Monday, April 8, 2019

Blooming Today in the Mid-Atlantic - Spring Beauties

Article & photos by Capital Naturalist by Alonso Abugattas

The appropriately named Virginia Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) are indeed beautiful, if small, spring ephemerals: growing leaves, blooming, & producing seeds before the trees fully leaf out & then disappearing until the next spring. Their scientific name was assigned by Linnaeus himself in honor of John Clayton, one of Virginia's earliest naturalists. They can be quite abundant, blanketing open woodlands so thickly they sometimes look like snow. Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana) is another species that grows in the mountains West of our region. The plants send up only one grass-like leaf during years they do not flower, two or more otherwise. The flowers themselves close up & point downwards to protect their nectar on overcast days & at night.

More species of insects have been documented visiting Spring Beauties than any other spring ephemeral studied so far. The flowers show much variation & have nectar guides that appeal to many pollinators. Although each individual flower only lasts about a week (producing pollen solely the first day & nectar the remainder of the time so as to help prevent self-pollination), as a species they can bloom for quite a long time, from February through May. This allows more opportunities for different insects to visit as well as rewarding those who do. This includes a native solitary bee, &rena erigeniae which is olgolectic, meaning it requires the pollen from this flower or it can't reproduce. Though it can visit other flowers for nectar, its young need the pollen from this flower to grow. So close is this association that the flowers open only when temperatures & conditions are high enough for the bee (and other early pollinators) to be flying.  Once pollinated, the seeds "explode" as far as two feet before being dispersed by ants. They grow special attachments on their seed coats (called elaisomes) that are attractive to many species of ants in a process known as "myrmecochory."
Spring Beauties are sometimes called "Fairy Spuds." This is due to the small, marble-sized tuber (corm) that forms their roots. These are quite tasty, I must admit, were a favorite food of many indigenous tribes (and modern foragers, raw or cooked) wherever they grew, as were the leaves. Eating the root of course kills the plant however, so it is best to leave them to the numerous insects that need them instead.

Sunday, April 7, 2019

Blooming Today in the Mid-Atlantic - Bloodroot

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) goes by a variety of common names due its many different uses & properties: Red Indian Paint, Redroot, Puccoon (Virginia Algonquian Indian for "blood"), Sangdragon, Coonroot, Sweet Slumber (for its narcotic properties), Snakebite (for its bitter taste), Turmeric, Papoose Flower (for the way the emerging leaf wraps around the bud), & Tetterwort (for its use in treating skin disorders, or tetters). It is the only member of its genus Sanguinaria (which again refers to the bloody color of its sap).

Bloodroot is one of the earliest spring ephemeral plants, blooming well before the trees leaf out & then disappearing underground until the following year. The flowers are equally fleeting, with the petals falling off easily in wind or rain, rarely lasting more than a few days at most.  They are lovely, if short lasting, but their attractiveness is a bit shallow. They actually have no nectar to offer pollinators, only pollen, so a few insects are either tricked into pollination, though some others can use the pollen. This, along with their short-lived flowers & their early bloom time when there are few insects out, would be a problem were it not that the flowers can be self pollinating (autogamy). The seeds produced are primarily distributed by ants (this is called Myrmecochory. Some believe that without ants dispersing the seeds, the plant would not be very successful. In fact, experiments run by local botany guru Marion Lobstein, showed that Bloodroot seeds who had their elaisomes removed had a much higher germination rate than those who did not. Since the ants remove the elaisomes in order to feed on them (as well as planting the seeds underground & dispersing them), this helps explain their success.

Among the various human uses for Bloodroot, the most prominent was as a dye. All parts of the plant have a blood-like sap that can be toxic. This colorful plant juice was used by indigenous tribes for dyeing a variety of things, including as a face/body paint. Some even think the term "redskin" may have partially come from this usage by various tribes. It is believed that this toxicity led to its indigenous use as a bug repellent, with insects & ticks thus having to come in contact with the chemicals on their skins before being able to feed. Some people can have an allergic reaction to the toxic sap however. Colonists felt much safer using it to dye wool instead.

The plant's chemical properties made for various medicinal practices as well. It has been utilized especially for blood disorders, menses, during childbirth, & to cause abortions, often due to the belief that its blood-red color somehow signaled these uses (a concept called the Doctrine of Signatures, that a sign was provided on a plant by a higher power as to what the plant could treat). Bloodroot has also been used for rheumatism, as a fever reducer, vomit inducer, cough suppressant, to kill ringworms, rid warts, & to treat fungal infections. The Abnaki people even used it to cause abortions in horses. During the Civil War, Southern doctor Francis Porcher was tasked with finding substitute plants to use for items no longer available due to Northern blockades. The Confederacy listed Bloodroot as part of their ethnobotanical arsenal for many breathing disorders & to induce vomiting, among other applications...
Now a days, few people use Bloodroot for much of anything except to admire its fleeting beauty. In fact, it is easy to overlook except in the early spring when its white flowers make their appearance for the briefest of time. So get out there & enjoy them while they last.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Flowering Tobacco

Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana alata)

Flowering Tobacco, also referred to as Night-scented Tobacco, is a self-seeding, summer and fall-blooming annual or perennial that bears sweet-scented, white flowers which open only in the evening or during the cooler parts of the day. The fragrant flowers attract hummingbirds as well as moths that pollinate at night. A native of Brazil and Argentina, Flowering Tobacco was introduced into garden cultivation in England in 1829.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 
Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana alata)

Saturday, April 6, 2019

History Blooms at Monticello -

Monticello's Peggy Cornett tells us that

Lovely pink blossoms blanket Monticello’s South Orchard this week. Between 1769 & 1814, Jefferson planted as many as 1,031 fruit trees in his South Orchard including 38 varieties of his favorite fruit: the peach.

