Virginian William Byrd II (1674-1744) writes of Walking in his Gardens

Virginian William Byrd II (1674-1744) painted by Hans Hysing 1724

Colonel William Byrd II (1674–1744), a Virginia planter & slave owner, kept a journal of his life, when he returned to take possession of the family estate Westover, after his father's death in 1704. The early years of that journal were later transcribed in the 1940s & became "The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712." William Byrd II had been sent to study in England, when he was 7.

Upon Byrd's return to Virginia in 1705, he began his search for a wife; as many male gentry of the period, his goal was not only to find companionship, but to increase his wealth. Lucy Parke was an obvious candidate. Not only was she beautiful, but her father, Colonel Daniel Parke II, was wealthy & politically connected. Lucy had already reached the age of 18, & her mother was concerned, that she would not find a husband. When Byrd wrote a letter to the Parkes asking to court Lucy, they immediately accepted. The couple soon wed.

Soon after their wedding, Lucy found her husband to be incapable of the emotional & intellectual relationship she desired... 

Lucy & William did quarrel over other matters, particularly about the running of the household. William wanted a patriarchal household, while Lucy wanted to have some say over household matters. The two disagreed on whose power reigned over the various parts of the estate. Lucy refused to conform to the traditional 18C role of the submissive wife & wished to assert her authority over slaves & servants. William often rebuked her in front of others, when she acted upon this inclination, visibly undermining her authority.

William also required absolute sovereignty over the library he inherited from his father & continued to expand. To him, the library was a very intimate & personal place, one in which Lucy did not belong. He disliked her entering the library at all, & he loathed her tendency to borrow books, when he was away.

Despite the couple's differences, they seemed to be in love. When she died of smallpox in 1715, Byrd suffered greatly.  He blamed himself for her death, telling friends & family that he felt God was punishing him for his pride in his wife's beauty & likeability.

Passages in his early journal recount his fascination with his library, his garden, & women other than his wife. Byrd gathered the most valuable library in the Virginia Colony, numbering some 4,000 books. His attention to refining his garden also was noted. Early in 18C Pennsylvania, botanist John Bartram (1699-1777) wrote to English botanist Peter Collinson (1674-1768), on July 18, 1740, about Colonel William Byrd's (1674-1744) grounds at Westover in Virginia. "Colonel Byrd is very prodigalle...new Gates, gravel Walks, hedges, & cedars finely twined & a little green house with two or three orange trees...he hath the finest seat in Virginia."

These selections from William Byrd II's early journal reflect his daily activities in his garden & record only a few of the other events of each daily entry. Byrd often walked in his garden with visitors to Westover & with his wife.  The garden was a spaced away from others, where they could discuss governmental, economic, & personal issues with the assurance of some privacy.

Wednesday, May 4, 1709
A ship arrived in the York River about 9 o'clock. Captain Berkeley came to see us, who is a very good-humored man. We walked in the garden about an hour; then we went to dinner.

Friday, May 13, 1709
In the evening I took a walk about the plantation and in the garden where I ate abundance of cherries. 

Friday, May 20, 1709
John Pleasants and Isham Randolph came to see me and dined with us.  In the afternoon we played at billiards and I won half a crown of Isham Randolph. Then we walked in the garden and ate some cherries. 

Saturday, May 21, 1709
I ate mutton and sallet for dinner. In the evening they went away and I took a walk about the plantation. I was out of humor at my wife's climbing over the pales of the garden, now she is with child. 

Sunday, May 22, 1709
In the evening I walked in the garden. I read some news. I said my prayers. 

Thursday, May 26, 1709
He went away in the evening and I walked about the plantation. I said my prayers and had good health, good thoughts, but was out of humor with Tom for the disorder of the garden.

Thursday, June 2, 1709
I ate nothing but beans and bacon for dinner. In the evening we rode out to take the air. When we returned I took a walk in the garden till it was dark. 

Monday, June 6, 1709
I said my prayers and ate milk for breakfast, and raspberries. I ate pork and turnips for dinner.  Mumford went away about 5 o'clock and I walked in the garden. 

Thursday, July 7, 1709
In the evening we took a walk in the garden.

Monday, July 25, 1709
In the evening it left off raining and I walked in the garden. 

Sunday, July 31, 1709
In the evening Mr C-s came to see me and we drank a syllabub. We walked in the garden till late. 

Friday, September 23, 1709
In the afternoon I was angry with Grills for being sick and not telling me of it and with Tom for not doing well in the garden. 

Friday, October 14, 1709
I ate fresh pork and sallet for dinner.  In the evening I took a walk in the garden. 

Tuesday, November 15, 1709
The rain did not hold up till towards evening when I took a walk in the garden. 

Sunday, December 4, 1709
I danced my dance, and then took a walk in the garden because the weather was very tempting for so late in the year. God continue it for the service of those that have but little corn.  In the afternoon I ate an apple and then took a long walk about the great pasture with my wife and I found they finished stacking.

Friday, March 10, 1710
About 12 Mr Isham Randolph came. They walked in the garden till dinner.  In the evening we took a walk about the plantation.

Friday, March 24, 1710
We took a walk in the morning, then we had some sack and toast, after which we took leave and returned home where we found all well, thank God. I ate pigeon and asparagus for dinner. In the afternoon I took a little nap. Then Mr Randolph and I took a walk to Mr Harrison's who had been very sick but was something better, and young Drury Stith was sick there likewise. We stayed there about an hour and then walked home and walked with my wife in the garden. 

Tuesday, May 16, 1710
After dinner we ate cherries and talked till about 6 o'clock and then I took leave and rode home, where I found all my family well except my son, who still had a fever. It rained very much till about 2 o'clock. I took a walk about the garden. 

Saturday, June 3, 1710
I rose at 6 o'clock and as soon as I came out news was brought that the child was very ill. We went out and found him just ready to die and he died about 8 o'clock in the morning. God gives and God takes away; blessed be the name of God.  In the afternoon it rained and was fair again in the evening. My poor wife and I walked in the garden. 

Monday, June 5, 1710
My wife continued very melancholy, notwithstanding I comforted her as well as I could.  Then we walked in the garden. 

Sunday, June 11, 1710
It continued to rain so that we could not go to church. My wife was still disconsolate.  In the afternoon we took a little walk but the rain soon sent us home. In the evening we took a walk in the garden because the grass was wet. 

Thursday, June 15, 1710
It rained this afternoon very hard with a little wind and thunder. This hindered my walking anywhere but in the garden. 

Monday, July 10, 1710
hen we talked till 6 when the company went away and we walked in the garden. 

Thursday, August 10, 1710
Mr [Gee] with a present of grapes.  In the afternoon we walked about the garden and Major Burwell was very well pleased with everything. He and the rest of the company stayed till the evening when we walked in the garden.

Saturday, August 12, 1710
It rained and hindered our walk; however we walked a little in the garden. 

Sunday, August 20, 1710
About 11 o'clock we went to church and had a good sermon from Mr Anderson. We had some watermelon in the churchyard and some cider to refresh the people.  In the evening we took a walk but only in the garden for fear of the rain. 

