivanna River at the Shadwell ford and noting plentiful pawpaw trees, some castor-bean plants, and "a good deal" of horsemint. His fascinating journal then proves a major disappointment to future historians. "Monticello," written with a flourish and twice underlined, is followed by "Monticello is the beautiful seat of Mr. Jefferson," and not a word more--the rest of the page is blank. He elsewhere recorded his host's comments on the elevation of Monticello, its soil, and the scarcity of insects and insect-eating birds there (hummingbirds, however, were common). The President also shared his opinion that the counties along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge were the "healthiest" part of the United States. He had been told by an officer of the U.S. Army that this area produced "the largest men" among its recruits. Jefferson and Thomas Mann Randolph, Barton's former schoolmate at the University of Edinburgh, also contributed to the journal their comments on local plants, like honey locust, strawberry bush, and umbrella magnolia.

When Barton passed through Harper's Ferry again on his way north, he "sought in vain" for Jeffersonia, but found the scene far grander on a second inspection. The rocks were "indeed, stupendous," and had "an awful appearance." Perhaps Jefferson had responded to his initial disappointment with a story he had recently told another American botanist. When Samuel Latham Mitchill asked him for directions to the precise spot from which he had viewed the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge, Jefferson replied that it was no longer there. During the Adams administration a military expedition was mounted to blow up the projecting rock, "doubtless," as the shocked Mitchill wrote his wife, "with the intention of falsifying his account, and rendering it incredible by putting it out of the power of any subsequent traveller to behold the like from the same point of view. What shameful, what vandalic revenge is this!" Nevertheless, when Mitchill later visited the site, he too joined the many disappointed tourists whose expectations had been raised by Jefferson's description.

Like Barton a physician-naturalist and former Edinburgh schoolmate of Thomas Mann Randolph, Mitchill was Jefferson's zealous lieutenant in Congress and frequent companion in the delighted contemplation of newly discovered inventions or natural productions. The man whom Jefferson called the "Congressional dictionary" kept a record of the curiosities he saw at the President's House. At dinner he marveled at exotic dates and ice cream in pastry, was tactful about water from the Mississippi and three-year-old pieces of the Mammoth cheese, and was relieved to find the meat well done, instead of the "half-raw Viands" served elsewhere. The "chatty and communicative" President showed him a wooden model of the moldboard of least resistance, minerals from Mexico and the American west, and mastodon bones from Big Bone Lick.

One day Jefferson proudly displayed a length of silk cloth produced by worms "bred in Virginia," after which he and Mitchill performed a little experiment together. Jefferson produced his surtout coat of British broadcloth waterpoofed by a new method. As Mitchill reported to his wife, the President "took hold of one part of the Skirt, and myself of the other end, so as by skilful holding to make a hollow or Cavity. Into this some water was poured. We stirred and moved it about. I put my hand to the under-side and agitated it there. But not a drop came thro. The President said he had hung up such a woolen-bag of Water for several weeks and it did not leak at all."

John Quincy Adams attended one presidential dinner, at which Jefferson and Mitchill enchanted the guests with their conversation, moving from the President's "usual" dissertation on wine to Epicurean philosophy to Fulton's steamboat to agriculture. Adams described Mitchill's conversation as "very various, of chemistry, of geography, and of natural philosophy; of oils, grasses, beasts, birds, petrifactions, incrustations...and a long train of et cetera." It was "one of the most agreeable dinners" he had had at the President's House.

Life on Pennsylvania Avenue must have resembled Benjamin Smith Barton's Chestnut Street establishment, where he worked "surrounded by books, bottles of insects, the bones of the mammoth, and other evidences of his ruling passion." A visitor to New York found Dr. Mitchill "surrounded by his cabinets of conchology and mineralogy, and with his room still further enriched with collections of Indian tomahawks and antiquities, and the dresses of the inhabitants of the south seas." Once he actually received his guests clothed in this Fiji Islands costume.

In 1803 Mitchill wrote that "botanists consider it an honor of the highest kind to be immortalized by having their names given to plants." The international code of botanical nomenclature made this distinction impossible for the good doctor. He cheerfully told his wife that Willdenow had wished to name a new plant after him but "was prevented by finding that the name had been bestowed already" (Linneaus had called patridgeberry Mitchella repens after John Mitchell of Virginia). Barton's honor came in the shape of an obscure plant of undistinguished appearance--Bartonia. And the rules of precedence prevented Jefferson from being immortalized twice.

John Brickell of Georgia tried in 1798 to apply the name Jeffersonia to the Carolina jessamine (now Gelsemium sempervirens), "in compliment" to the man "who, to his immense stores of other knowledge, has added the science of Botany."

In 1807 Barton complimented Jefferson again by forwarding a diploma of membership in the short-lived Linnaean Society of Philadelphia, which he had founded. In his letter of thanks Jefferson wrote that, although he was "sincerely associated with the friends of science in spirit and inclination," he regretted "the constant occupations of a different kind which put out of my power the proper cooperations with them, had I otherwise the talents for them."

