Garden Design - Furniture travels from England to the Colonies & the Early Republic

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 this painting, 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 this portrait, 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."

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 18th century, and this encouraged a variety of sedentary outdoor leisure activities across all classes such as doing chores, chatting, reading, gambling, & eating.

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.

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 and London furniture designer Matthew Darly, who flourished between 1754 & 1778, seemed to have led the way toward this new design.

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, and a "grotto chair." Matthew Darly was a London printseller, furniture designer, and engraver who owned a very successful print shop with his wife Mary.

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 and Dutch formal influence in the gardens of the gentry, Chippendale and Darly were introducing a fairly formal serpentine and 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 and Darly, 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.
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, two South Carolina inventories each boasted "1 Mahogany Roling Chair." Focusing on the special needs of the elderly and the infirm, Charleston cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe advertised in 1751, that he made "All kinds of Machine Chairs...for sickly or weak people."

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 are found in British paintings.

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.

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.

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 this painting, 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 one dozen 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 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 supply of windsor chairs. In New York City, "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." 

Detail 1772 William Williams (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 18th century “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.
1793 James Peale (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 and 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 this painting, 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, and clerk at the President's House in Washington, District of Columbia.
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 and 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!"
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 this painting, 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.

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 18th century America. The use of everyday chairs for garden events continued into the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Photo Maryland Historical Society

To follow the development, diversification, & distribution of Windson 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.

Labor - South Carolina Garden Contractors

Charles Fraser (1782- 1860). Mr. Gabriel Manigault's Seat at Goose Creek, 1802. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. The estate was called Steepbrook.

Independent Gardeners Working in South Carolina

Gardeners appear in South Carolina records in a variety of ways--deeds, estates, administration records, and newspapers. Often, the identification "gardener" is all that is available about these men. They don't place ads seeking work or advertising plants, but they should not be ignored.

1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). The Seat of Joseph Winthrop, Esq. on Goose Creek, South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. Joseph Winthrop was married to Charles Fraser's older sister.  Thanks to South Carolina native Charles Fraser (1782 - 1860 ) we have a chance to see, through his eyes, the homes & gardens there as he was growing up. These were some of the gardens & grounds, that the independent gardeners listed here helped plant & tend. Although Fraser was primarily known for his miniature portraits, he created watercolors of historical sites, homes, & landscapes, while also working as a lawyer, historian, writer, & politician. Today, many of Fraser's works are housed & displayed in Charleston's Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art.

The first professional gardener on record in South Carolina was a Frenchman. Mathurin Guerin was a French Huguenot who took refuge in the province and requested to be naturalized as an English citizen under the act passed on March 10, 1697, designed to grant to all aliens that were inhabitants of the Province of South Carolina the same privileges as those persons born of English parents. Mathurin Guerin was a native of St. Nazaire, son of Pierre Guerin, and of Jeanne Bilbau. His wife was Marie Nicholas, daughter of Audre Nicholas and Francoise Dunot.

While Guerin may have been the first French Huguenot gardener in South Carolina, he certainly was not the last. French gardeners and seedsmen arrived in the Mid-Atlantic and upper south after the Revolutionary War. But in South Carolina, French gardeners influenced the gardening from the beginning of the 18th century. South Carolina saw a large influx of French Huguenots – individuals who were probably familiar with the garden designs of Le Nôtre. Garden designs in South Carolina continued to have a formal aspect well into the 19th century.

1803. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Ashley Hall near Charleston, South Carolina.The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. Fraser wrote in his Reminiscences that the oak trees were planted by a "visitor," Mark Catesby, who came to Carolina in 1722, and whose Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was published in England a decade later.

More independent white gardeners appear in South Carolina records earlier than in the northern colonies. While most independent gardeners in the Mid-Atlantic and upper south worked in public gardens, fewer independent gardeners appear in the records at private properties in early Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia during the first half of the 18th century.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860). A Seat on the Ashely River, April, 1802. Carolina Art Association The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. This house is typical of much South Carolina & West Indies plantation architecture which have a basement story of masonry and upper floors of wood. The double stairway to the semi-classic porch is also very characteristic of this architecture.