Monday, September 11, 1710
My wife and I played at billiards. My wife and I walked in the garden. 

Wednesday, September 20, 1710 I received at the landing with Mr C-s and gave him three guns. Mr Clayton and Mr Robinson came with him. After he had drunk some wine he walked in the garden and into the library till it was dark. Then we went to supper and ate some blue wing. After supper we sat and talked till 9 o'clock. 

Sunday, December 17, 1710
I took a walk in the garden. 

Sunday, December 31, 1710
In the afternoon I looked over my sick people and then took a walk about the plantation. The weather was very warm still. My wife walked with me and when she came back she was very much indisposed and went to bed. 

Friday, January 19, 1711
Then I went to plant trees in the garden, and in the pasture.  Then I went and planted more trees and afterwards took a walk about the plantation. 

Thursday, February 15, 1711
I read some English and took a walk in the garden. I ate roast mutton for dinner. In the afternoon I walked about the plantation till the evening and then my cousin Harrison came and when she had stayed here about an hour my wife and I walked home with her and did not return home till 8 o'clock.

Monday, April 30, 1711
I met with nothing extraordinary in my journey and got home about 11 o'clock and found all well, only my wife was melancholy. We took a walk in the garden and pasture. We discovered that by the contrivance of Nurse and Anaka Prue got in at the cellar window and stole some strong beer and cider and wine. In the evening I took a walk about the plantation and found things in good order. At night I ate some bread and butter.  I gave my wife a powerful flourish and gave her great ecstasy and refreshment.

Monday, May 7, 1711
My wife and I walked in the garden. 

Wednesday, May 9, 1711
I took a walk into the garden and ate some cherries. My wife and daughter were both indisposed, the first with breeding, and the last with a fever.  I ate some pork and peas. In the afternoon I took another walk and then returned and settled my accounts. Then I read in the Tatler till the evening and then my wife, being better, took a walk with me in the garden. 

Thursday, May 10, 1711
It continued to rain till about 8 and then cleared up for a little while. I took a walk to look over my people.  My daughter was a little better, thank God, but my wife was indisposed by fits as women are in her condition. I went onto the garden and ate some cherries.  In the afternoon it rained again and hindered my taking a walk so that I took a nap. In the evening I took a walk and ate some cherries at M-n-s. The season has happened so late this year that cherries are three weeks more backward than they used to be.  I wrote a letter to the Governor to send by Tom with some cherries.

Sunday, May 13, 1711
In the evening we walked in the garden and at night we drank a bottle of wine. 

Wednesday, May 16, 1711
Then I went into the garden to eat some cherries.  In the afternoon came Frank Eppes to bring me his father's bills for the quitrents. He stayed here till about 6 o'clock and then went with me to see the gates and my wife came and walked with me. Just as I was going to bed the Captain of the salt ship came and stayed about half an hour with me and I gave him a bottle of cider... 

Wednesday, May 23, 1711
In the evening the master of the salt ship came and he agreed next week to send up 100 barrels of salt to my store at Appomattox. I walked with him in the garden and said my prayers. 

Tuesday, May 29, 1711
The company went to breakfast but I could eat nothing with them and therefore walked in the garden. 

Saturday, June 2, 1711
I ate beans and bacon for dinner. In the evening we walked in the garden, because it was too wet to walk about the plantation. 

Wednesday, June 6, 1711
I walked in the garden because I could not walk in the pasture. 

Wednesday, June 27, 1711
In the evening it rained a little, enough to hinder me from walking about the plantation. However, I walked in the garden. I was a little out of order today and had a small looseness.

Wednesday, July 18, 1711
I ventured to eat a pear. I ate some broth and lamb for dinner and ate a great deal. In the afternoon I ate some Virginia cherries and some watermelon. I took a little walk in the garden. 

Thursday, July 19, 1711
I ate some Virginia cherries.  I settled some accounts and took a walk in the garden. 

Friday, July 20, 1711
I sent Tom to Drury Stith's for watermelons.  In the afternoon Tom returned and brought four watermelons, one of which we ate and then wrote more letters till 5 o'clock, when I ate more eggs and in the evening I took a walk to the store and in the garden.

Saturday, July 21, 1711
I wrote more of my accounts till 6 o'clock and then ate some more of my chicken. Then I took a walk in the garden. 

Saturday, July 28, 1711
In the evening I drank some warm milk and walked in the garden till it was almost dark. 

Tuesday, July 31, 1711
In the afternoon I settled more accounts and read some French till the evening and then I walked in the garden because it threatened rain and as soon as it was dark it began to rain and thundered very much and did so good part of the night. 

Wednesday, August 1, 1711
In the evening it threatened more rain. However I took a walk in the garden. The rain blew over. 

Monday, August 13, 1711
In the evening I walked a little in the garden. 

Tuesday, August 14, 1711
I read some French and walked about till dinner, and then I ate some crab and four poached eggs.  I ate some watermelon and peaches and drank some canary. . In the evening I ate a poached egg and then took a walk in the garden. 

Wednesday, August 15, 1711
In the evening I wrote a letter to the Governor, to make my excuses for not going to council tomorrow. Then I ate more snipe and took a walk in the garden.

Monday, August 20, 1711
I sent further orders to Colonel Frank Eppes about the militia and gave them to Colonel Littlebury by word of mouth and walked about in the garden pretty much without being tired. 

Tuesday, August 21, 1711
I ventured to dress myself today and was very easy and well. I ate some mutton for dinner. In the afternoon I prepared some infusions of the bark to take at the end of the week. I read some French and in the evening I wrote to Colonel Frank Eppes to send with a copy of the Governor's letter to me. I took a walk in the garden.

Wednesday, August 22, 1711
I slept well last night and could hardly wake this morning. I took a walk in the garden. I ate some squirrel and onions for dinner. Then I took a walk in the garden a little while but the air was a little too damp for me. 

Friday, August 24, 1711
In the evening I took a walk to the point and in the garden. 

Sunday, August 26, 1711
In the evening it rained a good shower after which I took a walk in the garden. 

Wednesday, August 29, 1711
In the evening I took a walk in the garden. Mr Chamberlayne brought me a letter from Robin Mumford that told me he was better. After it was dark came Dr Cocke but he brought no news. I ate some bread and butter with him and we drank a bottle of wine. 

Friday, August 31, 1711
Then came Captain H-n-t the master of the ship from Mr Offley and brought me 77 empty bottles from the vessel that had been taken and lost my cider. In an hour he went away and then I put my library in order till the evening and then I took a walk in the garden. 


Saturday, September 1, 1711
A man brought some peaches for which I likewise ordered him a pair of wool cards. Then I took a walk into the garden because it rained a good shower and made it wet without. 

Tuesday, September 4, 1711
In the afternoon the company went away about 4 o'clock and then I read a little Latin and afterwards took a walk about the plantation and finished my walk in the garden. I was a little displeased with my wife for talking impertinently. 