Plant List - 1736 William Byrd II (1674-1744)

1724 William Byrd II by Hans Hysing (1678-!752) Virginia Historical Society

William Byrd II (1674-1744) Like his father, Colonel William Byrd, Byrd was a wealthy Virginia planter on his inherited plantation Westover, on the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. He served as a member, and later president, of the Governor's Council, as did his father. His library was one of the finest of his time in America. He recorded his observations on natural history as well as life in colonial Virginia. William Byrd's Natural History of Virginia is available in a translation by Richard Croom Beatty and William J. Mulloy from a German edition printed in 1737 (Dietz Press, Richmond, 1940). The following are the plants Byrd listed c.1736  Southern Garden History Plant Lists

CROPS

Flax
Cotton
Silk grass
Turkish or Indian Corn
Maize
Wheat
Rye
Barley
Oats
Corn
Summer
Winter
Rice
White
Red
Buckwheat
Guinea corn
Broad beans
French beans (small beans)
Indian beans (dwarf beans)
Peas, European
Heartpeas (Ronceval)
Bonaveria (Calavance-'Nanticokes')

POT HERBS

Cabbage
White
Red
Turnips
Carrots
Beets
Cabbage
Savoy
Curled red
Cauliflower
Chives
Artichokes
Radish
Horseradish
Potatoes
Truffles
Parsnips
Shumack
chapacour
puccons
musquaspen
“Tockawaigh”
Garlic
White
Red
Spinach
Round
Prickly
Fennel
Sea fennel
Rhubarb
Cultivated
Wild
Sorrel
Cress
Mustard
Parsley
Asparagus
White
Red
Melons
Watermelons
Fragrant melons
Guinea
Golden
Orange
Green
Cucumbers
Pumpkins
Cashaws
Burmillions
Simnals
Horns
Squash

FIELD AND POT-HERBS

Marjoram
Rosemary
Camomiles
Melissa
Wormwood
Ox-tongue
Angelica
Borage
Burnet
Clary
Marigold
Columbine
Savory
Bachelor's buttons
Cat-thyme
Poplars
Yarrow
Dragonwort
Hyssop
Lavender
Brazil cabbage
Cardo bennet spoonwort
Tobacco
Dill
Coriander, anise
Plantain
Elemampane
Nettles
Wood mint
Asters
Poppy seed
Worm seed
Mother-wort
Beyment
Jamestown grass
Houseleek
Vervain
Hart's tongue
Nightshade
Yarrow
Mullen
Agrimony
Centaury
Scabiosa
John's wort
Maiden hair
Juniper
Soldanella
Dillany
Terbil
Mechoacan
Sarsaparilla

FLOWERS IN VIRGINIA

Carnations
Roses
Violets
Tricolor
Princess feather
Fritillary
Cardinal flowers
Sunflowers
Tulips
Moccasin flower
Tulip tree
Jasmine
Yellow
White
Locusts
Laurel tree
Wild apple tree

TREES, WHICH GROW IN THE WOODS

Chestnut oak
Red oak
Spanish oak
White oak
Black oak
Bastard oak
White iron-oak
Indian chicken-oak
Willow oak
Water oak
Green liveoak
Ash
Elms, two species
Tulip tree
Birches
Sassafras
Laurel trees
Dogwood
Wild apple tree
Sweet gun tree
White gum tree
Black gum tree
Scarletcolored snakewood
Bay tree
Red cedar
White cedar
Cypress tree
Hollow tree
Locust tree
Sorrel tree
Fir tree
Pitch pine
Almond tree
Hickory tree
White hickory
Red hickory
Brown hickory
Chincapin
Common maple tree
Willow
Egyptian fig tree
Glass wort tree
Prickly ash
Chestnut tree
Poison vine
Bamboo
Palmetto
Grape vines
Cluster grapes
Red cluster grapes
Fox grapes
winter
summer
Summer grapes
Winter grapes
Persimmon
Cherry tree
Hazel nuts
Mulberry, Common Red
Mulberry, red
Mulberry, white
Sugar maple
Spanish pepper tree
Papaw tree
Wild figs
Wild plums
Raspberry bushes
Blackberries
Huckle-berries
Winter currant tree
Bermuda curants
Bilberries
Cranberries
Strawberries
Myrtle berries
Eglantine berries
Jamestown plant
Fragrant tulip-bearing
laurel tree
Wild fragrant apple tree
Gall apple
Camellia tree
Red hawthorn
Black hawthorn
Safflower
Fragrant laurel tree
Indigo
Hops

TREES, WHICH ARE CULTIVATED, AND GROW IN THE ORCHARDS, WHICH ONE HAS BROUGHT THERE FROM ENGLAND AND OTHER PLACES IN EUROPE

Apples
Golden russet
Summer pearmain
Winter pearmain
Fall harvest apple
Winter queening
Lader-goller
Juntin' apple
Golden pippin
Carpendich
Red streaks
Jungferen
Long-stem apple
Red apple
Kabapffel
Green apple
French rennets

PEARS AND QUINCES

Pears
Sugar
Bergamont
Catherine
Warden
Summer bon chretien
Egg-shaped pear
Herren-Bieren
Grass-Bieren
Pomerantzen-Bieren
Feigen-Bieren
Winter Bon chretien
Citronen-Bieren
Roth-Bieren
Frauen Bieren
Gold-Bieren
Madeira pear
Pond pears
Musk pear
Quince
Indian
Spanish
Portuguese
Barbary
Brunswickian

ALL SORTS OF STONE FRUITS

Peaches
Plum peach
Nectarine peach
Apricot tree
Plums
Wild plums
Fig trees
Cherry trees
White
Red
Black
Mulberry trees
Currants
Raspberries
European
Indian
Cowberries
European
Indian
Red
White
Black
Strawberries
Nut trees
English
French
Italian
Spanish
Madeiran
Indian nut tree
Hazel nut
Grape vines
Almonds
Pomegranates
Coffee trees
Tea trees

Friday, April 5, 2019

Blooming Today - Along the Trail at Monticello

Virginia Bluebell

Julie Roller, Trail Manager at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, took these photos of native plants on that trail today.