A few months later he resisted Dr. Mitchill's efforts to induct him into another organization--the Tammany Society of New York. If the President accepted the invitation of this "vigorous part of the Republican Population," Mitchill was to "erect a Wigwam, to administer our obligation, to make known the tammanial pass-Word, Sign and Grip," and to deliver a copy of the war song, which "may afford a moment's entertainment."

The next year Jefferson finally reached the permanent harbor of Monticello, and ceased to worry about the hostilities of Federalists and Republicans. From his retirement Jefferson wrote Barton that "botany here is but an object of amusement, a great one indeed and in which all our family mingles more or less." He added regretfully, "My mind has been so long ingrossed by other objects, that those I loved most have escaped from it, and none more than botany, whose lodgement is made peculiarly in the memory."

By this time Jeffersonia had been introduced into English gardens by Scottish plant collector John Lyon and that Jeffersonian site--Harper's Ferry--was the home of the immigrants. On May 17, 1804, Lyon noted in his diary that he collected there "about 200 roots" of the twinleaf. Another plant enthusiast made a pilgrimage to the junction of the Potomac and the Shenandoah in 1817. A young Virginia lawyer, Francis Walker Gilmer, wrote to Jefferson of his journey to "Harper's Ferry, where all the regions of nature have conspired to do you honor." He gathered seeds of Jeffersonia to give to Jefferson's daughter Martha, because "its name will I am sure recommend it to her piety."

Jefferson never returned to the Blue Ridge gap where he had seen the "monuments of a war between rivers and mountains" in 1783. He remained close to his gardens at Monticello and Poplar Forest and, in 1823, considered ways to honor the man who had helped to clarify the "order of nature" by "uniting all nations under one language in natural history." Samuel Latham Mitchill had written suggesting that, as honorary members of the Linnean Society of Paris, he and Jefferson should simultaneously observe the birthday of Linnaeus on May 24th. Mitchill intended to celebrate this "fete botanique" in "a becoming manner" at Prince's garden in Flushing. "We shall think of you on the occasion," he wrote, "since we feel an assurance that you will not disapprove an attempt to render science popular and attractive."

Jefferson, in reply, regretted that he could not "join them physically on the occasion, but will certainly be with them in spirit. He will invite also some amateurs in natural science in his neighborhood to fraternize on the same day with their brethren of New York by corresponding libations to the great apostle of Nature." It is not known who shared the libations at Poplar Forest on the twenty-fourth--the last day of Jefferson's last visit.

And until almost the last day of his life he tried to pass his enthusiasm for natural history on to a younger generation. He worked to ensure the inclusion of botany, one of "the most valuable sciences," in the curriculum of the University of Virginia. It was time for the young to pursue his former passions. In 1822 Jefferson wrote to the discoverer of a new mineral, Jeffersonite. Thanking him for "the honor done my name by the appellation given it," he concluded that although "age and a decayed memory" had weakened his attention to the natural sciences, "nothing can ever weaken my affection to them, and the pleasure with which I observe so many of my young countrymen pursuing them with an ardor and success equally honorable to themselves and our country."

Lucia C. Stanton, Shannon Senior Research Historian, 1992

Research & images & much more are directly available from the Monticello.org website. 

Garden to Table - Home-Made Clover Wine

 

John Greenwood (American artist, 1727-1792) Sea Captains Carousing, 1758.  Detail

George Washington's English visitor Richard Parkinson did not care for Washington's welcome drink or his clover.  Parkinson wrote Tour in America in 1798, 1799, & 1800: Exhibiting Sketches of Society & Manners, & a Particular Account of the America System of Agriculture, with its Recent Improvements (Travel in America).  Before sailing to the new republic, Parkinson had made something of a name for himself in England as a scientific agriculturist & had published a book called the Experienced Farmer. He apparently negotiated by letter with Washington for the rental of one of the Mount Vernon farms; & in 1798, without having made any definite engagement, sailed for the Potomac with a cargo of good horses, cattle & hogs. His plan for renting Washington's farm fell through, by his account because it was such poor land.  He settled for a time near Baltimore. 

Soured by the failure of his new techniques in Maryland, he returned to England, & published an account of his travels, partly with the avowed purpose of discouraging emigration to America. His opinion of the country he summed up by this sexist observation: "If a man should be so unfortunate as to have married a wife of a capricious disposition, let him take her to America, & keep her there three or four years in a country-place at some distance from a town, & afterwards bring her back to England; if she do not act with propriety, he may be sure there is no remedy." 

Even more revealing are his views of American "notions of equality," as he complains mightily of the "disrespectful manners of white servants toward masters," finding it shocking that "The idea of liberty & equality there destroys all the rights of the master, & every man does as he likes." In decrying his experience in America, Parkinson highlighted the very qualities that made the United States & Americans of the late 18C what they were, showcasing the cultural & material divide between England & her former colony.