Monday, November 12, 1711
I rose about 7 o'clock and said my prayers. Then we ate our breakfast of milk and took our leave and proceeded to Westover, where we found all well, thank God Almighty. Mr Graeme was pleased with the place exceedingly. I showed him the library and then we walked in the garden till dinner and I ate some wild duck. In the afternoon I paid money to several men on accounts of Captain H-n-t and then we took a walk about the plantation and I was displease with John about the boat which he was building. In the evening we played at piquet and I won a little. Then Mr Graeme and I drank a bottle of pressed wine which he liked very well, as he had done the white madeira. About 10 o'clock I went to bed...

Friday, January 4, 1712
I took a walk in the garden till dinner. I ate no meat this day but only fruit. In the afternoon I weighed some money and then went into the new orchard to trim some trees and stayed there till it was dark almost and then took a little walk about the plantation. 

Saturday, January 19, 1712
I rose about 7 o'clock and read a chapter in Hebrew and some Greek in Lucian. I said my prayers and ate boiled milk for breakfast. I danced my dance. The weather [was] cloudy and rained a little. In the afternoon it held up and I took a walk to see my people plant peach trees. In the evening I took a walk about the plantation.  I dreamed a mourning coach drove into my garden and stopped at the house door.

Thursday, March 6, 1712
I rose about 7 o'clock and read nothing because of the company. However I said a short prayer and drank chocolate for breakfast. Then we walked about the garden because it was good weather and then we played at billiards and I won 3 shillings. In the afternoon we played again at billiards and then Colonel Hill went away and we took a walk about the plantation till the evening and then Mr Lightfoot and Mr Jimmy Roscow took their leave and went to Mrs Harrison's, one to make love to the mother and the other the daughter.

Monday, March 17, 1712
About 10 o'clock I took a walk in the garden and then settled several accounts and read some English in Milton till dinner and I ate some roast shoat but I dined by myself with nobody but the child, for Mrs Dunn was sick likewise. In the afternoon I went into the garden and trimmed the vines and was angry with Tom for being so lazy there. Then I returned and read some English in Milton till the evening and then I took a walk about the plantation and found things in pretty good order. 

Saturday, March 22, 1712
It rained a little almost all day so that I could not walk out.  In the evening I walked about the garden because the grass was wet everywhere else. 

Thursday, April 10, 1712
The weather was very clear and warm but it had rained in the night and thundered. My wife and I took a walk about the garden. In the afternoon I took a walk to see my young trees. Then I wrote a letter to England and afterwards took a walk about the plantation and saw the people at work in the churchyard which Captain D-k was pale in.  At night I ate some bread and butter and drank some cider and my wife and I romped for half an hour till we went to bed. 

Friday, May 2, 1712
In the afternoon we opened more goods till the evening and then I took a walk with my wife in the garden and found things in good order there. Then I took a walk about the plantation. I...wrote a letter to England and settled several accounts.

Tuesday, May 6, 1712
Then I took a walk in the garden because it was too late to walk about the plantation. I neglected to say my prayers but had good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thank God Almighty.

Thursday, May 8, 1712
My people washed the sheep in order to clean them for shearing tomorrow. In the afternoon I set my closet in order and afterwards read some Greek till the evening and then I took a walk about the plantation. At night I ate some strawberries and milk and after eating took a walk in the garden. 

Thursday, May 22, 1712
In the afternoon I wrote two more accounts till the evening and then took a walk in the garden. I said my prayers and was reconciled to my wife and gave her a flourish in token of it.

Monday, May 26, 1712
In the afternoon I wrote more letters till the evening and then took a walk about the plantation with the ladies and afterwards Mr Catesby and I walked in the garden. 

Tuesday, June 3, 1712
The company went away about 4 o'clock after being very merry and I took a little walk in the garden and the library. 

Thursday, June 5, 1712
After dinner I found myself better and walked about the garden all the evening, and Mr Catesby directed how I should mend my garden and put it into a better fashion than it is at present. 

Friday, June 13, 1712
 In the afternoon I put things again in order in the library and then walked in the garden. I had a small quarrel with my wife concerning the [nastiness] of the nursery but I would not be provoked. In the evening Mr Catesby and I took a walk about the plantation and I drank some warm milk at the cow pen an there discovered that one of the wenches had stolen some apples. 

Monday, August 4, 1712
In the afternoon I took a walk in the garden, it being very cool and then I read more law till the evening and then I took a walk to see the house, noe the roof was put up this day, notwithstanding the rain which fell often today. 

Saturday, August 23, 1712
In the afternoon I put several things in order in the library and then settled some accounts and afterwards read some Latin till the evening and then I took a walk about my plantation, and then walked with my wife in the garden, where she quarreled with me about Mrs Dunn. 

Sunday, September 14, 1712
The company went away about 5 o'clock between which and dinner there was abundance of rain. In the evening I took a walk in the garden.

Garden to Table - Home-Made Brandy Shrub with Raisins

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

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

FINE BRANDY SHRUB with RAISINS
Take one ounce of citric acid, one pint of porter, one and one-half pints of raisin wine, one gill of orange-flower water, one gallon of good brandy, two and one-quarter quarts of water. First, dissolve the citric acid in the water, then add to it the brandy; next, mix the raisin wine, porter, and orange-flower water together; and lastly, mix the whole, and in a week or ten days it will be ready for drinking and of a very mellow flavor.

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.

Garden to Table - Home-Made Juniper Berry Wine made with Whiskey

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

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

JUNIPER-BERRY WINE
Take four and one-half gallons of cold soft water, seven pounds Malaga or Smyrna raisins, two and one-quarter quarts juniper-berries, one-half ounce red tartar, one-half handful of wormwood, one-half handful sweet marjoram, one pint whiskey or more. Ferment for ten or twelve days.

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.

17C Garden to Table - French Hugenots in the American Colonies Growing Grapes & Making Wine

 

From Thomas Pinney. A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition. 

Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1989.

In 1685 a large migration of Protestants from France had taken place in response to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, whereby Louis XIV suddenly withdrew from the Huguenots the legal protection that they had secured a century earlier. Though the French government tried to prevent a Huguenot emigration, thousands left the country. 

There was a general scramble among the proprietors & promoters of American colonies to attract these unlucky people, for they were intelligent, industrious, skilled, well-behaved, & right-thinking—the ideal colonists. Landlords in Virginia, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, & Massachusetts all tried to put their attractions before various Huguenot communities. Virginia managed to secure some: as early as 1686 one Virginia promoter, with an eye upon the Huguenots, advertised his property in Stafford County as "naturally inclined to vines." 

A Huguenot traveler, Durand de Dauphiné, visiting Stafford County, Virginia the next year, was much struck by the promising terrain & by the wild vines there; he made, he says, some "good" wine from the grapes, & recommended them for cultivation. His account was published in Europe in 1687, but it apparently did not succeed in attracting any Huguenots & did not lead to  winegrowing development in Stafford County.

In 1700 a large body of Huguenots arrived in Virginia under the special auspices of King William & settled on a 10,000-acre tract along the James River donated by the colony. Here, at Manakin Town (near present-day Richmond) they had succeeded by 1702 in making a "claret" from native grapes that was reported to be "pleasant, strong, & full body'd wine." 