 Chickasaw Plum

Spring Beauty

Trout Lily or Dog-tooth Violet  Recognized by its brown-mottled leaves, this is one of our most common spring ephemeral wildflowers, & it is found in sizable colonies. The common name (Dogtooth Violet) refers to the tooth-like shape of the white underground bulb. The name Trout Lily (a more suitable name since the flower is not a Violet) refers to the similarity between the leaf markings & those of the brown or brook trout. The White Dog-tooth Violet (E. albidum) has narrow, mottled leaves & white, bell-shaped flowers, often tinged with lavender on the outside.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Lemon Bergamot

Lemon Bergamot (Monarda citriodora)

Native to the southern United States and northern Mexico, the self-seeding, annual Lemon Bergamot was used by the Hopi tribe as a seasoning for wild hare. The lemon-scented leaves can also be rubbed on the skin as an insect repellant and the showy, pink to white, summer-blooming flowers are very attractive to bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Thursday, April 4, 2019

1700s Colonial American portraits with Garden Fountains

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

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Blooming Today in the Mid-Atlantic - Harbinger-of-Spring or Pepper-and-Salt.

Article & Photos by Capital Naturalist by Alonso Abugattas

One of the earliest of our native native wildflowers to bloom is the tiny spring ephemeral called Harbinger-of-Spring, or Pepper-and-Salt (Erigenia bulbosa). It sometimes blooms as early as February, sending up a small umbel of white flowers with red anthers that soon turn black (and giving the pepper & salt appearance)...This fleeting wildflower is actually in the carrot family & its bulbous minuscule root is edible. The Cherokee also used the plant as a treatment for toothaches. Although it is easy to overlook, it is none-the-less not considered common in most locations, & since eating its root kills the plant, that is strongly discouraged. A certain mining bee, &rena erigeniae, was said to need this plant's pollen in order to reproduce (an oligilectic relationship) & includes the plant's name in its own due to thie perceived relationship, but now many believe that though this bee likes to visit visit its flowers, it actually requires Spring Beauty (Claytonia spp.) pollen in order to reproduce.  Enjoy this early spring wildflower, knowing that it is among the first of many other spring ephemeral flowers soon to appear in our rich, dark, often moist, woods, a true Harbinger of Spring.
Harbinger of Spring is one of the first flowers available to early pollinators like this solitary bee

Plants in Early American Gardens - Balsam Pear

Balsam Pear (Momordica charantia)

Balsam Pear, also known as Bitter Melon, is an unusual vine from the Old World tropics that has been cultivated since the early 1700s for its curiously lumpy fruits, bitter yet edible when green, which then ripen to orange and burst open to reveal bright red seeds.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 
 Balsam Pear (Momordica charantia)

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

1700s Colonial American portraits with Garden Fountains

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

Monday, April 1, 2019

Plants in Early American Gardens - Four O'Clock

Four O'Clock (Mirabilis jalapa)

In July of 1767 Jefferson observed the blooms of his Four O'Clocks: "Mirabilis just opened, very clever." In 1811 he noted planting seed sent by André Thouin of the Parisian Jardin des Plantes in an oval flower bed at Monticello. The Four O'Clock, or Marvel of Peru, has long been cherished for the simple miracle of its flowers, which only open during low light periods such as in the late afternoon and on cloudy days. The plants bloom in a range of flower colors: red, purple, white, and yellow.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Sunday, March 31, 2019

1700s Colonial American portraits with Garden Fountains

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

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Plants in Early American Gardens - Balsam Apple

Balsam Apple (Momordica balsamina)

Thomas Jefferson planted this annual vine along the winding walk flower border at Monticello in the spring of 1810. This curious vine was introduced to Europe in 1568 from the tropical regions of Asia and Africa, where it was used medicinally to treat wounds. An unusual addition to the summer garden, Balsam Apple bears glossy, delicate foliage, small yellow flowers, and bright orange-red fruits that burst open to reveal seeds covered with a brilliant scarlet, sticky coating.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Plants in Early American Gardens - Sensitive Plant

Sensitive Plant (Mimosa pudica)

Thomas Jefferson planted seeds of Sensitive Plant in an oval flower bed at Monticello on March 22, 1811. Sensitive Plant has been grown as a curiosity for centuries, and was included in many early 19th-century seed lists. A favorite feature of a child's garden, the unusual leaves fold together when touched. The plants produce pink, mimosa-like, pompom flowers in mid-summer and can also be grown in a container.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 
 Sensitive Plant (Mimosa pudica)

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

History Blooms at Monticello -

Puckoon (a Native American name for Bloodroot), or Sanguinaria canadensis

Peggy Cornett tells us that the March of spring is constant but varied. So far the ephemeral wildflowers are a few days slower but advancing quickly. Jefferson made his first observation of Bloodroot April 6, 1766, writing in the first page of his Garden Book “Narcissus and Puckoon open.” Adding on April 12 “Puckoon flowers fallen.” Puckoon (a Native American name for Bloodroot), or Sanguinaria canadensis, is flowering now in the oval beds and winding walk flower borders at Monticello.  According to the American Heritage Dictionary, Puccoon is listed as deriving from the Powhatan language, but used in differing forms across most or all of the Algonquian languages.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Plants in Early American Gardens - Painted Lady Sweet Pea

Painted Lady Sweet Pea (Lathyrus odoratus cv.)