South Carolina’s next gardener of record was Bartholomew Garret who was dead in 1719, when his widow Elizabeth (Major), originally of London, declared her “love and affection” for Thomas Hayward of Charleston.

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

In the South Carolina Gazette of May 12, 1757, Henry Middleton placed a notice to settle the estate of his deceased gardener, George Newman.

The only knowledge of gardener Robert Hunter comes from his June 15, 1767 notice in the Gazette, "NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT frequent and repeated trespasses have been committed, at Mr. Daniel Cannon’s garden, up-the-Path, This is therefore to inform and forwarn all persons whatsoever, for the future, as they must expect to answer the consequences by a gun, or dog, or both. ROBERT HUNTER, Gardener."

In 1774, John Bert is identified as a gardener in a land transaction. George Reynolds is listed in the 1790 Charleston City Directory as a gardener at 42 George Street. He also appeared as a gardener in sureties and administrative settlements beginning in 1782.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Another View of Mepkin, May, 1803. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Peter Boutiton was a feisty French gardener who also signed his name Pierre. He was active in the Charleston area from 1776, until his death in 1783. He married he widow Mary Air on January 9, 1777 at St. Philip’s. Mary Air was the granddaughter and heir of Charleston merchant, Peter Benoist. On July 21 of that year he placed the following notice in the Gazette of the State of South Carolina in Charleston, "PETER BOUTITON, Gardener, near and wit in the town gate, having suffered…frequent robberies of the produce of his hard labour, and greatly also by loss of rest, is watching by himself and two negroes, and frequent firing of guns, with no other intent than to deter the thieves-which not having answered his purpose-He now gives public notice and warning. That whoeverhereafter shall presume to enter his inclusures in the night, must do it at the risk of their lives.” Boutiton was identified as having been a gardener in Charleston during the settlement of his estate in 1783 ,and in South Carolina court records for several years thereafter.

1797. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Mrs. Robert Gibbe's Place on John's Island, South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. The two sea-islands lying southwest of Charles Town were originally named after two parishes in the Barbadoes, St. James & St. John, but soon the locals were calling them simply James’ Island & John’s Island.

Anthony Farasteau was another French gardener. His was alternately listed as a gardener and a weaver in several land transactions and at the settlement of his estate, in the Charleston papers. He was active in Charleston records from 1776, until his death in 1785. Weavers often were also gardeners who grew their own dye plants.

William Kirkpatrick appeared in 1786 in the will of a friend mentioned as a gardener to the estate of the late Colonel Maurice Simons. Philip Hartz was also mentioned as a gardener in a will in 1788.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860). Another View of Richmond, May, 1803. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

Charles Gross was listed as a gardener in the 1790 Charleston City Directory at 152 King Street. He moved to Hampstead in 1792-1793 and began to garden and sell seed from there, until he died in 1802. Englishman James Sommers appears in the settlement of his estate after his death in 1794 as having been a gardener in Charleston. In his will he mentions being from Ilfondcombe in the County of Devon in England.

The will of gardener Robert Johnston noted that he came from Greenwill Street, Newtownards, Ireland, where he owned a house and land. Morris Conner was a gardener from St. Bartholomew’s Parish who died in testate in 1795. Elisha Diven was a gardener in Charleston in the same era. He is identified as a gardener in a 1797 estate proceeding and at his own death in 1798.

1796. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). A View of Mr. Lindsay's in Charleston, South Carolina, Taken from Savage's Green. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. In Fraser’s Reminiscences he states, “There was Savage’s Green at the lower end of Broad Street, which, until the building of the old Theatre, was entirely vacant, and spacious enough to be used for military exercise. The old battalion often paraded and fired their pieces there.” Fraser remarks that the end of Savage’s Green was a favorite swimming place for boys. Across the creek from the Green “was the town house of Mr. Thomas Ferguson, a large planter of the Parish of St. Paul, and a prominent leader of the Revolutionary party.. His house in Charles Town long bore the mark of a British cannon ball fired into the town in 1780.”

John Hope was listed as a gardener of Charleston at the administration of his estate upon his death in 1800. Neal McGregor (1773-1819) was a gardener who was born in Perthshire, North Britain in 1773, and immigrated to Charleston, sometime before his December 1802, marriage to Mrs. Jane Phipps. He was listed as a gardener in the 1809 Charleston City Directory and when he was naturalized in 1813. He and his wife lived on Vanderhorst Street in Charleston, until his death in 1819.