The information, recorded by the historian & viticulturist Virginian Robert Beverley, was evidence to him that the native vines needed only to be properly cultivated to become the source of excellent wine & evidently had much to do in starting him on his own experiments. The opinion of Beverley is confirmed by the Swiss traveler Louis Michel, who visited Manakin Town in 1702 & was impressed by the incredibly large vines growing there, from which, he wrote, the French "make fairly good wine, a beginning has been made to graft them, the prospects are fine."

The prospects soon changed for the worse: according to the Carolina historian John Lawson, the French at Manakin Town found themselves hemmed in by other colonists, who took up all the land around them, & so most of them departed for Carolina, where their minister assured Lawson that "their intent was to propagate vines, as far as their present circumstances would permit, provided they could get any slips of vines, that would do."

In Pennsylvania, the 1st winemaker whose name we know was the Huguenot Gabriel Rappel, whose "good claret" pleased William Penn in 1683; another of the earliest was Jacob Pellison, also a Huguenot, as was Andrew Doz, who planted & tended William Penn's vineyard of French vines at Lemon Hill on the Schuylkill. 

Doz, naturalized in England in 1682, came over to Pennsylvania in that same year; Penn called him a "hot" man but honest. The vineyard, which was begun in 1683, stood on 200 acres of land & was described in 1684 by the German Pastorius as a "fine vineyard of French vines." "Its growth," Pastorius added, "is a pleasure to behold & brought into my reflections, as I looked upon it, the fifteenth chapter of John."

Two years later, another witness reported that "the Governours Vineyard goes on very well." In 1690 the property was patented to Doz himself for a rental of 100 vine cuttings payable annually to Penn as proprietor.

William Penn himself was particularly active in seeking to attract Huguenot emigrants to Pennsylvania, & used the prospect of viticulture as a recruiting inducement. His promotional tract of 1683, A Letter from William Penn . . . Containing a General Description of the Said Province , was translated into French & published at The Hague in order to reach the French Protestant community exiled in the Low Countries. 

In his new province, Penn wrote, were "grapes of diverse sorts" that "only want skilful Vinerons to make good use of them." Penn's pamphlet, though written with an eye on prospective French colonists, is ostensibly addressed to the Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania, incorporated by Penn in London; he concludes by telling this body that the great objects of the colony, the "Promotion of Wine" & the manufacture of linen, are likely to be best served by Frenchmen: "To that end, I would advise you to send for some thousands of plants out of France, with some Vinerons." 

Penn's efforts at recruiting had good results. Many religious refugees made their way to the colony, Huguenots among them; but the French were soon assimilated into the general community rather than maintaining a separate identity. They may have undertaken viticulture at first, but their dispersal through the community meant that those who persisted at it did so as individuals. As Penn told the Board of Trade in 1697, in Pennsylvania "both Germans & French make wine yearly, white & red, but not in quantity for export."

The best known of Huguenot settlements in colonial America are those of New York, at New Paltz & New Rochelle, the one going back to the mid-17C, the other founded towards the end of it. In neither does there seem to have been any attempt at winegrowing, despite the likelihood of their sites & the practice of the neighboring colonies in Massachusetts & Rhode Island.

Seeds & Plants - Another use for corn from the Fields

Man Feeding a Bear an Ear of Corn; PA c. 1840; American Folk Art Museum

Seeds & Plants - History Blooms at Monticello - Fall's Connecticut Field Pumpkin

Connecticut Field Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo)

New World field pumpkins like this 19th century variety were grown in Thomas Jefferson's fields both for the Monticello table as well as for feeding the workhorses, cattle, sheep, and pigs in late summer. Connecticut Field Pumpkin is a traditional pumpkin good for pies, with yellow flesh and soft skin.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Seeds & Plants - History Blooms at Monticello - Oil from Sesame & a few "Potatoe-Pumpkins"

Note from Monticello's Peggy Cornett

Peggy tells us today that "The Upper Ground Sweet Potato Winter Squash and Sesame seed pods are maturing and ripening at the foot of the Monticello vegetable garden pavilion.

In 1790 Thomas Jefferson described a winter squash that resembled a pumpkin and tasting like the sweet potato, calling it "potatoe-pumpkin." Sesame, which Jefferson called “benne,” was cultivated at Monticello for many years and pressed for oil. Jefferson wrote in 1811, “I did not believe there existed so perfect a substitute for olive oil.”

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

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.

Seeds & Plants - Plants to decorate with in Early American Gardens - Sea Lavender was Dried in the Fall

Sea Lavender (Statice) (Limonium latifolium)

Limonium latifolium bears clouds of delicate, lavender-blue flowers that are perfect for arrangements, both fresh and dried, and also blend beautifully in rock gardens, coastal gardens, and other well-draining sites. In The English Flower Garden, first published in 1883, William Robinson called this larger species of Sea Lavender “the finest of all.” 

Long admired as a cut flower, Statice was included in the Garden Notes of 1793 by Lady Jean Skipwith of Virginia, who noted “dried - it retains its colour which renders it ornamental for a Mantel-piece in Winter.”

Gardening Books & the Landscape of Virginia's Lady Jean Skipwith 1748-1826

Lady Jean Skipwith (1748-1826) was born Jane Miller; her father Hugh Miller was a Scottish tobacco merchant who lived in Virginia from 1746 to 1760, and her mother Jane was a member of the well-known Bolling family. Following his wife's death, Hugh Miller returned to Glasgow with his 5 young children; he died there in 1762. Jean (she had changed her name) lived in Scotland until around 1786, then moved briefly to Liverpool before returning to the Elm Hill plantation in Virginia, which she inherited from her father. 

Prestwould, Clarksville, Virginia.  In 1788, Jean married English-born Sir Peyton Skipwith (1740-1805) of Mecklenburg County, VA. Skipwith, one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, had previously been married to Jean's sister Anne (1742/3-1779). Lady Jean gave birth to 4 children in 5 years (all after the age of 40). By 1797 she moved her family from Elm Hill to her husband's new plantation, Prestwould, which still stands. Detailed records of household purchases and garden notes (not to mention her library records) reveal Lady Jean's varied interests. Following her husband's death in 1805, Lady Jean remained at Prestwould until she died in 1826, aged 78.

Sitting high above the merger of the Dan and Stanton Rivers in Virginia, is the family house of Sir Peyton Skipwith  Built by slave labor in 1794, in a Georgian style, Prestwould Plantation remains one of the most complete gentry homes in Virginia. When the house was built, the countryside surrounding it was still a frontier. Stone walls and metal gates surround the lawn. Some original outbuildings and Lady Jean's Garden remain. An original two-family slave house still stands on the property.

Lady Jean not only ran the plantation after her husband's death, but also maintained extensive records of her gardening activities -- what she grew in her gardens, as well as local native plants found on the property. She had a large garden that was based on the traditional English design, but she placed it to the East of the entrance to the house, so that it had a position of prominence and announced to visitors that the gardens were important at Prestwould. She designed terraced garden beds falling toward the family cemetery. 