Francis Cupani, a Franciscan monk, first sent seed of the purple-flowered species of Sweet Pea to England from Sicily in 1699. Painted Lady Sweet Pea is a highly scented, pink and white bicolor variety, which was in cultivation by the 1730s and popular in American gardens through the 19th century. In 1811 Jefferson planted "Lathyrus odoratus. Sweet scented pea" in an oval flower bed at Monticello. This spring-blooming vine prefers cool weather.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Monday, March 25, 2019

History Blooms at Monticello

Peggy Cornett writes, "We planted these clumps of Jeffersonia dubia in the Center for Historic Plants’ Nursery at Tufton Farm at lest fifteen years ago. The shade of the lath house provides the perfect conditions for this Asian species."

Sunday, March 24, 2019

History Blooms at Monticello

Peggy Cornett of Monticello tells us that,

Today English Peas are sprouting in plantings throughout the Monticello Vegetable Garden. Among the 330 different kinds of vegetables in Thomas Jefferson's garden the English pea was considered his favorite. By staggering the planting of peas, Jefferson was able to eat them fresh from the garden from the middle of May to the middle of July.
Aside from personal preference, Jefferson might have taken special note of the English pea because of an annual neighborhood contest to see which local farmer could bring to table the 1st peas of spring. The winner would host the other contestants in a dinner that included the peas.
Though Jefferson's mountaintop garden, with its southern exposure to warmth and light, should have provided an advantage for the contest, it seems that the contest was almost always won by a neighbor named George Divers.  As Jefferson's grandson recalled: "A wealthy neighbor [Divers], without children, and fond of horticulture, generally triumphed."

George Divers (c 1748-1830) was an Albemarle County landowner, a merchant, & a friend of Thomas Jefferson. The two of them were known to exchange seeds & letters on farming & gardening. Divers married Martha Walker, daughter of Dr. Thomas Walker, & their only son died at a young age. In 1785, Divers bought the Farmington estate, & in 1802, he asked Jefferson to design his house.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Cyprus Vines

 Cypress Vines (Ipomoea quamoclit)
Cypress Vines (Ipomoea quamoclit)

Thomas Jefferson forwarded seeds of this vigorous vine to his two daughters, Mary and Martha, in 1791 from Philadelphia. The seeds of this morning glory relative were planted "in boxes in the window” at Monticello. Cypress Vine is a self-seeding annual with star-shaped scarlet flowers and ferny foliage that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Saturday, March 23, 2019

History Blooms at Monticello

Note from Monticello's Peggy Cornett

Peggy tells us today that Thomas Jefferson's Monticello’s South Orchard is waking up. This week the Moor Park Apricots are flowering and peach buds are swelling. Jefferson ordered the Moor Park from the William Prince Nursery in 1791 and later received scions from Timothy Matlack in 1807. The Moor Park was introduced into England in 1760 and was named for the estate where it first fruited. The tree produces large, roundish bright orange fruit with a very firm orange flesh.
Discover more about the over 170 varieties of fruits cultivated in Jefferson’s gardens in The Fruits and Fruit Trees of Monticello by Peter Hatch. 

Friday, March 22, 2019

Plants in Early American Gardens - Balsam; Touch-Me-Not

Balsam; Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens balsamina)

This is the traditional impatiens popular in old-fashioned gardens. Thomas Jefferson planted double-flowering Balsam seeds at Shadwell in 1767, and also received seeds from Philadelphia nurseryman, Bernard McMahon, in 1812. Bushy plants bloom in shades of pink, white, red, and salmon throughout the summer and fall until the first frost.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Teenage Geo Washington (1732-1799)- Professional Landscape Surveyor


Founders Online explains George Washington's (1732-1799) Surveying Appointment:   22 July 1749–25 October 1752

Between the ages of 17 & 20 GW was a practicing professional land surveyor. During that time he made more than 190 surveys, nearly all of them for grants of new lands on the frontiers of Lord Fairfax’s Northern Neck Proprietary. Frontier surveying was a lucrative business in Virginia at the middle of the eighteenth century, as swarms of settlers & speculators laid claim to the colony’s western lands, both inside & outside the Northern Neck. A diligent frontier surveyor working only a few months out of the year could clear annually £100 or more in Virginia current money, a cash income greater than that of most planters & tradesmen in the colony. Frontier surveyors, in addition, had ample opportunities to patent choice tracts of land in their own names, & many acquired holdings of several thousand acres. Surveying was a respectable occupation for a young Virginian in 1749, roughly on a par with law, medicine, the church, or military service, & most of the surveyors were drawn from the Virginia gentry.

GW’s career as a surveyor owed much to the Fairfax family. Close acquaintance with the proprietor, Thomas, Lord Fairfax, & with Fairfax’s relatives at Belvoir assured GW of receiving profitable surveying assignments in the Northern Neck, & it was probably at the behest of Lord Fairfax & through the agency of William Fairfax, who sat on the governor’s council, that GW obtained the surveyorship of Culpeper County at the start of his professional career. Young men of 17 usually did not serve as county surveyors. Most novice surveyors began as apprentices or deputies to county surveyors & did not become county surveyors themselves, if ever, until they had had some years of experience. Before 20 July 1749, nevertheless, GW received a commission from the president & masters of the College of William & Mary appointing him surveyor of newly formed Culpeper County. The college in its charter of 1693 had been granted the power to appoint all Virginia county surveyors & the right to collect one-sixth of their surveying fees, but in practice the college authorities were more concerned with their income than with who was appointed to the surveyorships. They regularly deferred to the wishes of powerful men in commissioning surveyors, & in the case of Culpeper, which lay in the Northern Neck, they were undoubtedly open to any suggestion that Lord Fairfax might make for the county’s surveyor. GW did not study at the college to qualify for the commission or stand any examination by the president & masters of the school. There is no evidence, in fact, that GW went to Williamsburg in the spring or summer of 1749. Most probably, William Fairfax, who attended council in Williamsburg from March to May 1749, secured the commission for him. On 20 July 1749 GW appeared before the justices of the Culpeper court &, after presenting his commission, took the oaths of public office for the first time & became the county’s first surveyor.