George Smith was a Charleston gardener who was born in Wicklow, Ireland, in 1784. He immigrated sometime before his 1810 Charleston marriage to Margaret Morgan in 1810. James Mair was a gardener who was born in Scotland in 1772. He immigrated to Charleston, and went into partnership with Robert Brown of Beaufort until 1801. He owned 779 acres of land on John’s Island and was listed in the 1809 Charleston City Directory as a gardener operating on King Street. He married Martha Graham, the youngest daughter of the then deceased Rev. William Graham in January of 1805, and he died in September of 1809. He was in partnership, until his death, with James Fraser, son of John Fraser, seedsman, nurseryman, and botanist of London.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860). The Seat of John Julius Pringle, Esq. on Ashley River, 1800. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. When the land was bought by John Julius Pringle in 1795, the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt spent some time with him in Charleston. He wrote of a trip up the Ashley River to the new property, “We crossed the River, and stopped at a plantation lately purchased by Mr. Pringle, the former name of which was Greenville, but which he has named ‘Susan’s Place’ in honour of his lively wife…The new mansion…will be finished this summer.”

Samuel Anderson was also listed as a gardener of Hampstead in the Charleston City Directory and appeared in several Charleston County land transactions from that time on.

James Neswitt was noted to be a gardener of Charleston Neck in the administration of his estate in 1813. John Jarman is another gardener of Charleston identified through estate matters between 1805 and 1818.

And Daniel A. Stark was a gardener with wanderlust who preferred not to walk, according to a notice in the Charleston Times on April 19, 1819. "Caution. A MAN, who said his name was DANIEL A. STARK, and had been working as a Gardener for Mrs. Kennedy, at Gordon & Spring’s Ferry, absconded on Wednesday week last, taking with him a Gun, Shot-Bag and Powder-Flask; and on the next day a Horse belonging to Mrs. K. was missing."

Robert DuBois (1740-1823) who was also listed as a gardener in the 1809 Charleston City Directory, working out of King Street. At the time of his 1823 will, he was living at Charleston Neck in the forks of the road of King Street.

James Waddell was another South Carolina gardener and weaver originally from Ireland. He and his wife Ann, the widow of Benjamin Wood, appear in 1783 and 1785 estate matters. In 1798 and 1799, they appear in land records as residents of Charleston Neck and members of Christ Church parish. In 1804, Waddell conveyed 1,082 acres he owned on John’s Island. The City Gazette in Charleston on June 5, 1823 reported his death.

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

Marmaduke Jenny was identified as a gardener “late of Charleston and the village of Washington” when he died in 1821.

Joseph Parsons (c1743-1823) was also listed as a gardener on Hampstead in the 1809 and 1813 Charleston City Directories. Parsons was born in Henrico County, Virginia. He married Alcey Goolsby in 1763 in Laurens, South Carolina, and served as an Indian spy in the Revolutionary War.

Joseph Parsons appeared in the records as a gardener in 1807, as the husband of Esther, the widow of Conrad Hook, a carpenter. They appeared in land records; until his death in 1823. His obituary in the City Gazette in Charleston on April 23, 1823 read, “Died, in the city on Monday, the 7th inst. after a long illness, Mr. Joseph Parsons, aged 40 years, formerly of Wiscasset, but for the last 20 years a resident of this state.” When he died, they were living in Hampstead “near Mr. Nell’s Rope-Walk.”.

1802. Charles Fraser (1782-1860). A View Near Charleston, South Carolina. The Carolina Art Association Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. 

Fraser wrote, “A large part of Harleston (a village) and more especially the lots bordering upon the low ground and marches of Coming’s Creek, was nearly acquired by Mr. Thomas Bennett Sr., who, with Daniel Cannon, utilized the ebb and flow of the tides by establishing on these water large lumber mills. This tidal power was also used largely upon the rice-growing rivers for pounding mills, which separated the husk from the grain;…Nor was it only the waterpower which was utilized, for among the lots conveyed in 1804 by Thomas Bennett Sr. to Thomas Bennett, Jr., later Governor of South Carolina, was the lot of marshland on which the windmill stood near by a branch of Coming’s Creek.” 