Perhaps a few glasses of clover wine might have softened his haughty prejudices. 

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines Cordials & Liqueurs 1909 by Helen S. Wright

CLOVER WINE
Three quarts blossoms, four quarts boiling water; let stand three days. Drain, and to the flower heads add three more quarts of water and the peel of one lemon. Boil fifteen minutes, drain, and add to other juice. To every quart, add one pound of sugar; ferment with one cup of yeast. Keep in warm room three weeks, then bottle.

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines is a cookbook for those who want to make their own wines & liqueurs from available ingredients, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, & shrubs from local gardens, farms, & orchards. It includes ingredients & instructions for making & fermenting spirits, from wine & ale to sherry, brandy, cordials, & even beer. 

Colonial Era Cookbooks

1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London) 

1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)

1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)

1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)

1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)

Helpful Secondary Sources

America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972

Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown   Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996 

Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown  ABC-CLIO  Westport, United States

Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver

Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.

Geo Washington (1732-1799) - A Critical Visitor (Richard Parkinson) at Mount Vernon

George Washington as Farmer by Junius Brutus Stearns. 1851

George Washington: Farmer 1915  by Paul Leland Haworth (1876-1936) 

A Critical Visitor (Richard Parkinson) at Mount Vernon

This section of this chapter is taken from A Tour of America in 1798, 1799, & 1800, by Richard Parkinson (1748–1815), an agricultural writer, came to America in 1798 with his family & a number of different types of livestock, intending to rent one of GW’s Mount Vernon farms. After seeing the farm he decided not to rent it and instead leased Orange Hill, near Baltimore.  In 1805 Parkinson published in London The Experienced Farmer’s Tour in America, which was published again the same year under the title A Tour in America in 1798, 1799, and 1800. In this two-volume work Parkinson was extremely critical of the agricultural practices of Washington & other American farmers.

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He praised the soil very highly. I asked him if he was acquainted with the land at Mount Vernon. He said he was; & represented it to be rich land, but not so rich as his. Yet his I thought very poor indeed; for it was (as is termed in America) gullied; which I call broken land. This effect is produced by the winter's frost & summer's rain, which cut the land into cavities of from ten feet wide & ten feet deep (and upwards) in many places; and, added to this, here & there a hole, which makes it look altogether like marlpits, or stone-quarries, that have been carried away by those hasty showers in the summer, which no man who has not seen them in this climate could form any idea of or believe possible....

In two days after we left this place, we came in sight of Mount Vernon; but in all the way up the river, I did not see any green fields. The country had to me a most barren appearance. There were none but snake-fences; which are rails laid with the ends of one upon another, from eight to sixteen in number in one length. The surface of the earth looked like a yellow-washed wall; for it had been a very dry summer; & there was not any thing that I could see green, except the pine trees in the woods, & the cedars, which made a truly picturesque view as we sailed up the Potomac. It is indeed a most beautiful river.

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I found that General Washington was at Philadelphia; but his steward had orders from the General to receive me & my family, with all the horses, cattle, &c. which I had on board. A boat was, therefore, got ready for landing them; but that could not be done, as the ship must be cleared out at some port before anything was moved: so, after looking about a few minutes at Mount Vernon, I returned to the ship, & we began to make way for Alexandria....

No doubt Anderson, Washington's last manager.  When I had been about seven days at Alexandria, I hired a horse & went to Mount Vernon, to view my intended farm; of which General Washington had given me a plan, & a report along with it--the rent being fixed at eighteen hundred bushels of wheat for twelve hundred acres, or money according to the price of that grain. I must confess that if he would have given me the inheritance of the land for that sum, I durst not have accepted it, especially with the incumbrances upon it; viz. one hundred seventy slaves young & old, & out of that number only twenty-seven[10] in a condition to work, as the steward represented to me. I viewed the whole of the cultivated estate--about three thousand acres; & afterward dined with Mrs. Washington & the family. Here I met a Doctor Thornton, who is a very pleasant agreeable man, & his lady; with a Mr. Peters & his lady, who was a grand-daughter of Mrs. Washington. Doctor Thornton living at the city of Washington, he gave me an invitation to visit him there: he was one of the commissioners of the city.