Lady Jean's gardening records indicate that she found & used numerous Native American plants, such as columbines, bloodroot, Solomon's seal, fire pinks, blue eyed grass, monk's hood, butterflyweed, spring beauty, and Virginia bluebells in her gardens. She also planted Helleborus foetidus, candy tuft, rose of sharon, lantana, mock orange, lilacs, French marigolds, and Lady Banks roses. French marigolds were all the rage in 1791, when they were featured in William Curtis' Botanical Magazine, and Lady Jean accurately described them as "Striped French Marigold" in her records.

Lady Jean's Garden House.  In an 1805 letter to St. George Tucker, Lady Jean's daughter described her mother's gardens: "A spacious, fine garden, to the cultivation of which she is totally devoted -- if you are fond of gardening of flowers and shrubs, as well as fine vegetables, you would delight to see her garden..."

Jean Skipwith's library is one of the very few known southern women's libraries from the colonial period, and is certainly the largest collection assembled by a Virginia woman. Although little is known of Jean Skipwith's education, her passion for gardens and books is obvious. Numerous invoices, lists and inventories, most contained in the Skipwith Family Papers in the library of the College of William and Mary, have allowed the library to be outlined in great detail. 

A bibliography of the collection can be found in Mildred K. Abraham, "The Library of Lady Jean Skipwith: A Book Collection from the Age of Jefferson." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 91:3 (July, 1983), pp. 296-347. The records included here are those from that bibliography, which have been updated where possible and necessary. Abraham identified three major phases of book collecting: from 1781 - 1788, mostly in Liverpool and Scotland before her return to Virginia; from 1788 - 1805, the years of her married life; and from 1806 - 1826, her busiest collecting period. 

During her years in Virginia, Skipwith continued to buy books from London, but also ordered widely from dealers in Petersburg, Richmond, Raleigh, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. At her death, Skipwith bequeathed several books to certain individuals, while willing her two daughters and daughter-in-law "two hundred volumes each to be selected alternately out of the books I died possessed of." 

Her books included...

Traveling memorandums, made in a tour upon the continent of Europe, in the years 1786, 87, & 88 by Lord Francis Garden Gardenstone

The gardeners dictionary containing the best and newest methods of cultivating and improving the kitchen, fruit, flower garden, and nursery; ... The eighth edition, revised and altered according to the latest system of botany by Philip Miller

Artaxerxes: An English opera : as it is performed at...Covent-Garden by Thomas Augustine Arne

The experienced English house-keeper : for the use and ease of ladies, house-keepers, cooks, &c. : wrote purely from practice and dedicated to the Hon. Lady Elizabeth Warburton ... : consisting of near 800 original receipts, most of which never appeared in print by Elizabeth Raffald

For more Legacy Libraries go to Library Thing. 

Garden Design - Natural Style Gardens & Grounds in 18C British America

A Natural Garden in the English Taste. An etching depicting a view of the lake & island in the gardens of Kew Palace, showing various temples & the orangerie, with both English & French inscription. Hand colored. This view of a more natural landscape contains a view of the Lake & Island, with the Orangerie, the Temples of Eolus & Bellona, & the House of Confucius c 1763. This view was engraved for William Chambers’s Plans, Elevations, Sections & Perspective Views of the Gardens & Buildings at Kew, published in 1763. 

Most early American pleasure gardening gentry intentionally adopted classic, practical, geometric, ornamental gardens for their properties.  Their landscape designs did often include avenues of trees leading to the plantation house, like rows of soldiers standing at attention.  

The new "English taste" garden design of the first decades of the 18th-century with its intentional serpentine walks & flowing lines in imitation of Nature was not particularly attractive to early Americans, who were busy carving an obvious order out of the "howling wilderness" that surrounded them.

Scotsman William Murray wrote to his cousin Dr John Murray near Charleston in 1753, advising him to adopt the English Taste for his new landscape plans.  Redesigning their landscape to imitate Nature seemed a little impractical to many American gentry.

In 1789, Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826), noted clergyman & geographer, wrote of one country seat, “Its fine situation. . .the arrangement and variety of forest-trees - the gardens...discover a refined and judicious taste. Ornament and utility are happily united. It is, indeed, a seat worthy of a Republican Patriot.”

Generally, American gardeners shared John Adam’s (1735-1826) negative attitude towards the excesses of the English natural grounds movement. During his 1784 tour of English gardens with Thomas Jefferson, he announced, "It will be long, I hope, before ridings, parks, pleasure grounds, gardens, and ornamented farms grow so much in fashion in America."

In the same year, George Washington (1732-1799) wrote to the wife of Marquise de Lafayette (1757-1834) encouraging her to accompany her husband on a return visit to the new American republic. "You will see the plain manner in which we live; and meet the rustic civility, and you shall taste the simplicity of rural life."

In 1783, Johann David Schoff traveled to Pennsylvania and wrote, "The taste for gardening is, at Philadelphia as well as throughout America, still in its infancy. There are not yet to be found many orderly and interesting gardens. Mr. Hamilton's near the city is the only one deserving special mention. Such neglect is all the more astonishing, because so many people of means spend the most part of their time in the country. Gardens as at present managed are purely utilitarian—pleasure-gardens have not yet come in, and if perspectives are wanted one must be content with those offered by the landscape, not very various, what with the still immense forests."

In the early Republic, many gardeners strove for a balance of useful plants & trees & genteel design. On both town & country plots, most gentry, merchants, shopkeepers, & artisans planned gardens that were both practical & ornamental in geometric patterns.

Some gentry who gardened were aware of the new English natural style & sometimes added serpentine entry roads & paths that meandered through the wooded edges of their grounds, but they overwhelmingly designed their gardens with traditional rectangular beds & approaching straight avenues of trees.

Why were early American gardeners slow to adopt the English natural grounds movement? During the first decades of the 18th-century, English gardeners had begun to rebel against strict geometric gardens with rigidly trimmed topiary trees, and in favor of more natural garden layouts.  The emergence of an informal garden style based on irregular rather than straight lines was influenced, in part, by travel books on the Far East, illustrating the winding paths & random rock formations in Asian gardens.  

English gardeners added Chinese structures to the garden, such as the 1760 pagoda at Kew Gardens. The chinoiserie persisted as books on the concept were published, notably William Chambers’s 1772 Dissertation on Oriental Gardening.  

The reading of classic landscape literature also encouraged the more natural, informal garden-park espoused by Virgil plus the idyllic images of the Roman campagna depicted by the 17-century French landscape painters Claude Lorrain & Nicolas Poussin.

In mother England the landscape garden had become established as the new taste by 1750.  The master of the English landscape garden was Lancelot "Capability" Brown (1716–1783), who transformed English landscapes into Elysian fields, at Blenheim, Stowe, & Claremont. Concentrating on sweeping undulating lines; serpentine lakes & walks; & the play of light & shade by rearranging hills & wooded areas, Brown created a series of picturesque scenes dotted with Palladian temples, classical monuments, & bridges. Brown's principles were expanded by Humphry Repton (1752–1818), whose successful career depended in part on his Red Books, illustrating his clients' estates before & after suggested landscape improvements. Repton introduced more picturesque sensibilities as well as glasshouses full of exotic specimens.