In the Charleston Courier December 15, 1825, appeared a notice: “At Private Sale…that large Brick Wind Mill, situate on Harleston’s Green, adapted for the sawing of lumber. ” Windmills & watermills with vast undershot wheels, worked by the tides, were common in the neighborhood along the Ashley River.

Garden Design - Trees & Shrubs in a Thicket "where a variety of Airry Chorristers pour forth their melody."

In the design of 18C pleasure grounds, a thicket is an intentionally planted or natural collection of small trees, dense underbrush, or shrubs growing thickly together, which are left in the landscape to add intrigue to the view and to attract singing birds. A thicket usually has tangles and vines protecting it from intrusion and providing a thermal cover for birds and small animals. Thickets are a little intimidating and a little joyful all at the same time.

In 1593, William Shakespeare wrote in 3 Henry VI, "Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither, into this cheefest Thicket of the Parke."

While John Milton wrote in in 1667, "How often from the steep Of echoing Hill or Thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air...singing."

In 1704, when Sarah Kemble Knight was traveling from Boston to New York on horseback, she was apprehensive when, "we rode on very deliberately a few paces, when we entered a thicket of trees and shrubs, and I perceived by the horse's going we were on the descent."

In 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney describing William Middleton's Crow-Field in South Carolina, wrote, "Next to that on the right hand is what immediately struck my rural taste, a thicket of young tall live oaks where a variety of Airry Chorristers pour forth their melody."

Traveler Peter (Pehr) Kalm described the area around Philadelphia in 1748 as containing “The common privet, or Ligustrum vulgare L., grows among the bushes in thickets and woods.”
When Manasseh Cutler visited Grey's Gardens in 1787 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he noted, "We came into a spacious graveled walk, which directed its course further along the grove, which was tall wood interspersed with close thickets of different growth. As we advanced, we found our gravel walk dividing itself into numerous branches, leading into different parts of the grove.”

Rochefoucauld-Liancourt noted on his 1796 visit to Drayton Hall in South Carolina, "The Garden here is better laid out…in order to have a fine garden, you have nothing to do but to let the trees standing here and there, or in clumps, to plant bushes in front of them, and arrange the trees according to their height. Dr. Drayton’s father…began to lay out the garden on this principle and his son…has pursued the same plan."

In planning the grounds around Monticello in 1804, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The best way of forming the thicket will be to plant it in labyrinth spirally, putting the tallest plants in the centre and lowering gradation to the external termination, a temple or seat may be in the center then leaving space enough between the rows to walk and to trim up, replant the shrubs...and...This [grove] must be broken by clumps of thicket, as the open grounds of the English are broken by clumps of trees. plants for thickets are broom, calycanthus, altheas, gelder rose, magnolia glauca, azalea, fringe tree, dogwood, red bed, wild crab, kalmia, mezereon, euonymous, halesia, quamoclid, rhododendron, oleander, service tree, lilac, honeysuckle, brambles."

Jefferson was still contemplating the design of the landscape near his house, when he wrote in 1806, “The grounds which I destine to improve in the style of the English gardens are in a form very difficult to be managed...They are chiefly still in their native woods. which are majestic, and very generally a close undergrowth, which I have not suffered to be touched, knowing how much easier it is to cut away than to fill up. The upper third is chiefly open, but to the South is covered with a dense thicket of Scotch broom (Spartium scoparium Lin.) which being favorably spread before the sun will admit of advantageous arrangement for winter enjoyment...

“Let your ground be covered with trees of the loftiest stature. Trim up their bodies as high as the constitution & form of the tree will bear, but so as that their tops shall still unite & yield dense shade. A wood, so open below, will have nearly the appearance of open grounds. Then, when in the open ground you would plant a clump of trees, place a thicket of shrubs presenting a hemisphere the crown of which shall distinctly show itself under the branches of the trees. This may be effected by a due selection & arrangement of the shrubs, & will I think offer a group not much inferior to that of trees. The thickets may be varied too by making some of them of evergreens altogether, our red cedar made to grow in a bush, evergreen privet, pyrocanthus, Kalmia, Scotch broom. Holly would be elegant but it does not grow in my part of the country.