Most certainly a mistake.  I slept at Mount Vernon, & experienced a very kind & comfortable reception; but did not like the land at all. I saw no green grass there, except in the garden: & this was some English grass, appearing to me to be a sort of couch-grass; it was in drills. There were also six saintfoin plants, which I found the General valued highly. I viewed the oats which were not thrashed, & counted the grains upon each head; but found no stem with more than four grains, & these a very light & bad quality, such as I had never seen before: the longest straw was of about twelve inches. The wheat was all thrashed, therefore I could not ascertain the produce of that: I saw some of the straw, however, & thought it had been cut & prepared for the cattle in the winter; but I believe I was mistaken, it being short by nature, & with thrashing out looked like chaff, or as if chopped with a bad knife. The General had two thrashing machines, the power given by horses. The clover was very little in bulk, & like chaff; not more than nine inches long, & the leaf very much shed from the stalk. By the stubbles on the land I could not tell which had been wheat, or which had been oats or barley; nor could I see any clover-roots where the clover had grown. The weather was hot & dry at that time; it was in December. The whole of the different fields were covered with either the stalks of weeds, corn-stalks, or what is called sedge--something like spear-grass upon the poor limestone in England; & the steward told me nothing would eat it, which is true. Indeed, he found fault with everything, just like a foreigner; & even told me many unpleasant tales of the General, so that I began to think he feared I was coming to take his place. But (God knows!) I would not choose to accept of it: for he had to superintend four hundred slaves, & there would be more now. This part of his business especially would have been painful to me; it is, in fact, a sort of trade of itself.

I had not in all this time seen what we in England call a corn-stack, nor a dung-hill. There were, indeed, behind the General's barns, two or three cocks of oats & barley; but such as an English broad-wheeled waggon would have carried a hundred miles at one time with ease. Neither had I seen a green plant of any kind: there was some clover of the first year's sowing: but in riding over the fields I should not have known it to be clover, although the steward told me it was; only when I came under a tree I could, by favour of the shade, perceive here & there a green leaf of clover, but I do not remember seeing a green root. I was shown no grass-hay of any kind; nor do I believe there was any.

The cattle were very poor & ordinary, & the sheep the same; nor did I see any thing I liked except the mules, which were very fine ones, & in good condition. Mr. Gough had made a present to General Washington of a bull calf. The animal was shown to me when I first landed at Mount Vernon, & was the first bull I saw in the country. He was large, & very strong-featured; the largest part was his head, the next his legs. The General's steward was a Scotchman, & no judge of animals--a better judge of distilling whiskey.

I saw here a greater number of negroes than I ever saw at one time, either before or since.

The house is a very decent mansion: not large, & something like a gentleman's house in England, with gardens & plantations; & is very prettily situated on the banks of the river Potowmac, with extensive prospects.... The roads are very bad from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.

The General still continuing at Philadelphia, I could not have the pleasure of seeing him; therefore I returned to Alexandria.

I returned [to Mount Vernon some weeks later] ... to see General Washington. I dined with him; & he showed me several presents that had been sent him, viz. swords, china, & among the rest the key of the Bastille. I spent a very pleasant day in the house, as the weather was so severe that there were no farming objects to see, the ground being covered with snow.

Would General Washington have given me the twelve hundred acres I would not have accepted it, to have been confined to live in that country; & to convince the General of the cause of my determination, I was compelled to treat him with a great deal of frankness. The General, who had corresponded with Mr. Arthur Young & others on the subject of English farming & soils, & had been not a little flattered by different gentlemen from England, [pg 278] seemed at first to be not well pleased with my conversation; but I gave him some strong proofs of his mistakes, by making a comparison between the lands in America & those of England in two respects.

First, in the article of sheep. He supposed himself to have fine sheep, & a great quantity of them. At the time of my viewing his five farms, which consisted of about three thousand acres cultivated, he had one hundred sheep, & those in very poor condition. This was in the month of November. To show him his mistake in the value & quality of his land, I compared this with the farm my father occupied, which was less than six hundred acres. He clipped eleven hundred sheep, though some of his land was poor & at two shillings & sixpence per acre--the highest was at twenty shillings; the average weight of the wool was ten pounds per fleece, & the carcases weighed from eighty to one hundred twenty pounds each: while in the General's hundred sheep on three thousand acres, the wool would not weigh on an average more than three pounds & a half the fleece, & the carcases at forty-eight pounds each. Secondly, the proportion of the produce in grain was similar. The General's [crops were from two to three[11] bushels of wheat per acre; & my father's farm, although poor clay soil, gave from twenty to thirty bushels.

A misstatement, of course. During this conversation Colonel Lear, aide-de-camp to the General, was present. When the General left the room, the Colonel told me he had himself been in England, & had seen Arthur Young (who had been frequently named by the General in our conversation); & that Mr. Young having learnt that he was in the mercantile line, & was possessed of much land, had said he thought he was a great fool to be a merchant & yet have so much land; the Colonel replied, that if Mr. Young had the same land to cultivate, it would make a great fool of him. The Colonel did me the honour to say I was the only man he ever knew to treat General Washington with frankness.

The General's cattle at that time were all in poor condition: except his mules (bred from American mares), which were very fine, & the Spanish ass sent to him as a present by the king of Spain. I felt myself much vexed at an expression used at dinner by Mrs. Washington. When the General & the company at table were talking about the fine horses & cattle I had brought from England, Mrs. Washington said, "I am afraid, Mr. Parkinson, you have brought your fine horses & cattle to a bad market; I am of opinion that our horses & cattle are good enough for our land." I thought that if every old woman in the country knew this, my speculation would answer very ill: as I perfectly agreed with Mrs. Washington in sentiment; & wondered much, from the poverty of the land, to see the cattle good as they were.

