Geo Washington's (1732-1799) Gardeners at Mount Vernon

Gardeners at Mount Vernon

by Charlotte Doney, George Washington University

Digital Encyclopedia

Fred W. Smith National Library for the 

Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon

George Washington cared deeply about the appearance of his gardens, in both style & type of flora, & closely supervised the planting process at Mount Vernon. He demonstrated his love of the United States through the types of native flora that he planted on his estate. After Washington retired, first from war & then from politics, he fulfilled the image of a gentleman planter, using Mount Vernon as his own personal statement of independence & republican simplicity.

Washington loved his gardens & was constantly changing the plants used at Mount Vernon. There is little evidence to suggest, however, that he was the one gardening. There were many gardeners who worked at Mount Vernon, several of whom were indentured servants. For example, letters written from Washington to his estate manager, Lund Washington, & to John Washington, an acquaintance from King George City, Virginia, reveal that Philip Bateman served as the primary gardener at Mount Vernon between 1773 & 1785...

George Washington purchased Bateman as an indentured servant for £35 in 1773, but continued to employ his services long after the term of indenture had ended... Records indicate that an individual with the last name Bateman was still at the Mount Vernon Estate until 1787, although there is no record to confirm that it was the same Bateman. On March 20, 1773, George Washington wrote to thank John Washington for finding him a promising gardener.3 Evidence in Washington's diaries suggests that Bateman stayed at least until December 1785, around the same time Lund Washington was preparing to end his tenure as the estate manager of Mount Vernon... There is a possibility that Bateman stayed at Mount Vernon longer, perhaps under the name Philip Bater, who on April 23, 1787, agreed to continue to work at Mount Vernon for at least one more year...

Very little is known about Bateman aside from the fact that he was the gardener at Mount Vernon from 1773 to at least 1785. Although Lund Washington appreciated Bateman's talents, he did not think highly of the gardener's intellect. In October 1783, Lund Washington wrote to George Washington: "As to Bateman (the Old Gardener) I have no expectation of his ever seeking Another home—indulge him in getg Drunk now & then, & he will be happy—he is the best kitchen Gardener to be met with..."  Bateman was clearly loyal to the Washingtons & to Mount Vernon, but from the very few letters & records that mention his name it is difficult to ascertain his fate after he ended his work at Mount Vernon.

After Bateman's departure from Mount Vernon, George Washington hired a German gardener named Johann (John) Christian Ehlers who worked on the estate from 1789 to 1797. Although Washington employed Ehlers for nearly ten years, he was constantly troubled by Ehler's work ethic & drinking habits. In 1792, Washington warned his estate manager at the time, Anthony Whiting, about Ehlers: "It is my desire also that Mr. Butler will pay some attention to the conduct of the Gardener & the hands who are at work with him; so far as to see that they are not idle; for, though I will not charge them with idleness, I cannot forbear saying . . . that the matters entrusted to him appear to me to progress amazingly slow..."

Ehlers evidently did not reform his behavior. In December 1793, Washington scolded the gardener, writing, "I shall not close this letter without exhorting you to refrain from spiritous liquors—they will prove your ruin if you do not … Don’t let this be your case. Shew yourself more of a man, & a Christian, than to yield to so intolerable a vice; which cannot, I am certain (to the greatest lover of liquor) give more pleasure to sip in the poison (for it is no better) than the consequences of it in bad behaviour at the moment, & the more serious evils produced by it afterwards, must give pain..." Washington ultimately parted ways with Ehlers in 1797.

While Ehlers was still employed by Washington, another gardener named John Gottleib Richler also worked at Mount Vernon. Richler was a German servant indentured for three years in return for Washington paying for his passage from Germany to the United States...  Otherwise not much is known about Richler [not Ehlers], who presumably left Mount Vernon after his term of indenture ended.

There were many other gardeners who worked at Mount Vernon, but their personal information is scarce. Two of these gardeners were David Cowan & William Spence. David Cowan worked for Washington for a little over a year between 1773 & 1774. William Spence was hired to work at Mount Vernon as a gardener in 1797, & stayed on after Washington's death in 1799.

There is no evidence that George Washington did any physical gardening himself at Mount Vernon, but his influence on activities was still apparent. His designs determined what plants were included & how the gardens appeared. Washington was directly involved in the development & redesigning of the gardens around the mansion, especially during his two separate retirements between 1784 & 1789 & from 1779 to 1799...

Washington contributed to the look of several natural spaces at Mount Vernon, including, the vista approaching the house, the Bowling Green, & the upper & lower walled gardens. For each garden area, Washington specified the types of plants & features that he wanted. In the Bowling Green, for example, Washington had the area shaped perfectly flat, using rollers to compress the earth & planted with velvety English grass to create a lush setting.