“Of prospect I have a rich profusion and offering itself at every point of the compass. Mountains distant & near, smooth & shaggy, single & in ridges, a little river hiding itself among the hills so as to shew in lagoons only, cultivated grounds under the eye and two small villages. To present a satiety of this is the principal difficulty. It may be successively offered, & in different portions through vistas, or which will be better, between thickets so disposed as to serve as vistas, with the advantage of shifting the scenes as you advance your way.”

Also in 1806. Bernard M’Mahon wrote in his The American Gardener’s Calendar, “First an open lawn of grass-ground is extended on one of the principal fronts of the mansion or main house, widening gradually from the house outward, having each side bounded by various plantations of trees, shrubs, and flowers, in clumps, thickets, &c. exhibited in a variety of rural forms, in moderate concave and convex curves, and projections, to prevent all appearance of a stiff uniformity...

“Thickets may be composed of all sorts of hardy deciduous trees planted close and promiscuously, and with various common shrubs interspersed between them, as underwood, to make them more or less close in different parts, as the designer may think proper. They may also be of ever-green trees, particularly of the pine and fir kinds, interspersed with various low-growing ever-green shrubs.”

In the introduction to his 1808 book The Country Seats of the United States, Englishman William Russell Birch (1755-1834), who hoped to promote "taste" in America for both architecture & landscape design, saw the result of the American balance of ornament and utility, and he tried to explain it this way: "The comforts and advantages of a Country Residence, after Domestic accomodations are consulted, consist more in the beauty of the situation, than in the massy magnitude of the edifice: the choice ornaments of Architecture are by no means intended to be disparaged, they are on the contrary, not simply desirable, but requisite. The man of taste will select his situation with skill, and add elegance and animation to the best choice. In the United States the face of nature is so variegated; Nature has been so sportive and the means so easy of acquiring positions fit to gratify the most refined and rural enjoyment, that labour and expenditure of Art is not so great as in Countries less favoured."

Garden Design - South Carolina's Magnolia Plantation Gardens

Holding on to The Sweet Divine - The Lord God took man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & to keep it. Genesis 2:15

 South Carolina's Magnolia Plantation Gardens

This article deals with the bones of an 18C garden which has been taken over by The Sweet Divine - a  triumph of man's design over-run by Nature's glory.  

Thomas Drayton and his wife Ann arrived from Barbados to the new English colony of Charles Towne and established Magnolia Plantation along the Ashley River in 1676. Thomas and Ann were the first in a direct line of Magnolia family ownership that has lasted more than 300 years and continues to this day.

Magnolia Plantation saw immense wealth and growth through the cultivation of rice during the Colonial era. Later, British and American troops would occupy its grounds during the American Revolution, while the Drayton sons would become both statesmen and soldiers fighting against British rule.  The establishment of the early gardens at Magnolia Plantation in the late 17th century would see an explosion of beauty and expansion throughout the 18th century, but it was not until the early 19th century did the gardens at Magnolia truly begin to expand on a grand scale.

Upon his death in 1825, Thomas Drayton, the great grandson of Magnolia's first Drayton, willed the estate successively to his daughter's sons, Thomas and John Grimké. As he had no male heirs to leave it to, he made the condition in the will that they assume their mother's maiden name of Drayton. Some time later, while in England preparing for the ministry, young John Grimké Drayton received word that his older brother Thomas had died on the steps of the plantation house of a gunshot wound received while riding down the oak avenue during a deer hunt. Thus, having expected to inherit little or nothing as a second son, young John found himself a wealthy plantation owner at the age of 22.