The General wished me to stay all night; but having some other engagement, I declined his kind offer. He sent Colonel Lear out after I had parted with him, to ask me if I wanted any money; which I gladly accepted.

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Parkinson had earlier written this letter 

To George Washington from Richard Parkinson, 

Doncaster [England] Augt 28. 1797

Sir

Having for some Time past had an Intention of going to America, which having been intimated to my good Friend Sir John Sinclair Bart, he desired me to write to you, by the 1st Conveyance to inform you; that he intended reccommending me to you, as an English Farmer, to take one of your Farms, on the Potomac, of which Farms he has sent me the Plans, Conditions & ca. Accordingly I take this the 1st Opportunity of writing to you to say, that I shall be exceeding glad to be under the Patronage of 2 such highly respectable Gentlemen, as Sir John & yourself, & shall be extremely so to take one of the Farms (if yet unlet) but before entering into any Agreements whatsoever, I shd wish to see them, which I think prudent, & hope you will coincide in Opinion with me; As I shd be very sorry to enter into any Agreements, which I might not be able to perform. Having a treatise on Agriculture entitled, “the experienced Farmer,” (a Proposal of which I have taken the Liberty to enclose) which I have got almost in a State of Readiness for the Press; & on Acct of other Business, which I must finish before I leave England it will be March next before I can set off for America. In my intended Work I have the Honour to be encouraged, by the first Men in Agriculture, in this Kingdom, & by the Nobility of the first Rank. The inclosed Proposal is the Heads of the Work, of which when printed Intend to take the Liberty to present you with a few Copies by different Ships, as I have been desired by my worthy Patron Sir John Sinclair.

If your Farms shd be all disposed of ’ere this reaches you, it wd still give me the greatest pleasure to have a Situation near you, if possible—I shall conclude for the present & have Sir the Honour to be your very hble Servt

Richd Parkinson

Garden to Table - Jefferson's (1743-1824) Enslaved Cooks

Thomas Jefferson by Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko (1746 -1817) 

Much to Our Comfort and Satisfaction: Monticello’s Enslaved Cooks by David Thorson from Monticello Education & Research Blog

Thomas Jefferson is known today as America’s “Founding Foodie” and visitors to Monticello recorded memories of late afternoon dinner “served in half Virginian, half French style in good taste and abundance,” fine wines from Europe accompanied by unique desserts, early breakfasts “as large as our dinner table…tea, coffee, excellent muffins, hot wheat and corn bread, cold ham and butter.” Jefferson acquired his epicurean taste during his five years as Minister to France, tailoring American and Continental foodways for his table.

Jefferson's granddaughter Anne Cary frequently recorded buying eggs, chickens and other produced from members of Monticello's enslaved community.  Jefferson’s records, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph’s household accounts and family recipes preserved by his granddaughters attest to the remarkable quantity and quality of food and wine served at Monticello. The records rarely mention that the preparation, cooking, serving and cleanup for the meals enjoyed by Jefferson, his family and his guests was made possible by Monticello’s enslaved cooks and their families. Edith Hern Fossett, Monticello’s head cook from 1809 to 1826, followed in the footsteps of three enslaved head chefs before her.

Ursula Granger

Purchased at the request of Jefferson’s wife, Martha, Ursula Granger worked as a cook, pastry chef, cider maker, washer woman and field hand from 1773 to her death in 1800. Records reveal her skills in the preservation of ham and other meats were highly prized by Jefferson. Married to George Granger, Monticello’s only enslaved overseer, she bore three sons, George Junior, Bagwell and Isaac. She, her husband and eldest son died within months of one another in 1799 and 1800 following a mysterious illness.

James Hemings

When Jefferson became Minister to France, he brought James Hemings with him to be trained as a French chef in Paris. On their return to America in 1789, Hemings served as Secretary of State Jefferson’s chef in New York City and Philadelphia. In 1793, Jefferson agreed to free James Hemings in exchange for teaching his brother, Peter Hemings, his cooking skills. Freed in 1796, Hemings worked as a chef in Baltimore and refused President Jefferson’s offer to work as chef in the White House. Following a brief return to Monticello, seeing family and cooking for Jefferson in the summer of 1801, James Hemings returned to Baltimore. Within weeks of his departure from Monticello, Jefferson received the melancholy news “that the report respecting James Hemings having committed an act of Suicide is true.”

Peter Hemings

Trained by his brother James, Peter Hemings was Monticello’s head chef from 1796 to 1809. Praised for his desserts, Jefferson described Peter Hemings as a man of “great intelligence and diligence.” When Edith Fossett became head chef, Peter Hemings trained as a brew master, producing 200 gallons of beer annually in addition to working as a house servant and tailor. His nephew, Daniel Farley, bought and freed Peter Hemings in 1827 at the estate sale following Jefferson’s death. As late as 1838 he was living and working as a tailor in Charlottesville.