Early American gardeners were engulfed in untamed surroundings & their interest in ancient precedents prodded them toward designing the orderly gardens, that they planted around their dwellings. Early in his 1806 garden book The American Gardener, Philadelphian Bernard M’Mahon (1775-1816), described “ancient gardens,” by which he meant the gardens common a hundred years earlier in Britain & Ireland.

Ironically, just as the English were rebelling against their “ancient” geometric garden designs, M’Mahon found America’s new citizens clinging to the formality of the classical past. Perhaps the young nationals were looking for the security of precedents to reinforce their present unsteady situation. The ordered & hierarchical implications of classical terraced gardens probably appealed to the gentry, who were losing their privilege of rank through association with the British & groping to maintain that privilege through natural, & therefore inevitable, order instead of through historical precedent.

Americans found the enlightened ideas & orderly, geometric gardens of the Italian Renaissance particularly attractive during the early national era. Thomas Jefferson once boasted, “Ours are the farmers who can read Homer.” 

Southern gentlelady, Eliza Lucas Pinckney, recounted in 1742, “I have got no further than the first volume of Virgil…to find myself instructed in agriculture as well as entertained by his charming pen.” 

More than 70 years later, Jefferson’s bother-in-law Henry Skipwith wrote to a friend who was planning an orchard, “Virgil’s Georgics would have given you a full idea of his Quincunx.”  

Library records indicate that America’s literate gardeners were also reading Richard Bradley’s 1725 Survey of the Ancient Husbandry & Gardening, & Adam Dickson’s 1778 Husbandry of the Ancients, published in 1788, and the original writings of Columella, Virgil, Cato, & Pliny, whom they saw as providing models of day-to-day estate & garden management, including food production.

One British visitor to the Chesapeake observed, “Frenchmen...appear to me to be the best judges of gardening in America, perhaps because their own climate & soil are more nearly similar to those of America, than either the English or Scotch.” 

Even Thomas Jefferson, touted by many as a promoter of the English natural grounds movement, claimed to admire the controlled, geometric French gardening above all others.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, upon his initial tour of America between 1795 & 1798, condescendingly noted the classical influence prevalent in the Chesapeake. He wrote that the gardens at Mount Vernon were “laid out in squares, & boxed with great precision…for the first time again since I left Germany, I saw here a parterre, chipped & trimmed with infinite care into the form of a richly flourished Fleur de Lis: The expiring groans I hope of our Grandfather’s pedantry.” Americans were clinging to European gardening traditions rather than adopting the natural grounds movement.

M’Mahon had come from the British Isles when English landscape architects were abandoning Western traditions of formal garden design & embracing more natural forms, which were applied to the larger expanses they called pleasure grounds. The extreme formality of French & the fussiness of the miniature Dutch flower gardens helped spark this British movement against geometry & artificiality in the garden.

Influenced by writers such as Joseph Addison & Alexander Pope (whom Charles Carroll of Carrollton claimed was his favorite poet), & by the romantic landscape paintings of the French artists Claude Lorraine & Nicolas Poussin, English landscape architects rejected centuries of traditional Western garden design. English garden design reformers, such as Lancelot “Capability” Brown, & their followers favored peaceful landscapes featuring created & controlled green lawns for grazing deer & livestock, stands of needed trees, & serpentine rivers that would invite fowl & animals.

The English landscape itself was to become the ultimate garden. Intricately planned serpentine rivers & lakes reflected “natural” hills planted with carefully chosen trees & shrubs. M’Mahon’s gardening treatise reviewed the use of the popular English ha-ha, a wall or ditch sunk below the level of garden, which was intended to make the gentleman’s lawn appear to flow into the surrounding countryside. In England, where laws kept all but the rich from hunting deer & small game, these ha-has kept the hunting preserve of the gentry secure.

Ha-has were used occasionally in the 18th-century Chesapeake, but they usually surrounded grounds still dominated by formal geometric gardens. The ha-ha was not just an invisible barrier to keep intruders out of the garden & grounds. It was simply the area that divided the stage upon which patricians exercised paternalism safely separated from their hopefully awe-filled audience, all of their lesser neighbors. The ha-ha was a device to make the gentry seem at one with their personal external environment, in which they could place themselves on top but within the safe confines of an invisible wall.

Eighteenth-century English pleasure grounds were never truly natural. As M’Mahon explained, they were planned to look natural & were then decorated, often with classical Roman ruins or oriental ornaments. Chinese garden concepts excited the European gentry, when first reports of them reached Europe in the 18th century; but Western attempts to emulate Oriental design usually resulted only in copies of their architectural features.

Chinese architecture directly influenced some 18th-century American homes & garden structures. Pagodas, garden houses with upswept eaves, & Chinese style bridges decorated a few American garden grounds, but the garden spaces themselves were still divided into geometric partitions, often on terraced falls.

Until fairly recently, garden historians generally agreed that by the end of the 18th century, very few formal gardens, with traditional geometric bed designs, remained in Britain. This may not be the case, but apparently, the British had reached a level of sophistication that allowed them the freedom to resist their highly structured civilization & their hedged landscapes. This change, combined with the need to conserve dwindling supplies of timber & game, led to the natural grounds movement in England. The movement did not spread quickly in America.

Notes on the image: The park buildings depicted were all located at the southern end of the Kew estate - including the Pagoda (1761-2) with the Alhambra (1758) to its left & the Mosque (1761) in the right distance. While the Pagoda has survived, with a few of Chambers’s smaller park buildings (the Orangery & Temples of Aeolus & Beltona), the Alhambra & Mosque have not. The site now lies within the grounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens. From the late 1740s there are references to the development of a botanic garden on a 9-acre plot to the south of the Orangery close to the House. 

Kew was the country home of the Prince & Princess of Wales, the parents of George III.  On the death of the widowed Princess in February 1772, the King & Queen resolved to move their summer residence from Richmond Lodge to Kew. Writer Fanny Burney (Frances Burney d'Arblay 1752-1840) wrote " The Royal Family are here always in so very retired a way that they live as the simplest country gentlefolks." (Well, not exactly...) 

See:  George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting & Court Taste, London, 2004

Seeds & Plants - History Blooms at Monticello - Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash

Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash (Cucurbita moschata cv.)

This rare heirloom is a rugged variety that is tolerant of hot, dry weather, rendering it especially well-suited to the South. The vines are vigorous, with large, dark, metallic green-striped leaves, and it produces an abundance of medium-large, round-to-bell-shaped, tan-skinned fruit and moist orange flesh that resembles that of the sweet potato, hence the name. 

In 1790, Jefferson sent to Samuel Vaughan Jr. seed of a melon species resembling a pumpkin and tasting like the sweet potato, calling it “potateo-pumpkin.” The Upper Ground Sweet Potato Winter Squash can weigh up to 20 pounds when ripe.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

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.