Surrounding the Bowling Green, Washington chose shrubs & trees planted around the walkways to reflect his design aesthetic. Washington desired to have native North American plant species in his gardens to represent the splendor of flora found in the United States. In his letters, Washington wrote that he wanted "philadelphus coronarius, as sweet flowering shrub (called mock Orange)," "Pinus Strobus," "Prunis Divaricata," "Hydrangia arborescens," & "Laurus nobilis..."  Washington exercised similar influence over each of Mount Vernon’s gardens.

Research plus images & much more are available from Geo Washington's (1732-1799) home Mount Vernon website, MountVernon.org. 

Tho Jefferson (1743-1824) Writes about Gardening

 

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

1809 April 27.  (Jefferson to John Barnes).  "the total change of occupation from the house & writing table to constant emploiment in the garden & farm has added wonderfully to my happiness."

John Barnes (1730-1826) was a native of Norwich, England, where he was born in 1730. At the age of thirty, in about 1760, at the height of the French & Indian War, he came to America, settling first in New York. His occupation in New York is uncertain, but he may have been a merchant. By the time of the Revolution, he was sympathetic to the American cause. When the U.S. government convened in Philadelphia, Barnes moved there from New York. He became friends with Secretary of State Jefferson. According to the newspapers of the day, Barnes was among those who accompanied the heads of the departments when the federal government moved from Philadelphia to Washington. He took up residence in Georgetown. He “lived in princely style among the gentry of that period. Statesmen, dignified & influential, gathered around his board & ‘forgot the thorns of public controversy under the roses of private cheerfulness.’’ At some point beginning around 1800 when both he & Jefferson were in Washington Barnes began to act as a sort of commission merchant/purchasing agent/investment adviser for the President. 

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

Swept Yards

Swept Yards

The swept yard is a landscape tradition once common in America's deep South: a bare dirt area denuded of any grass, kept 'clean' by sweeping with a broom made of twigs (dogwood often was preferred). The hard red clay of the bare-earth yard would eventually become almost stone like. The swept yard was the outdoor room. 

Back in West Africa, especially due to the heat as well as space constraints, much of the cooking, washing of clothing, and gathering was done outside. Therefore for convenience, pest control, and safety issues, neighbors swept their yards with crude brooms made of twigs removing all grass, debris, and weeds from the areas surrounding their homes. Most of the cooking was done outdoors, if there were grass, then there was the possibility of a stray ash igniting the grass and starting a fire. Lawns were thought to be unnecessary and labor-intensive. In Africa, the natives were more concerned with growing crops than cutting grass. 
Sweeping the Yards in Rural South Carolina.  

With the advent of slavery in America, West African slaves brought the concept of swept yards to America. And as European settlers were preoccupied with growing crops and not grass, the swept yard concept survived for centuries in the American South. 

In 1791, William Bartram describing a typical house in Cuscowilla, GA, wrote “The dwelling stands near the middle of a square yard, encompassed by a low bank, formed with the earth taken out of the yard, which is always carefully swept.”

The swept yard is mentioned in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird," where the Radley's had a "swept yard that was never swept." 

When you were expecting company in the South, it was said that you baked cakes and swept the yard. Martha Ogle Forman wrote from Cecil County, Maryland in 1818, "preparing for company: made cake, and had all the yards swept."

In SC, Catherine Waiters swept her yard daily. The yard broom was made of tree branches, while the house broom on the left was made of broom-straw.

19C Seed Dealer & Nurseryman W Atlee Burpee 1858-1915

Washington Atlee Burpee (1858-1915)

The W. Atlee Burpee & Company was founded by W. Atlee Burpee (1858-1915) in 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Atlee was born in 1858 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

At fourteen years of age, Atlee’s hobby was breeding chickens, geese and turkeys. He corresponded with poultry experts worldwide and wrote scholarly articles in poultry journals. With a partner in 1876, the 18 year old Atlee started a mail-order chicken business in the family home with $1,000 loaned to him by his mother.

Poultry farmers from the Northeast knew of his business, and he soon opened a store in Philadelphia, selling not only poultry but also corn seed for poultry feed. It wasn’t long before his customers started requesting cabbage, carrot, cauliflower and cucumber seeds.

In 1878, Burpee dropped his partner and founded W. Atlee Burpee & Company, mainly for garden seeds, but poultry wasn’t dropped from the Burpee catalog until the 1940s.

By 1888, the family home, Fordhook Farms, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was established as an experimental farm to test and evaluate new varieties of vegetables and flowers, and to produce seeds.