Watercolor by Gail McIntosh depicting Edith Fossett and Frances Hern cooking in Monticello's post-1809 Kitchen with another enslaved woman and boy 

Edith Hern Fossett and Frances Gillette Hern

As President, Jefferson’s taste for fine dining and use of mealtime to conduct political and diplomatic business made the White House the center of Washington society. He hired French emigres Étienne Lemaire as Maître d’hôtel and Honoré Julien as chef, bringing the style and cuisine of Paris to the nation’s capital. From Monticello, he brought three enslaved teenage women to train under Lemaire and Julien: Ursula Granger Hughes, Edith Hern Fossett and Frances Gillette Hern. Comments by White House guests that “never before had such dinners been given in the President’s House” speak to Julien’s skill, but do not acknowledge, behind the scenes, enslaved women from Monticello played an invaluable role in creating the bounty of Jefferson’s table.

In 1801, Ursula Hughes, pregnant wife of Monticello’s head gardener, Wormley Hughes, began her apprenticeship with Julien. In 1802 she was sent back to Monticello following the difficult birth and sudden death of her first child and was replaced at the White House by Edith Fossett, wife of Monticello’s head blacksmith, Joseph Fossett. Joined in 1806 by her sister in law, Frances Hern, wife of Monticello wagoner David Hern, Jr., both women learned every aspect of the art of French cooking and the niceties of French etiquette from Julien and Lemaire. Long separations and brief reunions with their husbands strained both of their marriages as did the challenge of raising children while working seven days a week helping prepare elaborate meals for President Jefferson and his guests. When Jefferson left the Presidency in 1809, Edith Fossett and Frances Hern returned to Monticello, working in the French inspired kitchen for the next seventeen years. Étienne Lemaire assured Jefferson that his “two good girls” would serve Jefferson in the same style as Honoré Julien.

Preparing breakfast, dinner and evening snacks to Jefferson’s standards required long hours and attention to detail. Up to twenty people, including Jefferson, his extended family and steady stream of guests dined each day with a representative dinner consisting of “Rice soup, round of beef, turkey, mutton, ham, loin of veal, cutlets of mutton or veal, fried eggs, fried beef, a pie called macaroni, garden vegetables in season and ice cream for dessert accompanied by pudding, a great variety of fruit, plenty of wines."

Rising between 5 and 6 in the morning, Edith Fossett and Frances Hern would light the kitchen fires, prepare dough for breads and rolls, slice ham and make advance preparations for the evening meal. Ursula Hughes might join them to make pastries and Peter Hemings might assist in butchering. The Fossett and Hern children would be engaged in kitchen tasks (William and Peter Fossett, became prominent caterers in Cincinnati after they gained their freedom) and family members tended to the dairy adjacent to the kitchen. Jefferson’s enslaved butler, Burwell Colbert, managing all the household operations, would likely check on progress and supervise children from the Hemings, Gillette, Fossett and Hern family in transferring food from the kitchen to the dining room.

Following breakfast, kitchenware, dinnerware and utensils would be washed and dried and the work of preparing dinner would begin. Dinner was served promptly at 3:30 in the afternoon requiring advance planning to make the best use of the roasting spits and eight stew burners. The three to four hours period prior to dinner were a time to slaughter and hang fowl, beef, and lamb, scale fish and ensure sufficient garden vegetables were on hand. In the fall, curing and smoking ham required constant attention over a three-week period. Soups, entrees, sauces and vegetable side dishes would be prepared by Edith Fossett and Frances Hern with Peter Hemings making desserts and children such as Israel Gillette and Betsy-Ann Fossett on hand to peel and cut the garden vegetables, stir sauces, slice cheese and help transfer food from the main kitchen to the warming kitchen beneath the dining room. In the dining room, Burwell Colbert and his team of enslaved children, including Eston Hemings, set the tables for provided service à la française, a formal version of family style, with diners serving themselves.

During dinner, the enslaved kitchen staff would wash and clean the pots, pans, Dutch ovens and cooking utensils and prepare for the next days’ meals. Dinner would typically end at six in the evening, requiring dinnerware be cleaned and stored for the next day. At 8 in the evening, a light meal, snacks and beverages would be available for Jefferson’s family and guests, requiring an additional round of preparation and cleanup before Edith Fossett and Frances Hern could spend time with their families prior to bed.

For Monticello’s enslaved cooks and their families, the cycle of early rising and fifteen-hour workdays, seven days a week continued from 1809 through Jefferson’s death in 1826.  Hidden from view of Jefferson’s guests who enjoyed the results of their labor, Edith Fossett and Frances Hern were sold along with their children at the 1827 auction of Monticello’s enslaved community to pay Jefferson’s debts.