Two days later GW ran a survey of 400 acres on Flat Run in east central Culpeper County for Richard Barnes of Richmond County. GW decorated his plat of the survey with a handsome compass rose & a sketch of Mount Pony, an area landmark, & signed his name in full with his new title “Survy of Culpeper Cty.” It is the only survey that he is known to have made in the county in which he was commissioned. Thereafter, his surveying was done almost entirely in the Shenandoah & Cacapon valleys of Frederick County, which until 1753 embraced all of the Northern Neck Proprietary west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Surveyors in the Northern Neck, unlike surveyors in the rest of Virginia, were allowed, at Lord Fairfax’s pleasure, to make public surveys outside the counties to which they were appointed. Under those circumstances it is not surprising that GW chose to survey on the frontier. Culpeper, although a new county, was fairly well settled. Most of its desirable lands had been surveyed & granted while it was part of Orange County, whereas on the other side of the Blue Ridge, in Frederick County, people were claiming many vacant tracts in 1749, providing a great deal of lucrative business for a surveyor...

Because in Virginia one could not legally make public surveys without a commission as a county surveyor, an assistant county surveyor, or special surveyor, the inclusion of GW’s title on these surveys was an indication that they were legitimate...The absence of any title at all on GW’s surveys after he stopped using “S.C.C.” suggests that he may have become one of the several assistants to Frederick County surveyor James Wood, since Frederick County assistants signed their surveys without title...Lord Fairfax continued to allow GW to survey for grants after he ceased to be surveyor of Culpeper County & that no one challenged the legitimacy of his work.
GW usually received his surveying assignments in packets of land warrants issued from the Proprietary land office at Belvoir. Addressed to GW & signed by William Fairfax, as the proprietor’s agent, or by William’s son George William Fairfax on behalf of his father, these documents instructed GW to survey an approximate acreage for a specific person at a general location by a certain date, normally 5 to 6 months from the date of the warrant...His surveys were often simple & near each other & sometimes had the additional advantage of being contiguous, making it possible to use one or more boundaries for two tracts. On at least  occasions GW was able to do four surveys in a day & on at least 13 other occasions three surveys in a day. At other times, of course, he worked more slowly, because the surveys were large or complex or there was some distance to travel between them.

GW, like most frontier surveyors, usually surveyed in the spring & fall, when the weather was most pleasant, snakes & insects were least troublesome, & the thin foliage of trees made it easier to sight long boundary lines through wooded areas...

GW gave no reasons for quitting the profession of surveying after the fall of 1752, but there are two evident ones. As lucrative as surveying on the Northern Neck frontier was between 1749 & 1752, it offered only diminishing prospects for the future. The supply of desirable new lands was already beginning to run low in the Northern Neck by 1752, & the dominance of Lord Fairfax in the whole land-granting process prevented Northern Neck surveyors, whether they held county appointments or not, from establishing power bases of their own in the way many frontier surveyors in other parts of Virginia did...In addition, GW had a strong appetite for soldiering, whetted no doubt by the example of his half brother Lawrence. By the spring of 1752 GW had learned that the office of adjutant for the colony, an office that Lawrence held, was to be divided into districts. On 10 June 1752 he asked Lt. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie to consider him for the Northern Neck adjutancy. Instead, the council on 6 Nov. 1752 appointed him adjutant for southern Virginia with a salary of £100 a year. GW did not survey professionally thereafter, but throughout the remainder of his life he frequently employed his surveying skills for his own private purposes: to acquire new land by purchase or grant both east & west of the mountains, to find & defend the boundaries of his many holdings, & to divide them into profitable fields & tenements. As late as Nov. 1799 he spent 3 days on Difficult Run in northern Fairfax County running the lines of his land there & of a nearby tract that he hoped to buy. Only his death 5 weeks later put an end to his surveying...

Teenage Geo Washington's (1732-1799) Journal of his 1st Landscape Survey Adventure

A Journal of my Journey over the Mountains began Fryday the 11th. of March 1747/8  by George Washington (1732-1799)

[March 1748]
Began my Journey in Company with George Fairfax Esqr.; we travell’d this day 40 Miles to Mr. George Neavels in Prince William County.

In 1746 & 1748, young George Fairfax (1724-1787) son of Wm Fairfax, took part in expeditions to survey Lord Fairfax's western land. George Washington, age 16, accompanied him on the 2nd trip, & they became lifelong friends.  George Neville (Neavil) (d. 1774), a planter & land speculator, had settled on Cedar Run, then in Prince William County (now in Fauquier County), as early as 1730.

Saturday March 12th. This Morning Mr. James Genn the surveyor came to us. We travel’d over the Blue Ridge to Capt. Ashbys on Shannondoa River. Nothing remarkable happen’d.

John Ashby (1707–1789) was son of  Thomas Ashby, had settled in Stafford County in 1710. John was widely known as an Indian fighter

Sunday March 13. Rode to his Lordships Quarter about 4 Miles higher up the River we went through most beautiful Groves of Sugar Trees & spent the best part of the Day in admiring the Trees & richness of the Land.