Before World War I, Atlee spent many summers traveling through Europe and the United States, visiting farms and searching for the best flowers and vegetables. Atlee shipped many of the vegetables and flowers he found to Fordhook Farms for testing. Those plants that survived were bred with healthier types to produce hybrids better suited to the United States. Fordhook Farms was the first laboratory to research and test seeds in this way. Fordhook Farms specialized in testing onions, beets, carrots, peas and cabbage.

In 1909, Burpee established Floradale Farms in Lompoc, California, to test sweet peas, and Sunnybrook Farms near Swedesboro, New Jersey tested tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and squashes.

In his travels, Atlee met Asa Palmer, a Pennsylvania farmer who raised beans, and who thought he had one plant that was resistant to cutworms. Burpee turned this bean plant into what is now known as the Fordhook lima bean, one of the company’s most famous items.

Another successful plant was the Golden Bantam sweet corn that the farmer William Chambers of Greenfield, Massachusetts had grown before his death. A friend of Chambers found some of the sweet corn seeds and sold Burpee seeds of the corn, and in 1902, Golden Bantam was featured in a Burpee catalog.

Before 1900 most people thought that yellow corn was fit only for animals, so in order to change their customers minds, many farmers slipped Golden Bantam corn in with the white corn they were selling. Within a few years, people in the United States were converted to yellow corn.

Iceberg lettuce was introduced in 1894 and named for its crispness. A key in Burpee’s business was the 1863 free delivery system, that required post offices to deliver mail to residents’ homes, and in 1896, free delivery was extended to rural areas. This allowed his catalogs to be delivered directly to people’s homes.

Thousands of letters were received annually from Burpee’s customers thanking him for his seeds. Burpee knew that the key to his business was advertising and the catalog was his advertising medium.

In his first year of business, his catalog was 48 pages, but by 1915 his catalogs were 200 pages and he distributed a million catalogs. Burpee personally wrote most of the copy of his catalogs. Burpee set up an advertising department and offered cash prizes for the best advertisements. This competition is what originated the slogan “Burpee Seeds Grow” in 1890.

The 1891 catalog was the first to feature engravings made from photographs, and by 1901 this process was done by machines. Burpee’s move to photography changed the whole industry and the hand-drawn illustration in catalogs disappeared. In another break with tradition, Burpee eliminated cultural information and put in testimonial letters and plant descriptions.

At Atlee’s death in 1915, the company had 300 employees, and it was the largest seed company in the world. At that time the Burpee company distributed over 1 million catalogs a year and received 10,000 orders a day.

Information from the Smithsonian Institution Libraries research..

19C American Graveyard Design Akin to 1900 BC Egyptian Funeral Gardens

In 19th C America, graveyards began to look like garden parks. Apparently, the practice dates back centuries before the birth of Christ.  In Archaeology magazine on March 20, 2018, Jarrett A Lobell writes of Funeral Gardens in Egypt.

Tomb garden, Luxor, 1900 B.C.  (Courtesy © Proyecto Djehuty/Jose Latova)

"The Tale of Sinuhe, a work of ancient Egyptian literature dating to the 12th Dynasty, around 1900 B.C., reads, “...and there was made for me a sepulchral garden, in which were fields, in front of my abode, even as is done for a chief companion.” 

The existence of funerary gardens is also known from representations in tombs from as early as the 6th Dynasty (2323–2150 B.C.). But no archaeological evidence had been found until last year, when, in front of the rock-cut tomb of a high-ranking 12th Dynasty official of the Theban court, archaeologist José Manuel Galán of the Spanish National Research Council uncovered a well-preserved garden buried under more than 15 feet of debris. 

The 10-by-6.5-foot rectangle was raised off the ground and divided into square beds. According to Galán, the Egyptians would have grown vegetables, fruits, and flowers intended as fresh offerings for the deceased, as well as small trees and shrubs. 

Galán’s team found one of these shrubs, a tamarisk complete with roots and trunk, in the corner of the garden next to a bowl of dates and other fruits, perhaps meant as offerings. In the next field season, he plans to retrieve seeds and pollen to learn what plants were available in ancient Thebes and which were chosen for religious and funerary purposes."

Tho Jefferson (1743-1824) Writes about Gardening

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

1809 April 25.  (Jefferson to Etienne Lemaire).  "I am constantly in my garden or farm, as exclusively employed out of doors as I was within doors when at Washington, and I find myself infinitely happier in my new mode of life."