Research & images & much more are directly available from the Monticello website - to begin exploring, just click the highlighted acknowledgment above. 

South Carolina - 1750 Charleston Description & Early Agriculture in Georgia

Rev. Johann Martin Bolzius (1703-1765), leader of the German Lutheran settlement of Ebenezer, Georgia, wrote of Charleston in 1750, "It is expensive and costly to live in Charlestown...The splendor, lust, and opulence there has grown almost to the limit...Its European clothes it would have to change according to the often changing Charlestown fashion. Otherwise there would be much humiliation and mockery."

Rev. Johann Martin Bolzius, Reliable Answer to Some Submitted Questions Concerning the Land Carolina . . . , 1750, excerpt. 

Bolzius was a leader of the German Lutheran settlement of Ebenezer, Georgia, founded in 1734. Lutheran minister Boltzius, along with religious refugees from Salzburger, founded the settlement of Ebenezer near Savannah in the early1730s as a religious utopia. Boltzius hoped to create a successful agricultural economic system that was not dependent upon slavery.

In Georgia, Bolzius was intensely interested in gardening & agriculture. He urged the adoption of new agricultural technology and helped the struggling community to construct a gristmill, a rice mill, and a sawmill to supplement their funds. He encouraged his wife to experiment with the cultivation of black and white mulberry trees to help the women of Ebenezer develop a small-scale silk production.

Boltzius (sometimes spelled "Bolzius") was senior minister to the Salzburger community at Ebenezer for 3 decades (1735-65). He was a vigorous opponent of slavery during the formative years of the Georgia colony. He claimed that the Salzburgers required his energy & time more than did a burial plot of ground. He died at New Ebenezer on November 19, 1765.

19c Home Remedies from the Garden - Headache

Woman with a Collard Leaf on her Head to Cure a Headache by Mary Lyde Hicks Williams 

Mary Lyde Hicks William (1866-1959) Mary's paintings of freed slaves reflect daily life she saw on her uncle's plantation during Reconstruction in North Carolina. 

Garden to Table -

Peter Jakob Horemans (1700-1776)  Gentleman at a Table Laden with Food (and a Flower) from the Garden   Detail

1764 Plants in 18C Colonial American Gardens - Virginian John Randolph (727-1784) - Currants

A Treatise on Gardening Written by a native of this State (Virginia)
Author was John Randolph (1727-1784)
Written in Williamsburg, Virginia about 1765
Published by T. Nicolson, Richmond, Virginia. 1793
The only known copy of this booklet is found in the Special Collections of the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Currants

Currants, or Corinths, so called from a near resemblance to a Corinthian Grape, (Ribes by the botanists) have many species; but the two principal are the red and white, of which the Dutch sorts are chiefly propagated in England. They are to be propagated from cuttings, planted in the fall, (September) and are directed to remain two years, when they are to be removed into beds, and planted in rows ten feet asunder, and four feet from each other. But the cuttings will succeed as well if planted in a rich light bed, to stand without any removal at all. They will grow either against walls, pales, or in espaliers. If some are planted against a south wall, or in a warm place, and othcrs in a colder situation under a north wall, the fruit will last a long time, as there will be a succession. The fruit grows on the former year's wood, on small snags, which come out of the old wood, wherefore in pruning, these snags ought to be preserved, and the young shoots shortened in proportion to their strength. In pruning, cut off the old wood, and not in heads. I find no directions as to keeping them on single stalks, but I believe this method is best. They will grow in any soil or situation, even under trees, though the open air is best. Your plantation must be renewed in seven or eight years.

Garden to Table -

Woman Bundling Asparagus, 1771, John Atkinson (British artist, fl 1770-1775      Detail

Garden to Table - Home-Made Five Currant Wines + a Currant Shrub Recipe

 

John Greenwood (American artist, 1727-1792) Sea Captains Carousing, 1758.  Detail

John Custis (1678-1749), a prominent citizen of Williamsburg, apparently had a most impressive garden. John Bartram, the Philadelphia naturalist and botanist, commented to Peter Collinson that Custis’ garden was second only to that of John Clayton, the English born Virginia naturalist of Gloucester County. The currants that John Custis grew in his 1730s - 40s gardens could easily been transformed into several wines. 

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines Cordials & Liqueurs 1909 by Helen S. Wright

CURRANT SHRUB
Take white currants when quite ripe, pick them off the stalks, and bruise them. Strain out the juice through a cloth, and to two quarts of the juice put two pounds of loaf sugar; when it is dissolved, add one gallon of rum, then strain through a flannel bag that will keep in the jelly, and it will run off clear. Then bottle for use.

CURRANT WINE
Take four gallons of currants, not too ripe, and strip them into an earthen stein that has a cover to it. Then take two and one-half gallons of water and five and one-half pounds of double refined sugar; boil the sugar and water together, skim it, and pour it boiling hot on the currants, letting it stand forty-eight hours; then strain it through a flannel bag into the stein again, let it stand a fortnight to settle, and bottle it out.