GW probably was referring to land owned by Lord Fairfax on the east side of the Shannondoah River.

Monday 14th. We sent our Baggage to Capt. Hites (near Frederick Town) went ourselves down the River about 16 Miles to Capt. Isaac Penningtons (the Land exceeding Rich & Fertile all the way produces abundance of Grain Hemp Tobacco &c.) in order to Lay of some Lands on Cates Marsh & Long Marsh.

Jost Hite (d. 1760) was one of the leading land speculators and developers in Frederick, eventually settling families on a tract amounting to 94,000 acres. His land purchases involved him in a dispute with Lord Fairfax over ownership of his grants. The court case was settled in Hite’s favor in 1786, 26 years after his death.  Frederick Town is now Winchester, Va.  Isaac Pennington came to the Shenandoah Valley, about 1734 and settled a tract of some 600 acres on the south bank of Buck Marsh Run.  In 1750 GW surveyed a tract of land for him in Frederick County before he moved to South Carolina in the fall of 1754.

Tuesday 15th. We set out early with Intent to Run round the sd. Land but being taken in a Rain & it Increasing very fast obliged us to return. It clearing about one oClock & our time being too Precious to Loose we a second time ventured out & Worked hard till Night & then returnd to Penningtons we got our Suppers & was Lighted in to a Room & I not being so good a Woodsman as the rest of my Company striped my self very orderly & went in to the Bed as they call’d it when to my Surprize I found it to be nothing but a Little Straw—Matted together without Sheets or any thing else but only one Thread Bear blanket with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice Fleas &c. I was glad to get up (as soon as the Light was carried from us) & put on my Cloths & Lay as my Companions. Had we not have been very tired, I am sure we should not have slep’d much that night. I made a Promise not to Sleep so from that time forward chusing rather to sleep in the open Air before a fire as will Appear hereafter.

On this day the party had surveyed a tract of land for George William Fairfax on Cates Marsh and Long Marsh, the “names of small streams which flow from the foothill of North mountain to the Shenandoah river and have along their course considerable meadow or marshy land” 

Wednesday 16th. We set out early & finish’d about one oClock & then Travell’d up to Frederick Town where our Baggage came to us. We cleaned ourselves (to get Rid of the Game we had catched the Night before) & took a Review of the Town & then return’d to our Lodgings where we had a good Dinner prepar’d for us Wine & Rum Punch in Plenty & a good Feather Bed with clean Sheets which was a very agreeable regale.

Thursday 17th. Rain’d till Ten oClock & then clearing we reached as far as Major Campbells one of there Burgesses about 25 Miles from Town. Nothing Remarkable this day nor Night but that we had a Tolerable good Bed [to] lay on.

Andrew Campbell, who lived northwest of Winchester, and several other residents to keep ordinaries “at their respective houses” and to “furnish lodgings and food and Liquors at prices fixed by the court.”

Fryday 18th. We Travell’d up about 35 Miles to Thomas Barwicks on Potomack where we found the River so excessively high by Reason of the Great Rains that had fallen up about the Allegany Mountains as they told us which was then bringing down the melted Snow & that it would not be fordable for severall Days it was then above Six foot Higher than usual & was Rising. We agreed to stay till Monday. We this day call’d to see the Fam’d Warm Springs. We camped out in the field this Night. Nothing Remarkable happen’d till sunday the 20th.

Thomas Barwick (Berwick) was settled in Frederick County as early as 1744.

Sunday 20th. Finding the River not much abated we in the Evening Swam our horses over & carried them to Charles Polks in Maryland for Pasturage till the next Morning.

Monday 21st. We went over in a Canoe & Travell’d up Maryland side all the Day in a Continued Rain to Collo. Cresaps right against the Mouth of the South Branch about 40 Miles from Polks I believe the Worst Road that ever was trod by Man or Beast.

Thomas Cresap (1694–1790) immigrated to America about 1719, in 1736, and he moved to the vicinity of Shawnee Old Town (now Oldtown, Md.), where he built a fortified trading post at the crossroads of a series of trails much traveled by Indians and whites. Cresap acted as a surveyor and agent for the Ohio Company and helped lay out the company’s road from Wills Creek to the Monongahela.

Tuesday 22d. Continued Rain and the Freshes kept us at Cresaps.

Wednesday 23d. Rain’d till about two oClock & Clear’d when we were agreeably surpris’d at the sight of thirty odd Indians coming from War with only one Scalp. We had some Liquor with us of which we gave them Part it elevating there Spirits put them in the Humour of Dauncing of whom we had a War Daunce. There Manner of Dauncing is as follows Viz. They clear a Large Circle & make a great Fire in the Middle then seats themselves around it the Speaker makes a grand Speech telling them in what Manner they are to Daunce after he has finish’d the best Dauncer Jumps up as one awaked out of a Sleep & Runs & Jumps about the Ring in a most comicle Manner he is followd by the Rest then begins there Musicians to Play the Musick is a Pot half of Water with a Deerskin Streched over it as tight as it can & a goard with some Shott in it to Rattle & a Piece of an horses Tail tied to it to make it look fine the one keeps Rattling and the other Drumming all the While the others is Dauncing.

Fryday 25th. 1748. Nothing Remarkable on thursday but only being with the Indians all day so shall slip it. This day left Cresaps & went up to the Mouth of Patersons Creek & there swum our Horses over got over ourselves in a Canoe & travel’d up the following Part of the Day to Abram Johnstones 15 miles from the Mouth where we camped.

Patterson’s Creek flows into the Potomac about 12 miles below Cumberland, Md.

Saterday 26. Travelld up the Creek to Solomon Hedges Esqr. one of his Majestys Justices of the Peace for the County of Frederick where we camped. When we came to Supper there was neither a Cloth upon the Table nor a Knife to eat with but as good luck would have it we had Knives of [our] own.

Sunday 27th. Travell’d over to the South Branch (attended with the Esqr.) to Henry Vanmetriss in order to go about Intended Work of Lots.

John Van Meter, a New York state Indian trader who carried on an extensive trade among the Delaware Indians, visited Virginia about 1725. With his encouragement, his sons Isaac & John obtained extensive grants of land on the South Branch of the Potomac and in the lower Shenandoah Valley in 1730 and brought in a number of settlers.

Monday 28th. Travell’d up the Branch about 30 Miles to Mr. James Rutlidge’s Horse Jockey & about 70 Miles from the Mouth.

On 29 Mar. the party surveyed a tract of land for James Rutledge (surveying notes, DLC:GW). 

Tuesday 29th. This Morning went out & Survey’d five Hundred Acres of Land & went down to one Michael Stumps on the So. Fork of the Branch. On our way Shot two Wild Turkies.

Michael Stump, Sr. (1709–1768), received a grant on the South Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac, on 8 Sept. 1749

Wednesday 30th. This Morning began our Intended Business of Laying of Lots. We began at the Boundary Line of the Northern 10 Miles above Stumps & run of two Lots & returnd to Stumps.

Thursday 31st. Early this Morning one of our Men went out with the Gun & soon Returnd with two Wild Turkies. We then went to our Business. Run of three Lots & returnd to our Camping place at Stumps.

Surveying the Land - from Geo Washington's (1732-1799) Ferry Farm

George’s First Job - About The Land

When visitors come to George Washington’s Ferry Farm, they can stand in what were once the fields of the Washington family’s farm, where they grew tobacco and other crops. While living here, Augustine Washington, George’s father, taught his sons – George, Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles – to see opportunity in land.
Ferry Farm Aerial View
Aerial view of the present-day Washington house replica, work yard, hen yard, and archaeological digs at George Washington's Ferry Farm. Credit: Joe Brooks, EagleOne Photography

Growing up at Ferry Farm, George Washington learned that land was wealth. He learned how to run a plantation and to manage the enslaved workers who lived and toiled on his family’s farms. He learned what crops to grow and livestock to raise, how to care for them, and how to put them to use.  George Washington was many things at different points in his life – diplomat, politician, general, president –  but, throughout his sixty plus years, he was always a farmer.

To George and the other Europeans who settled in British North America in the 1700s, land and its natural resources were privately owned commodities or raw materials to be bought or sold. Land was used to create goods for market or was sold for profit.  In other words, land was valuable and owning a lot of land made you wealthy.

Before growing anything on a farm, Washington and his fellow colonial-era farmers had to own land and the land they owned had to be defined legally. It had to have boundaries, so they and other people knew it belong to them.  If land was wealth, it was vitally important to know how much land you owned.

Creating these boundaries was the job of a surveyor and being a surveyor was, after his lifelong work as a farmer, George Washington’s first job.
Young George Washington, Surveyor From National Park Service 

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines surveying as “determining the area of any portion of the earth’s surface.”

Today, surveyors use the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite imagery, lasers, and other advanced digital equipment to do their work more quickly and more accurately. When George Washington was a surveyor, he used simple tools compared to today but, 200-years-ago, these simple tools were as advanced technologically speaking as today’s surveying equipment.  Indeed, in the 1700s, surveying was relatively brand new.  The word itself first appeared only in 1682.

Although a relatively new science, young George Washington was probably familiar with surveying from an early age.  His father Augustine owned “1 Set Surveyors Instruments,” according to the probate inventory made of Augustine’s property after his death in 1743.

The state-of-the-art instruments of a surveyor in the 1700s included a surveying compass on a tripod used to figure out the bearing and direction of a proposed boundary line.  A surveying compass included “sighting vanes” used to point “the compass by peering through the slit in one of the vanes and lining up the horsehair or wire in the oval of the other vane with a target or object” along boundary line.  These targets were often just trees (sometimes marked in some fashion with a hatchet), boulders, steams, or any other landmarks.
Surveyor's Compass by David Rittenhouse, believed to be given to George Washington in 1782. National Museum of American History 

Measuring the distance between these targets set the property’s boundaries as well as its acreage. These distances were measured using chains carried by the surveyor’s assistants known as chainmen.  A full surveyor's chain was 66 feet long and 100 links and eighty of these chains equaled one mile. “Dragging a sixty-six-foot chain through the brush of colonial Virginia's forests was impractical.” These long chains snagged on trees and other vegetation so surveyors in the colonies used a chain that was only 33 feet long with 50 links.
Surveyor's Chain, c1830. Credit: National Museum of American History / 

George Washington began a survey by choosing a starting landmark as well as a landmark to travel towards.  He recorded the direction of the line using his surveying compass.  Then, to measure the distance, the rear chainman held one end of the chain at the starting point while the lead chainman walked a straight line toward the ending target.  As the surveyor, George constantly checked the compass to make sure the chainmen followed his line.  Keeping the line straight sometimes meant the lead chainman hacked his way straight through brush and undergrowth.  Once the he reached the end of the chain, the lead chainman pinned it to the ground and the rear chainman brought up the other end. They then repeated the process until the ending point of the line was reached. The rear chainman picked up the pins as they walked.

Fifteen-year-old George Washington made one of his first surveys on February 27, 1747 when he measured out his older half-brother Lawrence’s turnip field at Mount Vernon. According to Ledger Book Zero, Washington bought a Gunter scale, essentially a two-foot long ruler specifically designed to solve the trigonometry problems common to surveying, from his cousin Baily on September 20, 1747.
Gunter's scale. Credit: MIT Museum

Thirteen months later, on March 11, 1748, George accompanied George William Fairfax and James Genn, the Surveyor of Prince William County, on a month-long trip across the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Virginia’s frontier to survey land for Thomas, Lord Fairfax.  Young Washington kept a journal of his experiences.