Étienne Lemaire (d. 1817) was Thomas Jefferson's second mâitre d'hôtel, or "steward," in the President's House. He was hired to replace Joseph Rapin late in the summer of 1801. Describing the ideal mâitre d'hôtel, Jefferson noted that "honesty & skill in making the dessert are indispen[sable] qualifications. that he should be good humored & of a discreet, steady disposition is also important." Lemaire was brought to Jefferson's attention by friends in Philadelphia, where Lemaire worked in the household of William Bingham. Transferring to Jefferson's employ, he would assume management of the domestic staff at the President's House, supervise the dinner service & dessert, handle household accounts, & conduct most of the marketing for groceries & other provisions.

Some of Lemaire's recipes have been preserved, along with his memorandum on the proper wine to serve with certain main dishes. A Monticello cookbook compiled by Jefferson's granddaughter Virginia Jefferson Randolph Trist credits Lemaire with recipes for Beef à la Mode, Bouilli, Breast of Mutton, & Pancakes. Jefferson had sent Lemaire's "reciepts" to his family at Monticello in 1803, noting that "the orthography will be puzzling & amusing; but the reciepts are valuable."

The Monticello overseer Edmund Bacon described Lemaire as "a very smart man, was well educated, & as much of a gentleman in his appearance as any man." Jefferson's granddaughter recalled him as "a portly well-mannered frenchman ... of whose honesty his master had a higher opinion than the world at large, & who I fancy made a small fortune in his employ. But he was a civil & a useful man & merited reward."

After he retired to Monticello in 1809, Jefferson wrote Lemaire a letter of appreciation, expressing "the sense of my attachment to you & satisfaction with your services. they were faithful, & skilful, & your whole conduct so marked with good humour, industry, sobriety & economy as never to have given me one moment’s dissatisfaction." In 1817, Jefferson heard from his former chef at the President's House that Lemaire drowned himself in the Schuylkill Rive. Jefferson responded to this news: "I sincerely lament the unfortunate fate of poor Le Maire."

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

19C Seed Dealer & Nurseryman John Lewis Childs (1856 –1921)

John Lewis Childs (1856 –1921) was a horticultural businessman who founded Floral Park, New York.  Childs was born in Maine, & grew up in Buckfield.  Childs married in New York, in 1886, to Carrie Goldsmith & had 4 children: Vernon G., Norma D., Lyon L. & Carlton H.  His career in horticulture began in 1874, when he took a job with C. L. Allen of Queens. Soon afterwards he began buying land in nearby East Hinsdale, Queens County, near other nurseries. Within 5 years of building his own seed & bulb business, Childs was responsible for building more than 20 buildings in Floral Park, including hotels, lumber mills & his own printing press.

History of Long Island: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time-1903 reports that "The year after Childs moved to New York he rented a few acres of ground a mile & a half from Queens, on the railroad line, & began business as a seedsman & florist.

"The total sales from his 1st catalogue or price-list—a publication of 8 pages—was barely $50, & it was 5 years before his business showed signs of rapid growth, but after that his trade increased extensively. Childs then purchased the land he occupied & from time to time added to it. The railroad company soon established a new station on his premises, which at Childs' request was called Floral Park. It became necessary to build bulb & seed houses, greenhouses, dwellings & a large store to accommodate his business. His mail became so large & important that the government established a post office at his place...Childs gives close attention to... the publication of the "Mayflower," a magazine of great value to any engaged in floral culture...

"...Floral Park is located on Long Island, fifteen miles from the heart of Brooklyn, & is now partly included in the territory recently annexed to New York City... The gardens at Floral Pork cover almost 200 acres, all in flowers. These gardens border on the Long Island Railroad for a distance of more than a mile... The land is perfectly flat, of a sandy nature & particularly well adapted to gardening.

"Childs receives & ships on an average several tons of mail matter each day...The great seed & florist business is accommodated with a railroad station & freight office close at hand. There are 30 trains each way per day to & from the heart of the city, both to & from the New York & Brooklyn divisions, also telegraph & telephone connections with all parts of the country, & several express companies receive & deliver goods.

The main building is an immense 4 story & basement building, built of brick & iron, & consequently fire proof... In this building arc located all the business offices, the seed department, which occupies the entire 3rd floor, & the packing & mailing department, which occupies all of the 1st floor as well as the great brick packing room in the rear of the building.

The Seed House No. 2. is a frame building.with a large amount of floor space, used for storing, cleaning & drying seeds & for making boxes, it is located about 500 feet from the brick building, &, like it, has an immense cellar for bulbs & a large range of greenhouses connecting with it in the rear.

The Bulb House is a large brick building 100 by 40 feet, 3 stories & a basement, used solely for storing bulbs. During the late fall & winter it is filled with gladiolus bulbs from top to bottom, which the late winter & spring sales reduce. The small bulbs which are not sold are planted in the spring & again fill this immense building when harvested in the fall.