Despite the prestige and wealth inherent in ownership of Magnolia and other plantations, he resolved still to pursue his ministerial career; and in 1838 he entered the Episcopal seminary in New York. While there, he fell in love with, and married, Julia Ewing, daughter of a prominent Philadelphia attorney. Returning to Charleston with his bride, he strove to complete his clerical studies while bearing the burden of managing his large estate. The pressure took its toll, and his fatigue resulted in tuberculosis. His own cure for the illness was working outside in the gardens he loved. He also wanted to create a series of romantic gardens for his wife to make her feel more at home in the South Carolina Lowcountry. A few years later, as though by a miracle, his health returned, allowing him to enter the ministry as rector of nearby Saint Andrews Church, which had served plantation owners since 1706 and still stands just two miles down the highway towards Charleston. But until his death a half-century later, along with his ministry, Rev. Drayton continued to devote himself to the enhancement of the plantation garden, expressing his desire to a fellow minister in Philadelphia, "...to create an earthly paradise in which my dear Julia may forever forget Philadelphia and her desire to return there."

In tune with the changes he had seen taking place in English gardening away from the very formal design earlier borrowed from the French, John Grimké Drayton moved towards greater emphasis on embellishing the soft natural beauty of the site. More than anyone else he can be credited with the internationally acclaimed informal beauty of the garden today. He introduced the first azaleas to America, and he was among the first to utilize Camellia Japonica in an outdoor setting. A great deal of Magnolia's horticultural fame today is based on the large and varied collection of varieties of these two species–not the abundant and lovely Southern Magnolia for which the plantation just happened to have been named.

The outbreak of the American Civil War would threaten the welfare of the family, the house, and the gardens themselves. But the plantation would recover from the war to see additional growth of the gardens as they became the focus of the plantation over agriculture when the gardens opened to the public for the first time in 1870 and saved the plantation from ruin. 

Please click on the publication website in the title above for more information.

Garden Design - Middleton Place - South Carolina's Great Colonial Garden

A French traveler wrote in 1769 that at Middleton Place, “the river which flows in a circuitous course, until it reaches this point, forms a wide, beautiful canal, pointing straight to the house.”

This blog entry is based on the following article with a few boring details I felt compelled to ad.

"Middleton Place - South Carolina's Great Colonial Garden" from The New York Times by George McMillan March 30, 1986, Section 10, Page 21

In 1678 a group of Barbados planters left the island because, as one of them said, it was such a ''brutish'' place. They set sail for Charleston, where they hoped to find or create a more genteel place to live. In a surprisingly short time they had done so. The rice economy was making Charleston one of America's richest cities, with a sophisticated 18th-century urban environment.

Charleston soon became known for its gardens & seeds were being imported from London - sweet alyssum, daisy, foxglove, periwinkle, snapdragon, thrift & violet. It was not long before West Indian flowers were brought to Charleston - the yellow begonia, the four o'clocks & the Parkinsonia.

One of the people caught in the enthusiasm of mid-18C South Carolina for botany was Henry Middleton (1717-1784), son of Arthur Middleton (1681-1737) & his wife Sarah Amory (1690-1722). Henry was the grandson of Edward Middleton (1640-1685) & his wife Sarah Fowell (1650-1685), some of those original Barbadian immigrants. 

Henry Middleton (1717-1784)

Henry became, in 1741, one of the richest men in the American colonies. That year he decided to build a garden on a piece of property he owned in a curve of the Ashley River 12 miles upstream from Charleston. When Henry Middleton started his garden, he was said to own 800 slaves & 10,000 acres.

The site, the dowry of his wife, Mary Baker Williams (c 1721-1761}, was dominated by a high bluff & fell down to the Ashley in a long slope. This was worthless for rice cultivation, which depended on the ebb & flow of tidal rivers to flush the fields. Middleton created his garden on that long slope.

Middleton molded the slope's wide contours into a series of sweeping terraces that were graduated, steplike, down to the river, where he designed two symmetrical butterfly lakes. He built a house on top of the bluff that gave him a view of his altogether pleasing imposition on the geography of the Low Country.

For all the perfection of its design, the glory of Middleton Gardens is in the profuse blossoms of its thousands of subtropical plants, & most especially of its azaleas & camellias. There are azaleas almost everywhere you turn, with the most dramatic display along the Azalea Hillside, a bank rising at the rice mill pond that was planted in the 1930's with about 35,000 bushes. And today, with later plantings, there are said to be 60,000 azaleas there. When these are in bloom from mid-March through mid-April they make one of the most spectacular sights in American horticulture. The camellias, in bloom from December through mid-March, are in two clusters. Those planted before 1940 form a breathtaking allee along the border with the greensward. 