Gardening Books owned by Tho Jefferson (1743-1824)

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

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Virginia lawyer, diplomat, & statesman. Author of the Declaration of American Independence; of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom; & Father of the University of Virginia. First American Secretary of State, & 3rd president of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson was a lifelong, insatiable collector of books. From his book lists & correspondence, scholars know that he had the following book collections. Of these, only the books sold to Congress (section d below) are currently represented in this listing of landscape, garden, & farming books.

Shadwell Library (1757 to 1770)

Jefferson inherited his first library from his father, Peter Jefferson, when the latter died in 1757. On 1 February 1770, a fire destroyed almost all of the books in Jefferson’s home at Shadwell. 

Monticello Library Eventually Sold to Congress in 1815

(circa 1770s to 1815)

Jefferson’s second library & his largest is the book collection he began at Monticello following the fire at Shadwell.  Following the Shadwell fire on 1 February 1770, Jefferson wasted no time in replacing the library he lost.  In his letter to Robert Skipwith dated 3 August 1771, Jefferson invites Skipwith to the “new Rowanty,” evidently a reference to Monticello, his own "mountain of the world," or "Rowandiz, the Accadian Olympos," & to his library there.   Within this 2nd library collection, scholars identify the following sub-collections:

March 1783 Library Reconstructed (circa 1770s to 6 March 1783)

By 4 August 1773, Jefferson notes in his Memorandum Books a count of 1,256 volumes in his library at Monticello. In 1784 as he left America to take up his appointment by Congress as minister plenipotentiary to France, he may have had with him a catalog of the books he owned, along with titles he wished to acquire abroad. Earlier the previous year in Philadelphia, he had noted on page 5 of this catalog a count of 2,640 volumes as of 6 March 1783. He also states that he had placed a checkmark before each title he owned, & that unmarked titles indicate books that he hoped to acquire. Using this specific notation recorded by Jefferson himself in his 1783 Catalog, scholar Thomas Baughn has reconstructed a list of books that Jefferson owned as of this date. A list of this March 1783 Library Reconstructed library is available online.

Books Acquired While in Europe (1784 to 1789)

During his appointment as minister plenipotentiary & later minister to France from 1784 to 1789, Jefferson purchased some 2,000 volumes. Before he returned to America in 1789, he compiled a separate list of the books he acquired while abroad. This 1789 Catalog is a 50-page unbound manuscript in Jefferson’s own hand & is today at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The manuscript pages have been digitized by the Society & are available online. A transcription of this manuscript made by Thomas Baughn is available online.

1783 Catalog (circa 1770s to 1812)

The 1783 Catalog manuscript, a 246-page bound manuscript in Jefferson’s hand, is believed to be a record of his library following the Shadwell fire in 1770. In 1812, when this catalogue became crammed with interlineations, erasures, & marginal insertions, Jefferson made a fair copy of this catalogue, that he probably maintained for his offer to sell his library to Congress in 1814. The 1783 Catalog is today at the Massachusetts Historical Society, available online. A transcription of this manuscript made by Thomas Baughn is available online.

Books Sold to Congress (1815)

When the invading British army burned the congressional library in Washington, D.C. in 1814, an outraged Jefferson promptly offered his own library of 6,700 volumes to Congress to replace the one that was lost.  A 5-volume work, The Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, was published between 1952 & 1959. This is available online online through the Library of Congress; a transcribed electronic version of Sowerby's catalogue is available online.  There is a 2nd manuscript associated with the books Jefferson sold to Congress. In 1823 Jefferson commissioned Nicholas Philip Trist, the young man who would eventually become Jefferson’s private secretary & his grandson-in-law, to recreate a list of the books sold to Congress. This 113-page Trist Catalogue manuscript was rediscovered at the Library of Congress, available online.

Retirement Library (1815 to 1826)

Following the 1815 sale of the bulk of his library to Congress, Jefferson continued to acquire books. The Retirement Library Catalogue in Jefferson’s own hand constituted his 3rd & final library at Monticello. The 83-page bound manuscript is at the Library of Congress, & is available online. After Jefferson died in 1826, his library at Monticello was sold at auction through auctioneer, Nathaniel P. Poor, in 1829 in Washington, D.C. The printed Poor Catalogue is available online.

Poplar Forest Library (1811 to 1826)

After Jefferson’s retirement from public office in 1809, he also maintained a library at his Poplar Forest retreat in Bedford County from around 1811. At his death, his books were inherited by his grandson, Francis Eppes, who offered them up for sale in 1873. There is no separate sale catalogue for this library, except for the portion that was listed in the 1873 auction catalogue of George A. Leavitt, published in New York City. The Leavitt Catalogue was transcribed by John R. Barden in 1999, & edited by Thomas Baughn.

Thomas Jefferson by John Trumbull (1756-1843). Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc., Monticello, Virginia.

For more information, go to the Thomas Jefferson's Libraries website at Monticello. See also the Library of Congress' interactive exhibit, Thomas Jefferson's Library.

Jefferson's Books on Landscape, Garden, & Farm

Abercrombie, John Every man his own gardener Being a new, and much more complete, gardener's kalendar than any one hitherto published 1767

Abercrombie, John The gardener's pocket dictionary ; or, a systematic arrangement of trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers and fruits 1786

Agricola, Georg Andreas The experimental husbandman and gardener: containing a new method of improving estates and gardens 1726

 

Ambler, Jacquelin A treatise on the culture of lucerne 1800

  

Baird, Thomas General view of the agriculture of the County of Middlesex 1793

  

Bakewell, Robert Observations on the influence of soil and climate upon wool 1808

Baildon, Joseph The laurel. a new collection of English songs and cantatas : sung by Mr. Lowe and Miss Falkner at Vaux-Hall and Marybon-Gardens / Book II

Belsches, R. General view of the agriculture of the county of Stirling 1796

  

Billingsley, John General view of the agriculture in the county of Somerset 1794

   

Binns, John Alexander A treatise on practical farming; embracing particularly the following subjects, viz. the use of plaister of Paris 1803

 

Bordley, John Beale Sketches on rotations of crops, and other rural matters, To which are annexed Intimations on manufactures 1797

   

Bordley, John Beale Essays and notes on husbandry and rural affairs 1799

  

Bordley, John Beale Sketches on rotations of crops, and other rural matters

   

Bordley, John Beale Outlines of a plan, for establishing a state society of agriculture in Pennsylvania 1794

 

Bordley, John Beale Country habitations 1798

   

Bordley, John Beale Husbandry, dependant on Live Stock 1799

Bordley, John Beale Hemp 1799

Bradley, Richard New improvements of planting and gardening : both philosophical and practical 1726   

Bradley, Richard A General treatise of husbandry and gardening 1724

 

Bradley, Richard Ten practical discourses concerning the four elements, as they relate to the growth of plants 1733 

Richard Bradley Dictionarium botanicum: or, A botanical dictionary for the use of the curious in husbandry and gardening 

Chambers, Sir William Plans, elevations, sections, and perspective views of the gardens and buildings at Kew, in Surry 1763

Chambers, Sir William Designs of Chinese buildings, furniture, dresses, machines and utensils, engraved by the best hands, from the originals drawn in China 

Cointeraux, François  École d'architecture rurale 

    

Custis, George Washington Parke An address to the people of the United States, on the importance of encouraging agriculture & domestic manufactures 1808 

Darwin, Erasmus  The botanic garden : a poem, in two parts. With philosophical notes.