CURRANT WINE, NO. 2
The currants should be fully ripe when picked. Put them into a large tub, in which they should remain a day or two, then crush with the hands, unless you have a small patent wine-press, in which they should not be pressed too much, or the stems will be bruised, and impart a disagreeable taste to the juice. If the hands are used, put the crushed fruit, after the juice has been poured off, in a cloth or sack and press out the remaining juice. Put the juice back into the tub after cleansing it, where it should remain about three days, until the first stages of fermentation are over, and remove once or twice a day the scum copiously arising to the top. Then put the juice in a vessel,—a demijohn, keg, or barrel,—of a size to suit the quantity made, and to each quart of juice add three pounds of the best yellow sugar, and soft water sufficient to make a gallon. Thus, ten quarts of juice and thirty pounds of sugar will give you ten gallons of wine, and so on in proportion. Those who do not like sweet wine can reduce the quantity of sugar to two and one-half, or who wish it very sweet, raise to three and one-half pounds per gallon. The vessel must be full, and the bung or stopper left off until fermentation ceases, which will be in twelve or fifteen days. Meanwhile, the cask must be filled up daily with currant juice left over, as fermentation throws out the impure matter. When fermentation ceases, rack the wine off carefully, either from the spigot or by a siphon, and keep running all the time. Cleanse the cask thoroughly with boiling water, then return the wine, bung up tightly, and let it stand four or five months, when it will be fit to drip, and can be bottled if desired. All the vessels, casks, etc., should be perfectly sweet, and the whole operation should be done with an eye to cleanliness. In such event, every drop of brandy or other spirituous liquors added will detract from the flavor of the wine, and will not in the least degree increase its keeping qualities. Currant wine made in this way will keep for an age.

CURRANT WINE, NO. 3
To every pailful of currants, on the stem, put one pailful of water; mash and strain. To each gallon of the mixture of juice and water add three and one-quarter pounds of sugar. Mix well and put into your cask, which should be placed in the cellar, on the tilt, that it may be racked off in October, without stirring up the sediment. Two bushels of currants will make one barrel of wine. Four gallons of the mixture of juice and water will, after thirteen pounds of sugar are added, make five gallons of wine. The barrel should be filled within three inches of the bung, which must be made air tight by placing wet clay over it after it is driven in. Pick your currants when ripe on a fair day, crush them well, and to every gallon of juice add two gallons of water and three pounds of sugar; if you wish it sweeter, add another one-half pound of sugar. Mix all together in some large vessel, then dip out into earthen jars. Let it stand to ferment in some cool place, skimming it every other morning. In about ten days it will be ready to strain off; bottle and seal, or put in a cask and cork tight. The longer you keep it the better it will be.

CURRANT WINE, NO. 4
Into a five gallon keg put five quarts of currant juice, fifteen pounds of sugar, and fill up with water. Let it stand in a cool place until sufficiently worked, and then bung up tight. You can let it remain in the cask, and draw out as you want to use it.

CURRANT OR GOOSEBERRY WINE, WITHOUT BOILING
Take ten quarts of fruit, bruise it, and add to it five quarts of water. Stir it well together, and let it stand twelve hours; then strain it through a coarse canvas bag or hair sieve, add eleven pounds of good Lisbon sugar, and stir it well. Put the pulp of the fruit into a gallon more water; stir it about and let it stand twelve hours. Then strain to the above, again stirring it; cover the tub with a sack. In a day or two the wine will begin to ferment. When the whole surface is covered with a thick, yeasty froth, begin to skim it on to a sieve. What runs through may be returned to the wine. Do this from time to time for several days, till no more yeast forms. Then put it into the cask.

Old-Time Recipes for Home Made Wines is a cookbook for those who want to make their own wines & liqueurs from available ingredients, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, & shrubs from local gardens, farms, & orchards. It includes ingredients & instructions for making & fermenting spirits, from wine & ale to sherry, brandy, cordials, & even beer. 

Colonial Era Cookbooks

1615, New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell (London) 

1798, American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, CT)

1803, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter (New York, NY)

1807, A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Eliza Rundell (Boston, MA)

1808, New England Cookery, Lucy Emerson (Montpelier, VT)

Helpful Secondary Sources

America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking/Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Colonial Kitchens, Their Furnishings, and Their Gardens/Frances Phipps Hawthorn; 1972

Early American Beverages/John Hull Brown   Rutland, Vt., C. E. Tuttle Co 1996 

Early American Herb Recipes/Alice Cooke Brown  ABC-CLIO  Westport, United States

Food in Colonial and Federal America/Sandra L. Oliver

Home Life in Colonial Days/Alice Morse Earle (Chapter VII: Meat and Drink) New York : Macmillan Co., ©1926.

A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America/James E. McWilliams New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.