At the site, pains have been taken to make Middleton's long story accessible - & you may as you walk see signs & displays that give you not only Middleton's history as a garden, but also its history as a great colonial rice plantation & the seat of one of America's most distinguished political families. Henry Middleton (1717-1784) was President of the First Continental Congress & both his son & grandson were active in national & local affairs.

Middleton Gardens has been ravaged several times, first by British troops during the Revolutionary War, then by Union troops in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, & again by an earthquake in 1886. There are few written records of the garden & no contemporary references to its designer nor the actual building of the garden. Tradition says that Middleton employed an English landscape gardener; whoever did design it was an artist of the first rank & a competent engineer.

What is known with certainty is that the garden that sits along the Ashley in 1986 is in its architecture the same garden Henry Middleton built, or started building, in 1741. The essential esthetic of the garden is its exactness. A safe inference is that it was drawn from some French gardens. It is often assumed that Henry Middleton got his sense of what a garden should be from a book popular at that time, ''Theory & Practice of Gardening,'' by Dezalier d'Argenville, a student of Andre Le Notre, the designer of the gardens at Versailles. As for the actual construction, the legend is that it took 100 slaves 10 years to build it.

The formal gardens are to the right of the house site & were planted within a large right triangle. Within this triangle smaller gardens were laid out in a variety of geometric shapes. Within the triangle are the azaleas, the Middleton Oak, thought to be one of the oldest live oaks in the United States, & almost every variety of plant found in the southeastern United States.

Arthur Middleton (1742-1787) Detail from a painting by Benjamin West

Arthur Middleton, Henry's son (1742-1787) & his wife Mary Izard (1747-1814), reigned over the garden too briefly & were too busy to do anything more than maintain it. Although Arthur only lived to be 44, he signed the Declaration of Independence & was, like his father, a member of the Continental Congress & a prisoner of war during the American Revolution. He is buried in the Middleton garden along with his mother.

The garden owes almost as much to the 2nd Henry Middleton (1770-1846) & his wife Mary Helen Hering (1772-1850). Henry was son of Arthur Middleton (1742-1787) &, as it does to his grandfather. Although the 2nd Henry also had a life in public service - he was Governor of South Carolina, a Congressman & Minister to Russia - he was an enthusiastic botanist.

In just one plant order to England, he purchased 253 different species, including 52 types of flower seeds, 54 sorts of bulbs, 71 hardy herbaceous plants, 41 varieties of greenhouse plants & 35 kinds of vegetable seeds. The earlier Middletons did not keep records, or the records were lost, but Henry did keep a diary. He notes the blooming of violets, jasmine, arrowhead, andromeda, wild orange, roses & sassafras.

It was Henry's good fortune that the French botanist, Andre Michaux, arrived (1785) while the garden was in his hands. They were close friends for 10 years. It was during his friendship with Michaux that Henry planted the first azaleas at Middleton. Michaux brought to Middleton mimosa, gingko, varnish tree, tea, candleberry tree & four camellia Japonica, three of which survive. They are the oldest camellias in America.

The next Middleton to take over the garden was Henry's son, Williams Middleton (1809-1883), who seems to have considered it a chore from the time he inherited it in 1846. He planted new grass, but he neglected the formal gardens and, under his stewardship, the designs became blurred & indistinct. Williams was a Secessionist, & he abandoned the gardens & fled when the Civil War started. It seemed to rest on his conscience, for he wrote sadly later that ''the camellia flowers in every hue were wasting their beauty on the desert scene.'' 

What followed after the war was, according to one account, ''50 years of neglect.'' The earthquake of 1886 ripped gaping holes in the terraces & sucked the butterfly lakes dry. It was not until the 1920's that another Middleton descendant, J. J. Pringle Smith, took over the gardens & what had become a mammoth task of restoration.

One of the striking things about Middleton Gardens is that it was set in the middle of a working rice plantation. In fact the gardens & the butterfly ponds once functioned as part of the waterway in which rice was grown. If you stand in the front door of the house looking left toward the river, you see flooded rice fields & to the right a rice mill pond. The original rice mill is at the foot of the gardens.