In 1749, at age 17, George was commissioned the surveyor of the new county of Culpepper by the College of William & Mary, which appointed all county surveyors in Virginia This was unusual for someone this young to be appointed.  A year later, he began a two-year period of off-and-on trips throughout Virginia’s Frederick County, which at the time encompassed a vast swath of frontier land that today makes up nine separate counties in two states.  “By 1752, Washington completed nearly 200 surveys totaling more than 60,000 acres.”

In the later 1750s, George began to focus his work life more on soldiering (the French and Indian War) and farming. He never completely stopped surveying or acquiring land, however. In 1771, he surveyed Ferry Farm in preparation to sell the property and he surveyed for the last time in 1799, the year he died.

In the colonial age, land was wealth and was how many colonials, including George Washington, made their living.  As such, early Americans wanted to know what land they owned as well as how much they owned.  Surveyors, like George Washington, measured the land and created boundaries so ownership would be clear.  “At one time, Washington owned nearly 70,000 acres between the Potomac and Ohio Rivers.”  Surveying was Washington’s first job and allowed him to begin to build vast amounts of land holdings and thus wealth. This wealth, in part, propelled him to the heights of colonial American society and politics.  He began this journey as a surveyor while living at Ferry Farm.

By Zac Cunningham, Manager of Educational Programs

History Blooms at Monticello

Note from Peggy Cornett

After his death in 1826 Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter, Cornelia Jefferson Randolph, sketched the ground plan of Monticello, which included a south corner “triangle bed” meant to grow violets and other fragrant flowers: intending it to be a “nest of sweets.” Archaeologists confirmed this design feature and today it is planted with Hyacinths, sweet white violets, Historic tulips, and Dianthus.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Globe Candytuft

Globe Candytuft (Iberis umbellata)

Globe Candytuft was established in early colonial American gardens, and Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon offered it in his 1804 broadsheet.  Globe Candytuft is a showy annual that forms dense mounds covered with flowers in spring and summer. The range of colors is broad, including deep purple, lavender, deep rose, light pink, cream, and white.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Ferry Farm, Geo Washington's (1732-1799) reconstructed Boyhood Home opens

A rendering of Geo Washington's family house at Ferry Farm in Stafford County, c 1738. A ferry, which gave the farm its name, crosses the Rappahannock River in the foreground

George Washington's reconstructed boyhood home opens

By KRISTIN DAVIS The Free Lance-Star Oct 7, 2017  

FREDERICKSBURG The last photographic evidence of a once-impressive house poised high on the Rappahannock River terrace across from Fredericksburg dates to 1830. America was barely a half-century old then. The Civil War was three decades in the future.

The home where the nation’s first president spent his formative years had crumbled in on itself. Just a heap of rubble remained in the place where George Washington watched English merchant ships sailing upriver and first dreamed of a life of adventure.

Even that would disappear, receding into the earth, it seemed, forever.

Now, it has risen again.

After decades of searching, archaeologists in 2008 announced they had at last uncovered the remains of the house. So began the laborious feat of raising from its footprint a replica so historically accurate that the iron hinges from which the paneled doors hang are hand-wrought.

On Saturday at Ferry Farm, the George Washington Foundation celebrated the home’s construction with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Those responsible for its discovery, including Ferry Farm archaeology director Dave Muraca, as well as the highly skilled artisans and craftsmen who built the replica from the ground up, were on hand to talk about their work.

The house is part of a $40 million fundraising campaign that will include transforming the grounds into a living history museum so that visitors might experience life as it once was.

Guests for the first time will get to wander the rooms that look much as they did when Washington was a boy and the house stood like a sentry on the Rappahannock’s shore.

To understand the significance of Saturday’s event is to know that the Stafford County farm where Washington grew up was nearly lost to commercial development in the mid-1990s. Regents and trustees of what would become the George Washington Foundation, along with community members and organizations, saved the property, with the goal of telling the stories of the nation’s first president, Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis, and their families.

Washington moved to Ferry Farm in 1738 at age 6. He left at 22.

Nearly a century of searching for his boyhood home — once the grandest in at least two counties — had turned up nothing when Muraca arrived in 2001.

“When I got here, I knew it had the potential to be an incredible find,” Muraca said. “It lived up to its potential.”

Much of the work before he arrived involved “small peeks into the ground,” he said. “It became apparent to me we had to approach it in a different way. This is a site that doesn’t like to give up its secrets.”

To put in everyday terms, Muraca knew he and a team of archaeologists would have to “dig really big holes” if they were to ever uncover the Washington house remains.

Six years later, on an autumn day in 2007, he called George Washington Foundation President Bill Garner. The archaeologists had come upon what appeared to be a cellar, cut from Aquia sandstone. The material, once common, had not been mined locally since the 1800s.

Garner knew right away they had found what they’d been looking for. But nine more months would pass before the foundation announced to the public with certainty its find.

“You have to eliminate all other alternate possibilities,” Muraca said. “Then really it’s the only plausible explanation.”

The artifacts they uncovered — 750,000 of them — helped tell how the Washingtons lived, Garner said, all the way down to their diet.

“The soil composition acts almost to preserve what is left,” he said. “Fish scales, peach pits and cherry pits — yes, cherries — eggshell fragments, animals butchered, give us a wonderful opportunity to examine how they lived when they first got here.”

Other artifacts would help put together a picture of the house itself, from oyster-shell mortar and lime plaster to scalloped shingles and handmade brick.