The greenhouses are very extensive & are divided into four sections or blocks. There is a set of five large houses, some of which are 200 feet feet long by twenty feet wide, in the rear of the great fire-proof seed house ; a set of 9 houses in the rear of seed house No. 2: in another location there is another set of 8 houses, & on the lawn there is another set of 8 fancy houses used largely for rare & fancy plants.

There is a complete system of brick cold sheds connected with the packing department of the big seed house. In these sheds large quantities of shrubs, fruit trees & hardy perennial plants are stored that they may be available for filling...orders at any time during the winter. Besides the buildings above mentioned there are 15 or 20 more of various sizes, which are used for various purposes in connection with the business. One of these is a large farm house, with barns & stables, where the horses which are used on the place are kept.  Childs also has a steam lumber & planing mill, with all the necessary machinery for preparing lumber for building purposes...

Childs' foreign trade is so extensive that he has an agent in Liverpool & one in Auckland. New Zealand. All orders for England, Ireland & Scotland are packed separately & sent to the Liverpool agent, who forwards each parcel to its destination. All shipments for Australia & New Zealand go through the Auckland agency in like manner. Goods for Newfoundland go through the shipping agent at St. John.  Childs also has a great number of customers in the different European countries—in Africa, India, China, Japan, South America, Mexico. West India Islands...

The lawns at Floral Park surrounding Childs' residence & seed stores cover an area of nine acres & are artistically laid out & beautifully stocked with rare trees, shrubs & plants. There are over 300 different varieties of flowering shrubs. The lawn also contains several beautiful summer houses or pagodas, fountains & an artificial aquarium for rare water lilies. The trial & experiment gardens which Childs conducts for himself & the "Mayflower" are very extensive. All sorts of seeds, plants, fruits & vegetables are tested, various experiments made, diseases & insects treated. The state of New York has also established its trial & experiment gardens at Floral Park, on Childs' premises, & the 2 working in harmony afford the most complete & scientific establishment of the sort in the country.

Three catalogues are issued each year at a total cost, when mailed, of about $9,000. A regular spring catalogue is issued on the, 1st of January, is sent to all regular customers, & requires an edition of 500,000 copies. On the 1st of February a 500,000 edition catalogue of specialties & novelties is issued, & on the 1st of September appears the full catalogue of hardy bulbs for fall planting & winter blooming.

All the work of printing is done on the presses of the "Mayflower." & thus there is a great economy in the cost of issuing the catalogues. Fifteen years ago the first number of the magazine "Mayflower" appeared.  It is a monthly magazine devoted to flowers & gardening... A substantial brick building, 150 feet long by 40 feet wide, was erected & fitted with all modern machinery for the publishing business. The power is furnished by a powerful steam engine & light by an electric dynamo in the building. Seven presses of various sizes are employed, one of which is a &16,000 rotary Web, capable of printing & folding eighty thousand copies of the "Mayflower" per day. The other machinery consists of 3 trimmers or cutters, 5 stitching machines, 2 folding machines, a grinder, a powerful steam pump & a complete electrotyping outfit...

From January until June & from September until December are the busy months at Floral Park. During ibis period of 9 months it is not unusual for Childs to receive as high as from eight to 10,000 letters in a single day. The work of shipping & filing the letters is most complete & systematic, so that if references at a later date is wanted for any order previously received it can be made in about a minute. An experienced artist is constantly employed at Floral Park in sketching & photographing flowers & plants, drawing designs for cuts & painting for colored plates...

Tho Jefferson (1743-1824) Writes about Gardening

 

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

1809 April 19.  (Jefferson to James Madison).  "Dinsmore & Neilson set out yesterday for Montpelier. if mrs Madison has any thing there which interests her in the gardening way, she cannot confide it better than to Nielson. he is a gardener by nature, & extremely attached to it."

James Madison (1751-1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, expansionist, philosopher, & Founding Father who served as the 4th president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting & promoting the Constitution of the United States & the United States Bill of Rights. He co-wrote The Federalist Papers, co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party, & served as the 5thUnited States Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809.

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

Location, Location, Location...

Up & down the Atlantic coast, where the topography allowed, when gentlemen decided exactly where to build their house, they usually harked back to the traditional defensive habit of building on the high ground. Even when the need for surveying the countryside for marauders had long passed, gentlemen continued to look for the highest situation, in part so that they could remain above, superior, in the minds of others.

1800 Francis Jukes (American artist, 1745–1812)  Mount Vernon

Shortly after he arrived in the United States, British architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe wrote in 1798, ""When you stand upon the summit of a hill, and see an extensive country of woods and fields without interruption spread before you, you look at it with pleasure...this pleasure is perhaps very much derived from a sort of consciousness of superiority of position to all the monotony below you."
Benjamin Latrobe by Charles Willson Peale.

Latrobe (1764-1820) came to the United States in 1796, settling first in Virginia and then relocating to Philadelphia to design the waterworks. In 1803, he was hired as Surveyor of the Public Buildings of the United States & spent much of the next 14 years working on projects in Washington, D.C., where he designed the U S Capitol. Latrobe then traveled to New Orleans to work on a waterworks project and died there of yellow fever in 1820.

Plantation circa 1825, Unknown Artist

Latrobe knew that the situation of the house was meant to impress visitors viewing the surrounding landscape & to impress those passing-by who could only look up & admire the plantation or country seat. When choosing a homesite, gentlemen carefully considered the vistas & views available from the pinnacle of the property, as well as the practical aspects of the situation.

Visitors often used the powerful verb command to describe the placement of a dwelling on a site surrounded with vistas. A house would a view or a prospect. Those passing by would note that houses on high ground were situated on an eminence. Homage was due to the powerful and clever owner.

Francis Guy. Perry Hall near Baltimore, about 1804.

Even when the houses themselves were unfinished or left to decay, impressive sites were still admired. In June of 1760, Andrew Burnaby was traveling through Annapolis and noted, "the governor's palace is not finished...it is situated very finely upon an eminence and commands a beautiful view of the town and environs."

Andrew Burnaby (1732-1812) was a well-traveled English clergyman who visited the British American colonies in 1760, and published his travel journal back in England, just as the Revolutionary War was beginning.
c 1759 Moses Gill (1733–1800) by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815)

One of the most amazing descriptions explaining the meaning of the prospect from a gentleman's house to both its owner and to its neighbors, is the description of the home & property of Governor Moses Gill of Massachusettes, as reported by Rev. Peter Whitney in his History of Worcester County, 1793.
Samuel Hill, View of the Seat of the Hon. Moses Gill Esq. at Princeton, in the County of Worcester, reproduced in Massachusetts Magazine, November, 1792.

The magazine reported, Foreigners must have an high idea of the rapid progress of improvement in America, when they are told that the ground which these buildings now cover, and a farm of many hundred acres around it, now under high and profitable cultivation were, in the year 1766, as perfectly wild as the deepest forest of our country. The honourable proprietor must have great satisfaction in seeing Improvements so extensive, made under his own eye, under his own direction, and by his own active industry."

Rev. Whitney wrote his insightful history of Worcester County only a year later, "In this town is the country seat of the Hon. Moses Gill, Esq....His elegant and noble seat...The farm contains upwards Of 3000 acres.The buildings stand upon the highest land of the whole farm.br />
"The mansion house is large, being 50 x 50 feet, with four stacks of chimneys; the farm house is 40 x 36 feet; in a line with this stand the coach and chaise house, 50 x 36 feet; this is joined to the barn by a shed 70 feet in length - the barn is two hundred feet by thirty-two.

"The prospect from this seat is extensive and grand, taking in horizon to the east, of seventy miles at least. The blue hills of Milton are discernable with the naked eye, from the windows of this superb edifice, distant not less than sixty miles, as well as the waters of the harbor of Boston, at certain seasons of the year.

"When we view this seat, these buildings, and this farm of so many hundred acres, now under a high degree of cultivation, and are told that in the year 1766 it was a perfect wilderness, we are struck with wonder, admiration and astonishment.

"The honorable proprietor hereof must have great satisfaction in contemplating these improvements, so extensive, made under his direction, and, I may add by his own active industry. Judge Gill is a gentleman of singular vivacity and activity, and indefatigable in his endeavors to bring forward the cultivation of his lands...and deserves great respect and esteem, not only from individuals, but from the town and county he has so greatly benefited, and especially by the ways in which he makes use of that vast estate, wherewith a kind Providence has blessed him.

"Upon the whole, this seat of judge Gill, all the agreeable circumstances respecting it being attentively considered, is not paralleled by any in the New England States; perhaps not by any one this side of Delaware."
1764 Moses Gill by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) 

A description of George Washington's home on the Virginia side of the Potomac River appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette just after his death. The account described the view from his porch, "A lofty portico, 96 feet in length, supported by 8 pillars, has a pleasing effect when viewed from the water...On the opposite side...an extensive plain, exhibiting corn-fields and cattle grazing, affords in summer a luxuriant landscape; while the blended verdure of woodlands and cultivated declivities, on the Maryland shore, variegates the prospect in a charming manner."

A variety of terms appear in contemporary descriptions of houses and grounds shedding light on the importance of the impressive view. I want to devote the next few blog postings to these terms, as they were used by visitors & observers in colonial British America & the early republic.

For a discussion of concepts parallel to those noted in the 1793 Whitney History of Worcester County relating to the landscape of Moses Gill's property plus Ralph Earl's 1800 painting Looking East from Denny Hill, see David R. Brigham's article at CommonPlace.org. Brigham is the curator of American art at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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

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

Marjoram

Marjoram, winter, pot and wild....Origanum. This may be propagated either from the seed, cuttings, or parting their roots in the spring; and if kept clear from the weeds will stand a number of years.
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Agricultural slaves in 18C-19C America

African peoples were captured & transported to the Western Hemisphere to work.  Most European colonial economies in the Americas from the 16th - 19th century were dependent on enslaved African labor for their survival.  The rationale of European colonial officials was that the abundant land they had "discovered" in the Americas was useless without sufficient labor to exploit it.  Only some 450,000 of the nearly 10 million Africans who survived the Middle Passage across the Atlantic to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade settled in the continental United States. Nevertheless, these 450,000 had grown to more than 4 million people of African descent by 1860, the dawn of the Civil War.

South Carolina

Slavery was not limited to the Western Hemisphere.  The trans-Saharan slave trade had long supplied enslaved African labor to work on sugar plantations in the Mediterranean alongside white slaves from Russia & the Balkans. This same trade also sent as many as 10,000 slaves a year to serve owners in North Africa, the Middle East, & the Iberian Peninsula.

Cartouche Shipping Hogsheads of Tobacco from Frye-Jefferson map of Virginia, 1755

Of the millions of immigrants who survived the crossing of the Atlantic & settled in the Western Hemisphere between 1492 -1776, only about 1 million were Europeans. The remaining were African. An average of 80 % of these enslaved Africans—men, women, & children—were employed, mostly as field-workers. Women as well as children worked in some capacity.

More than half of the enslaved African captives in the Americas were employed on sugar plantations. Sugar developed into the leading slave-produced commodity in the Americas.  During the 16th & 17th centuries, Brazil dominated the production of sugarcane. One of the earliest large-scale manufacturing industries was established to convert the juice from the sugarcane into sugar, molasses, & eventually rum, the alcoholic beverage of choice of the triangular trade.  The profits made from the sale of these goods in Europe, as well as the trade in these commodities in Africa, were used to purchase more slaves.

Tobacco Advertisement Card, Newman’s Best Virginia, 1700s

By 1750, both free & enslaved black people in the British American colonies, despite the hardships of their lives, manifested a deepening attachment to America. The majority of blacks by now had been born in America, rather than in Africa. While a collective cultural memory of Africa was maintained, personal & direct memories had waned. Slave parents began to give their children biblical rather than African names.

Tobacco Label, Ford’s Virginia

During the British American colonial period in the United States, tobacco was the dominant slave-produced commodity.  During the colonial era, 61% of all American slaves -- nearly 145,000 -- lived in Virginia & Maryland, working the tobacco fields in small to medium-sized gangs. Planters who owned hundreds of slaves often divided them among several plantations. In the North & the Upper South, masters & bondpeople lived close to each other.  Rice & indigo plantations in South Carolina also employed enslaved African labor.  The South Carolina & Georgia coastal rice belt had a slave population of 40,000. Because rice requires precise irrigation & a large, coordinated labor force, enslaved people lived & worked in larger groups. Plantation owners lived in towns like Charleston or Savannah & employed white overseers to manage their far-flung estates. Overseers assigned a task in the morning, & slaves tended to their own needs, when the assigned work was completed. The region was atypical, because of its more flexible work schedules and more isolated and independent slave culture.

Indigo Production South Carolina. William DeBrahm, A Map of South Carolina and a Part of Georgia  London, published by Thomas Jeffreys, 1757.

Exhausted land caused a decline in tobacco production, & the American Revolution cost Virginia & Maryland their principal European tobacco markets, & for a brief period of time after the Revolution. The future of slavery in the United States was in jeopardy. Most of the northern states abolished it, & even Virginia debated abolition in the Virginia Assembly.

Slave Auction. New York Illustrated News; January 26, 1861

The invention of the cotton gin in 1793, gave slavery a new life in the United States. Between 1800 -  1860, slave-produced cotton expanded from South Carolina & Georgia to newly colonized lands west of the Mississippi. This shift of the slave economy from the upper South (Virginia & Maryland) to the lower South was accompanied by a comparable shift of the enslaved African population to the lower South & West.

Hauling Cotton US South. Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1853-54)

After the abolition of the slave trade in 1808, the principal source of the expansion of slavery into the lower South was the domestic slave trade from the upper South.  By 1850, 1.8 million of the 2.5 million enslaved Africans employed in agriculture in the United States were working on cotton plantations.

Picking Cotton. Ballou's Pictorial (Boston, Jan. 23, 1858)

The vast majority of enslaved Africans employed in plantation agriculture were field hands. Some coastal owners used slaves as fishermen.  Even on plantations, however, they worked in many other capacities. Some were domestics & worked as butlers, waiters, maids, seamstresses, & launderers. Others were assigned as carriage drivers, hostlers, & stable boys. Artisans—carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths, millers, coopers, spinners, & weavers—were also employed as part of plantation labor forces.

Slave Auction. The Illustrated London News; February 16, 1861

Enslaved Africans also worked in urban areas. Upward of 10% of the enslaved African population in the United States lived in cities. Charleston, Richmond, Savannah, Mobile, New York, Philadelphia, & New Orleans all had sizable slave populations. In the southern cities, they totaled approximately a third of the population.

Edwin Forbes (1839-1895) Stacking Wheat in Culpepper, Virginia 1863

The range of slave occupations in cities was vast. Domestic servants dominated, but there were carpenters, fishermen, coopers, draymen, sailors, masons, bricklayers, blacksmiths, bakers, tailors, peddlers, painters, & porters. Although most worked directly for their owners, others were hired out to work as skilled laborers on plantations, on public works projects, & in industrial enterprises. A small percentage hired themselves out & paid their owners a percentage of their earnings.

Picking Cotton US South Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1853-54)

Each plantation economy was part of a larger national & international political economy. The cotton plantation economy, for instance, is generally seen as part of the regional economy of the American South. By the 1830s, "cotton was king" indeed in the South. It was also king in the United States, which was competing for economic leadership in the global political economy. Plantation-grown cotton was the foundation of the antebellum southern economy.

 Ginning Cotton US South Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1853-54)

The American financial & shipping industries were also dependent on slave-produced cotton, as was the British textile industry. Cotton was not shipped directly to Europe from the South. Rather, it was shipped to New York & then transshipped to England & other centers of cotton manufacturing in the United States & Europe.  As the cotton plantation economy expanded throughout the southern region, banks & financial houses in New York supplied the loan capital &/or investment capital to purchase land & slaves.

Harvesting Sugar Cane, Louisiana Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1853)

As an inexpensive source of labor, enslaved Africans in the United States also became important economic & political capital in the American political economy. Enslaved Africans were legally a form of property—a commodity. Individually & collectively, they were frequently used as collateral in all kinds of business transactions. They were also traded for other kinds of goods & services.

Slave Market. Harper's Weekly, January 24, 1863

The value of the investments slaveholders held in their slaves was often used to secure loans to purchase additional land or slaves. Slaves were also used to pay off outstanding debts. When calculating the value of estates, the estimated value of each slave was included. This became the source of tax revenue for local & state governments. Taxes were also levied on slave transactions.

Planting Rice US South. Harper's Monthly Magazine (1859)

Politically, the U.S. Constitution incorporated a feature that made enslaved Africans political capital—to the benefit of southern states. The so-called three-fifths compromise allowed the southern states to count their slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of calculating states' representation in the U.S. Congress. Thus the balance of power between slaveholding & non-slaveholding states turned, in part, on the three-fifths presence of enslaved Africans in the census.  Slaveholders were taxed on the same three-fifths principle, & no taxes paid on slaves supported the national treasury. In sum, the slavery system in the United States was a national system that touched the very core of its economic & political life.

See:
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  

Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture, ed. Howard Dodson. Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society.  2003.

www.slaveryimages.org, compiled by Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite, and sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library. 

Garden to Table -

Peter Jakob Horemans (11700-1776) Lady at a Table Laden with Food from the Garden  Detail

Old, but proper, garden sheds

Today is a good day to dream about old pots & proper potting sheds. Spring is here...

Down House, Home of Charles Darwin, South East, Kent, England

Calke Abbey. Ticknall, Derby, Derbyshire, England

Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England

Beningborough Hall, North Yorkshire, England


Beningborough Hall, North Yorkshire, England
Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England




Down House, Home of Charles Darwin, South East, Kent, England
Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
Exbury Gardens, Southampton, Hampshire, England
Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
Lost Gardens of Heligan, South West, Cornwall, England
Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
Lost Gardens of Heligan, South West, Cornwall, England


Lost Gardens of Heligan, South West, Cornwall, England
Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England


Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England