Daubenton, Louis Jean Marie Advice to shepherds and owners of flocks on the care and management of sheep 1810   

Dezallier d'Argentville, Antoine Joseph The theory and practice of gardening 1728   

Dickson, Adam The husbandry of the ancients 1788

 

Donaldson, James General view of the agriculture of the county of Northampton 1794

 

Erskine, John Francis General view of the agriculture of the county of Clackmannan 1795

Errard, Charles Parallele de l'architecture antique avec la moderne, suivant les dix principaux auteurs qui ont écrit des cinq ordres

   

Evelyn, John Terra: a philosophical discourse of earth 1787

 

Evelyn, John Sylva, or, A discourse of forest-trees, and the propagation of timber in His Majesties dominions 1664

  

Fordyce, George Elements of agriculture and vegetation 1771

   

Forsyth, William A treatise on the culture and management of fruit-trees 1802    

Gardiner, John The American gardener: containing ample directions for working a kitchen garden, every month in the year 1804

Gentil, François Le jardinier solitaire, ou, Dialogues entre un 

curieux & un jardinier solitaire

Haines, Charles Considerations on the great western canal, from the Hudson to Lake Erie : with a view of its expence, advantages, and progress. Re-published by order of the New-York Corresponding Association, for the promotion of internal improvements

  

Hale, Thomas A compleat body of husbandry 1758

  

Hales, Stephen Statical essays; containing Vegetable Staticks 1738

 

Heely, Joseph Letters on the beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes 1777

Heron, Henry A collection of songs. sung at Marybone Gardens by Miss Thomas / Book V and A collection of songs. sung at Marybone Gardens by Mr. Rennoldson / Book IV

 

Hepburn, Sir George Buchan General view of the agriculture and rural economy of East Lothian 1794

Home, Francis The principles of agriculture and vegetation 1762

   

Home, Lord Kames, Henry The gentleman farmer 1779

  

Jacob, Giles The country gentleman's vade mecum 1717

   

Kirwan, Richard The manures most advantageously applicable to the various sorts of soils, and the causes of their beneficial effect 1796

   

Langley, Batty Pomona: or, the Fruit-Garden Illustrated 1729

Langley, Batty Practical geometry applied to the useful arts of building surveying, gardening, and mensuration

Lastri, Marco Antonio Corso di agricoltura di un accademico georgofilo autore della Biblioteca georgica

    

Livingston, Robert R. Essay on sheep; their varieties--account of the merinoes of Spain, France &c 1809

Logan, George Fourteen agricultural experiments, to ascertain the best rotation of crops 1797

Logan, George A letter to the citizens of Pennsylvania, on the necessity of promoting agriculture, manufactures & the useful arts 1800

 

M'Mahon, Bernard The American gardener's calendar; adapted to the climates and seasons of the United States 1806   

Main, Thomas Directions for the transplantation and management of young thorn or other hedge plants 1807

 

Miller, Philip The gardeners kalendar ; directing what works are necessary to be performed every month 1765

Miller, Philip The gardener's dictionary : containing the best and newest methods of cultivating 1768

Miller, Philip Dictionnaire des jardiniers, contenant les méthodes les plus sûres et les plus modernes pour cultiver et améliorer les jardins potagers, à fruits, à fleurs et les pépinières, ainsi que pour réformer les anciennes pratiques d'agriculture; avec des moyens nouveaux de faire et conserver le vin, suivant les procédés actuellement en usage parmi les vignerons les plus instruits de plusieurs pays de l'Europe...

   

Moore, Thomas The great error of American agriculture exposed : and hints for improvement suggested 1801

  

Mortimer, John The whole art of husbandry: or, The way of managing and improving of land 1721

   

Naismith, John Observations on the different breeds of sheep and the state of sheep farming, in the southern districts of Scotland 1795

   

Parkinson, Richard The experienced farmer 1799

Parry, R. Particulars of the breeding stock, late the property of Mr. Robert Fowler, of Little Rollright 1791

Pearce, William General view of the agriculture in Berkshire 1794

Pelloutier, Simon Histoire des Celtes : et particulierment des Gaulois et des Germains, depuis les tems fabuleux, jusqu'à la prise de Rome par les Gaulois 

  

Peters, Richard Agricultural enquiries on plaister of Paris, also, facts, observations, and conjectures on that substance 1797

Pitt, William General view of the agriculture of the county of Stafford 1794

  

Randolph, John A treatise on gardening 1793 

Reed, Joseph  Lyric harmony : consisting of eighteen entire new ballads with Colin and Phaebe, in score : as perform'd at Vaux Hall Gardens by Mrs. Arne and Mr. Lowe : opera quarta by Thomas Augustine Arne Madrigal and Trulletta. A mock-tragedy. Acted (under the direction of Mr. Cibber) at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. With notes by the author, and Dr. Humbug, critick and censor-general 

Roscoe, William  An address delivered before the proprietors of the botanic garden in Liverpool previous to opening the garden, May

Seeley, Benton Stowe : a description of the magnificent house and gardens of the Right Honourable Richard Grenville Temple 1783

     

Spurrier, John The practical farmer: being a new and compendious system of husbandry 1793 

 

Stone, Thomas General view of the agriculture of the county of Huntingdon 1793

  

Strickland, Sir William Observations on the agriculture of the United States of America 1801

Taylor, John Arator; being a series of agricultural essays 1813

Trinci, Cosimo L'agricoltore sperimentato, ovvero, Regole generali sopra l'agricoltura 

    

Ure, David General view of the agriculture of the County of Kinross 1797    

Vancouver, Charles General view of the agriculture in the county of Essex 1795

Whately, Thomas Observations on modern gardening 1770

Young, Arthur Rural oeconomy, or, Essays on the practical parts of husbandry 1773

Young, Arthur Proceedings of His Majesty's most honourable Privy council, and information received, respecting an insect 1789

Young, Arthur The farmer's guide in hiring and stocking farms 1771

Young, Arthur Travels during the years 1787, 1788 and 1789 1793 

The Anglo-Saxon version, from the historian Orosius / by Ælfred the Great ; together with an English translation from the Anglo-Saxon by Paulus Orosius

The general history of Polybius / translated from the Greek by Mr. Hampton by Polybius

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Seeds & Plants - History Blooms at Monticello - Virginia Sweetspire

Virginia Sweetspire (Itea virginica)

This handsome North American species is native from New Jersey south to Florida and Louisiana. It was introduced into cultivation in 1744 and was listed in Philadelphia nurseryman John Bartram’s catalogue of 1783. 

Three years later, Jefferson, who was living in Paris at the time, requested Itea from both John Bartram, Jr. and Richard Cary of Virginia. Jefferson also included Itea virginica in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia. Its outstanding fall color is its greatest attribute, and a cultivar, ‘Henry’s Garnet’, received the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s award of merit.

For more information & the possible availability for purchase

Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello