Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Garden Design & Plant Lists - The Kitchen Garden 1759 Moravian North Carolina Settlement of Bethabara

Bethabara, North Carolina, by Christian Gottlieb Reuter, 1766, Wachovia Area, NC. Moravian Archives, Southern Province,  MESDA

The Moravians were among the 1st Protestant groups in Europe during the 15C. For more than 300 years, they suffered religious persecution, which caused them to periodically uproot their community or go into hiding.  By the early 1700s, they had fled to Germany, where they built the town of Herrnhut.  From there, they sent missionaries to many areas in the world, including the British America colonies in North America, where they established a strong foothold in Pennsylvania.  In an effort to carry their religion to other parts of the American British colonies, in 1753, Moravians purchased a 100,000-acre tract in central North Carolina. There, missionaries established Bethabara as a temporary settlement on the new frontier; while they laid plans for a more permanent central town, which would become known as Salem.

The Upland Garden at Bethabara, laid out and planted by Bro. Lung, May 1, 1759. Bethabara (from the Hebrew, meaning "House of Passage," the Biblical name of the traditional site of John The Baptist & of the Baptism of Jesus Christ) was a village located in what is now Forsyth County, North Carolina. It was the site where 12 men from the Moravian Church first settled in 1753, in an abandoned cabin in the 100,000-acre (400 km2) tract of land the church had purchased from Lord Granville & dubbed Wachovia.

“Old World gardens in the New World: the gardens of the Moravian settlement of Bethabara in North Carolina, 1753-72” by Flora Ann L. Bynum, Journal of Garden History, (1996), Southern Garden History Plant List.

Allium cepa Onions
Allium sativum Garlic
Anthriscus cerefolium Kerbel (possibly chervil
Apium graveolens, var. dulce Celery
Armoracia rusticana [Cochlearia armoracia] Horseradish
Asparagus officinalis Asparagus
Beta vulgaris Mangolds (beets)
Brassica oleracea, Botrytis group Cauliflower
Brassica oleracea, Capitata group Cabbage
Brassica oleracea, Gongyloces group Kohlrabi
Capsicum annuum, Longum group Spanish pepper; Chili and red
Cochlearia officinalis Spoonwort, scurvy grass
Cornus sanguinea Dogwood (blood-twig or European)
Cucumis melo, Reticulatus group Melons
Cydonia oblonga Quince
Daucus carota var. sativus Carrots
Dianthus caryophyllus or D. plumarius hy. Cloves
Humulus lupulus Hops
Lactuca sativa Lettuce
Lepidium sativum Cress
Narcissus pseudonarcissus Daffodils
Origanum majorana
[Majorana hortensis] Marjoram
P crispum, var. tuberosum Turnip-rooted parsley, Hamburg parsley
Pastinaca sativa Parsnips
Petroselinum crispum Parsley, curly
Phaseolus vulgaris Black beans
Pisum sativum var. sativum Sweet peas
Raphanus sativus Radish
Ribes uva-crispa
 [R. grossularia] Gooseberries
Spinacia oleracea Spinach
Syringa vulgaris Lilacs
Thymus vulgaris Thyme
Tropaeolum majus, T. minus Nasturtium 'Kaper'
Valerianella locusta
[V. olitoria] Field salad or corn salad

Monday, January 17, 2022

Seeds & Plants - Teenage Girl changes the Economy of South Carolina - Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)

Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)

Eliza Lucas Pinckney was born into privilege on the Caribbean island of Antigua, where her British military officer father was stationed at the time.  Her parents sent her back to England for a "proper" education, before they sailed to their new home in South Carolina. When Eliza was 16, her father, seeking a healthier climate for his ailing wife, brought the mother & their 2 daughters to a plantation, which he had inherited on Wappoo Creek in South Carolina, near Charleston, in 1738.

When the growing conflict between England & Spain, the War of Jenkins’ Ear, forced him to return to his military post in Antigua in 1739, the management of Wappoo, & of her father's 2 other plantations in the Carolina low country, fell to 16 year-old Eliza. Her observations of & contributions to botany & gardening & agriculture in South Carolina were immense. And the insights from her letters & memoranda into the life of an educated colonial woman in 18C America are revealing.

When Europeans colonized North America, they immediately started trying to grow crops of economic importance. Indigo is one of the 1st plants the British attempted to grow, when they got to North America. They tried growing it in Jamestown, while the Dutch tried it in New Amsterdam( New York City). The French had some success in Louisiana, but nobody had much luck making indigo commercially successful, until Eliza Lucas came along.

Indigo plant

In the 1730s, 16-year-old Eliza Lucas, whose father was lieutenant governor of Antigua & who had an interest in botany, was put in charge of 3 of her father's South Carolina plantations. Her father sent her seeds from Antigua, & indigo seemed to Eliza to have the most promise. 

At age 16, Eliza Lucas Pinckney became manager of her father’s 3 plantations, took care of her younger sister, & her dying mother. We have details of Eliza's life & hopes; because when she was 18, Eliza began keeping her letters & memoranda from 1740 - 1762. Her letterbook is one of the largest surviving collections of letters of a colonial woman. Her rich letters reveal her quick-witted perseverance & grit, as she forged an unique life for herself & plotted a new path for agriculture in South Carolina.

When she was 18, Eliza wrote of her new situation to a friend in England, on May 2, 1740. "I like this part of the world, as my lott has fallen here... I prefer England to it, ’tis true, but think Carolina greatly preferable to the West Indias, & was my Papa here I should be very happy...Charles Town, the principal one in this province, is a polite, agreeable place. The people live very Gentile & very much in the English taste. The Country is in General fertile...My Papa & Mama’s great indulgence to me leaves it to me to chose our place of residence either in town or Country, but I think it more prudent as well as most agreeable to my Mama & self to be in the Country during my Father’s absence. We are 17 mile by land & 6 by water from Charles Town where we have about 6 agreeable families around us with whom we live in great harmony...I have a little library well furnished (for my papa has left most of his books) in which I spend part of my time. My Musick & the Garden, which I am very fond of, take up the rest of my time that is not imployed in business, of which my father has left me a pretty good share...I have the business of 3 plantations to transact, which requires much writing & more business & fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine. But lest you should imagine it too burthensom to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to answer you: I assure you I think myself happy that I can be useful to so good a father, & by rising very early I find I can go through much business."

The teenager brought her infectuous love of learning with her to Wappoo. She reveled in music & could “tumble over one little tune” on the flute. She quoted Milton, read Richardson’s Pamela, & spoke French. She enjoyed reading John Locke, Virgil's Plutarch, & Thomas Wood. But, her favorite subject was botany.

She tutored her sister Polly & “two black girls,” whom she envisioned making “school mistress’s for the rest of the Negroe children,” if her father approved. In 1741, she recorded sighting a comet whose appearance Sir Isaac Newton had predicted. Eliza enjoyed brief social visits in Charleston, but devoted most of her energy to her family & to plotting the success of the plantation.

In July of 1740, she wrote a memorandum, "Wrote my Father a very long letter on his plantation affairs and... On the pains I had taken to bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton and Lucerne and Casada to perfection, and had greater hopes from the Indigo (if I could have the seed earlier next year from the West India’s) than any of the rest of the things I had tryd."
Drying freshly picked indigo from the field.

Eliza recognized that the growing textile manufacturing industry was creating a worldwide market for good dyes. In 1739, she began cultivating & creating new strains of the indigo plant from which blue dye could be made. She introduced the successful cultivation of the plant indigo used in making dye to the American colonies.
Fermented Indigo

She continued to look for ways to make a profit from the family's plantations. On April 23, 1741, she wrote a memorandum, "Wrote to my Father informing him of the loss of a Negroe man also the boat being overset in Santilina Sound & 20 barrels of Rice lost. Told him of our making a new garden & all conveniences we can to receive him... Also about Starrat & pitch & Tarr."

 Indigo dyed cotton, wool, silk and linen yarns

In June of 1741, she finally heard from her father after 6 months without any letters, & she wrote him in return, "We expect the boat dayly from Garden Hill [plantation] when I shall be able to give you an account of affairs there. The Cotton, Guiney corn, & most of the Ginger planted here was cutt off by a frost.

"I wrote you in a former letter we had a fine Crop of Indigo Seed upon the ground, & since informed you the frost took it before it was dry. I picked out the best of it & had it planted but there is not more than a hundred bushes of is come up...I make no doubt Indigo will prove a very valuable Commodity in time if we could have the seed from the west Indias in time enough to plant the latter end of March, that the seed might be dry enough to gather before our frost. I am sorry we lost this season."

Indigo Dyed Bed Cover 1770-90 ca. Detail of Fabric for Bed Cover, Cotton, Woven (plain), Block printed, Resist style.

Eliza hoped a fine grade of blue indigo grown in Carolina could be prepared into dye cakes for cloth manufacturers in England. The market for South Carolina rice had dwindled with the war, & indigo could be bought from South Carolina instead of the French Carribean islands, if she was successful at introducing a 2nd staple crop to the colony. “I was ignorant both at the proper season for sowing it [indigo] & the soil best adapted to it,” Eliza wrote. Yet it was her perseverance which brought to success experiments in growing this crop which had been tried & discarded near Charleston some 70 years earlier.

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1753 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs. Joseph Mann Bethia Torrey  

Knowing how complex was the process of producing the dye from the fresh-cut plants, Colonel Lucas sent an experienced indigo maker from the French island on Montserrat in the summer of 1741. Optimistically, Eliza wrote her father that October “informing him we made 20 weight of Indigo...’Tis not quite dry or I should have sent him some. Now desire he will send us a hundred weight of seed to plant in the spring.”

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1755 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815)  Miss Russell

At the age of 19, in September of 1741, Eliza noted that she, "Wrote to my father on plantation business & concerning a planter’s importing Negroes for his own use. Colo. Pinckney thinks not, but thinks it was proposed in the Assembly & rejected. He promised to look over the Act & let me know. Also informed my father of the alteration ’tis soposed there will be in the value of our money- occasioned by a late Act of Parliament that Extends to all America - which is to dissolve all private banks, I think by the 30th of last month, or be liable to lose their Estates, & put themselves out of the King’s protection. Informed him of the Tyranical Government at Georgia."

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1755 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815)  Mrs Todd

A month later, she recorded, October 14, 1741, "Wrote to my father informing him we made 20 wt of Indigo & expected 10 more. ’Tis not quite dry or I should have sent him some. Now desire he will send us a hundred weight of seed to plant in the spring."

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1758 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Anne Fairchild Mrs Metcal Bowler 

In April of the next year, she wrote to her friend in England, about her daily routine, "In general then I rise at five o’Clock in the morning, read till Seven, then take a walk in the garden or field, see that the Servants are at their respective business, then to breakfast. The first hour after breakfast is spent at my musick, the next is constantly employed in recollecting something I have learned least for want of practise it should be quite lost, such as French & short hand. After that I devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner to our little Polly & 2 black girls who I teach to read...

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1763 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Anne Fairchild Bowler Mrs Metcalf Bowler

"But to proceed, the first hour after dinner as the first after breakfast at musick, the rest of the afternoon in Needle work till candle light, & from that time to bed time read or write...Thursday the whole day except what the necessary affairs of the family take up is spent in writing, either on the business of the plantations, or letters to my friends."

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1763 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Anne Fairchild Bowler Mrs Metcalf Bowler

She wrote to her friend again in May of 1742, "Wont you laugh at me if I tell you I am so busey in providing for Posterity I hardly allow my self time to Eat or sleep & can but just snatch a minnet to write you & a friend or two now. I am making a large plantation of Oaks which I look upon as my own property, whether my father gives me the land or not; & therefore I design many years hence when oaks are more valueable than they are now -- which you know they will be when we come to build fleets."

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1763 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mercy Scollay

The 1744 indigo crop did, indeed, "hitt" & was a success. Six pounds from Wappoo were sent to England & “found better than the French Indigo.” Seed from this crop was distributed to many Carolina planters, who soon were profiting from Carolina's new staple export product.

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

On May 27, 1744, Eliza Lucas married attorney Charles Pinckney, a childless widower more than 20 years her senior. Pinckney built a house on Charleston’s waterfront for his bride. And at his plantation on the Cooper River, Eliza initialized the culture of silkworms to establish a “silk manufacture.”

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1763 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs James  Warren Mercy Otis

Charles Pinkney who wrote down the instructions for how to grow & process indigo, & after a while they made enough seed to hand out to the neighbors, which started an indigo bonanza in the Southern colonies. By 1746, Carolina planters shipped almost 40,000 pounds of indigo to England; the next year the total exported was almost 100,000 pounds. Indigo sales sustained the Carolina economy for 3 decades, until the Revolution cut off trade with England.

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1763 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs. Nathaniel Allen (Sarah Sargent)

Charles Pinckney's appointment as commissioner for the colony in London took the family in April of 1753, to England, where they had intended to live, until their sons finished their education. When war with France broke out, Eliza & her husband returned in May of 1758, to Carolina, leaving the boys at school. Pinckney contracted malaria & died in July of that year. After writing to tell her sons of the loss of their father, Eliza again turned to plantation business as she directed her husband’s 7 separate land holdings in the Carolina low country.  

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1773 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs. Moses Gill (Rebecca Boylston)

By 1760, Eliza was once again fully engaged in managing a plantation, "I find it requires great care, attention & activity to attend properly to a Carolina Estate, tho’ but a moderate one, to do ones duty & make it turn to account, that I find I have as much business as I can go through of one sort or other." 

Eliza recorded her last letter in her letterbook in 1762. "I love a Garden & a book; & they are all my amusement except I include one of the greatest Businesses of my life (my attention to my dear little girl) under that article. For a pleasure it certainly is &c. especially to a mind so tractable & a temper so sweet as hers. For, I thank God, I have an excellent soil to work upon, & by the Divine Grace hope the fruit will be answerable to my indeavours in the cultivation."

Indigo Dyed Blue Wrap 1763-64 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs. Gawen Brown (Elizabeth Byles)

She was able to send a substantial export of indigo to England in in return the Mother Country responded with the bounty to Carolina planters in an effort to cut out the French from dominating the market. In addition to economic motives, indigo production also succeeded because it fit within the existing agricultural economy. The crop could be grown on land not suited for rice & tended by slaves, so planters & farmers already committed to plantation agriculture did not have to reconfigure their land & labor. In 1747, 138,300 pounds of dye, worth £16,803 sterling, were exported to England. The amount & value of indigo exports increased in subsequent years, peaking in 1775 with a total of 1,122,200 pounds, valued at £242,295 sterling. England received almost all Carolina indigo exports, although by the 1760s a small percentage was being shipped to northern colonies.

Indigo Dyed Blue Head Wrap 1768 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs. Joseph Henshaw

By the beginning of the American Revolution, Indigo made up 1/3 the exports from South Carolina. In less than 50 years the market had grown substantially. However, the tension with the British & the establishment of the East India Trading Company led to the diminishing of the Carolina indigo trade.

Indigo Dyed Blue Gown 1771 by American artist John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Mrs. Joseph Barrell (Hannah Fitch)

The American colonies winning their independence ended many indigo exports to the British market, as England turned its attention to India for its indigo needs. Pinckney spent 30 years, after her husband's death, overseeing their plantations & helping her family. She invested monies she earned from exporting indigo into her children’s education. Both of her sons became involved with the new nation. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1852) signed the United States Constitution, & Thomas Pinckney (1750-1828) served as South Carolina Governor & as US Minister to Spain & Great Britain.

In her later years, Eliza lived with her widowed daughter Harriet at Daniel Huger Horry's estate, Hampton Plantation near Georgetown . Eliza died of cancer on May 26, 1793, in Philadelphia, where she had gone for treatment. At her funeral, President George Washington, then presiding over the United States government in Philadelphia, served as one of her pallbearers.

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Garden Design - South Carolina Landscape - 18C & Early 19C Churches

Charles Fraser (1782-1860)  A View Near Charleston , 1801, Where St. Paul's Church Now Stands, Ratcliffe Lands.

South Carolina artist Charles Fraser (1782-1860) painted some watercolors of the landscapes he saw around him in the late 18C & early 19C. He depicts broad swipes of landscapes allowing the viewer to see the buildings in the ground planned around them. The watercolors of Charles Fraser allow us feel the South Carolina landscape around us as we learn how it was being groomed & planted or simply not planted. Thanks to South Carolina native Fraser, we have a chance to see, through his eyes, the homes & gardens there as he was growing up. Although he was primarily known his miniature portraits, he also created watercolors of historical sites, homes, & landscapes. He painted while working as a lawyer, historian, writer, & politician. Today, many of Fraser's works are displayed at the Carolina Art Association & the Gibbes Art Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) CHURCH ON JOHN'S ISLAND

This was St. John’s Colleton, which had been a part of St. Paul’s but was separated from it in 1734, and served “John’s Island, Wadmalaw Island, Edisto Island, and the other adjacent Islands to the seaward.


Charles Fraser (1782-1860) A VIEW OF ST. JAMES' CHURCH< GOOSE CREEK, 
FROM THE PARSONAGE

The parsonage stood on a slight hill and its lane led dircectly to the church door. In the woods is a small 1759 vestry building, where Parish business could be transacted and where coachmen & grooms might take shelter.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) A VIEW IN ST. THOMAS’ PARISH POMPION HILL CHAPEL. 

The 1765 church was called "Punkin Hill" locally. The Parish of St. Thomas & St. Dennis was made from the union of the Huguenot Church St. Denis & the Parish of St. Thomas which had been laid off by the Church Act of 1706. In Day on Cooper River it says: “on a high bluff, raising abruptly from the bed of the river, stands the Parish Chapel, commonly known as Pompion Hill Chapel, taking its name from the hill on which it stands.”

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) THE CHURCH IN ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S PARISH, 1796.

“This part of Colleton County was made a Parish, by an act passed Dec. 18, 1708.” The first missionary, sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was a Reverend Mister Osborn, who arrived in 1713. “His cure was very extensive, and his duty laborious. It was 40 miles long, and 30 wide…He officiated at five different places for the accommodations of his parishioners…Mr. Osborn was greatly esteemed and the Church flourished under his care. This prosperity, however, was soon interrupted. In 1715 the Indian War [Yemassee] broke out and the savages destroyed all the plantations in the Parish…The Missionary with difficulty escaped to Charles Town." By 1760 two brick Chapels of Ease had been built. The Church in this sketch was the Chapel of Pon Pon, which was burnt to the birck walls by the British during the Revolution but rebuilt after the war. The locals then called it "the Burnt Church."

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) A VIEW IN ST. THOMAS’ PARISH POMPION HILL CHAPEL. 

The 1765 church was called "Punkin Hill" locally. The Parish of St. Thomas & St. Dennis was made from the union of the Huguenot Church St. Denis & the Parish of St. Thomas which had been laid off by the Church Act of 1706. In Day on Cooper River it says: “on a high bluff, raising abruptly from the bed of the river, stands the Parish Chapel, commonly known as Pompion Hill Chapel, taking its name from the hill on which it stands.”

Charles Fraser (1782-1860). CHURCH IN ST. JAMES’ PARISH, GOOSE CREEK.

St. James’ Parish, Goose Creek, was laid off in 1706, and the church was completed in 1719. “So numerous was the congregation of this church that its capacity was found in a few years wholly insufficient”, and a Chapel of Ease was erected about 7 miles from the original church structure.

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) THE CHURCH IN ST. ANDREW’S PARISH, APRIL 1800.

Established on the west bank of the Ashley River in 1706, by 1722 the original church had became too small for the parishioners. The church was enlarged in the form of a cross, with a gallery at the west end designated for “people of colour.” Destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt by subscription in 1764, and it covered a great territory. It maintained a Chapel of Ease on James’ Island, which was attended by many Presbyterians on the Island; but, after 1787, the Reverend Thomas Mills states that “the inhabitants of James Island, who were nearly all Presbyterians, or Independents, had procured a minister and organized a Church of their own. After this period, in conformity with the injunctions of the Vestry, my Pastoral duties were generally confined to St. Andrew’s on the main.”

Charles Fraser (1782-1860) REMAINS OF THE CHURCH IN PRINCE WILLIAM’S PARISH.

This parish was often called Sheldon Church because of its proximity to the Bull plantation of that name. “An instance of the hospitality of Carolina, connected with the history of Sheldon Church, has been stated to us b y those who knew the fact. Stephen Bull who live in its vicinity, usually invited as his guests, on the Sabbath, the more respectable part of the Congregation who attended divine service; while his overseer, by his direction, and at his expense, liberally entertained the rest. At that time, seldom less than 60 or 70 carriages, of various descriptions were seen at the Church on the Lord’s Day. It was burnt in 1780 by the British under General Prevost, on their march from Savannah to the siege of CharlesTown.” It was rebuilt on its original lines after the Revolution.

Kimberly Pyszka tells us that in 1706, the Church of England became the established church of South Carolina. Construction of several churches began shortly thereafter under the supervision of local parish supervisors. Archaeological testing at the 1707 St. Paul's Parish Church indicates parish supervisors purposely altered the church's orientation from the traditional east—west orientation in order to make it more of a presence on the landscape. A subsequent regional landscape study of other early-18th-century South Carolina Anglican churches suggests that throughout the colony church supervisors strategically placed churches on the landscape to be material expressions of the Anglican Church's presence and power in the culturally and ethnically divided colony. As a consequence of the intentional placement of churches on the landscape, the South Carolina Anglican Church played a larger role in the development of the colony by affecting the expansion of transportation networks and, later, settlement patterns.  See: Pyszka, Kimberly. ""Built for the Publick Worship of God, According to the Church of England": Anglican Landscapes and Colonialism in South Carolina." Historical Archaeology 47, no. 4 (2013): 1-22.

To read more about South Carolina churches & their landscapes, see:

Bolton, Charles S. 1982 Southern Anglicanism: The Church of England in Colonial South Carolina. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.

Brinsfœld, John Wesley 1983 Religion and Politics in Colonial South Carolina. Southern Historical Press, Easley, SC.

Crass, David, Steven Smith, Martha Zierden, and Richard Brooks 1998 Introduction. In The Southern Colonial Backcountry: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Frontier Communities, David Crass, Steven Smith, Martha Zierden, and Richard Brooks, editors, pp. 1-35. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Dalcho, Frederick 1820 An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. E. Thayer, Charleston, SC.

Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth 1994 As Is the Gardener, So Is the Garden: The Archaeology of Landscape as Myth. In Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake, Paul Shackel and Barbara Little, editors, pp. 131-148. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth 1996 The Construction of Sanctity : Landscape and Ritual in a Religious Community. In Landscape Archaeology: Reading and Interpreting the American Historical Landscape, Rebecca Yamin and Karen Bescherer Metheny, editors, pp. 228-248. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Lewis, Kenneth E. 2006 Camden: Historical Archaeology in the South Carolina Backcountry. Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.

Linder, Suzanne Cameron 2000 Anglican Churches in Colonial South Carolina: Their History and Architecture. Wyrick and Company, Charleston, SC.

Nelson, Louis P. 2001 The Material Word: Anglican Visual Culture in Colonial South Carolina. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Art History, University of Delaware. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI.

Nelson, Louis P. 2008 The Beauty of Holiness: Anglicanism and Architecture in Colonial South Carolina. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Pyszka, Kimberly 2012 "Unto Seytne Paules": Anglican Landscapes and Colonialism in South Carolina. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University ofTennessee, Knoxville. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI.

Pyszka, Kimberly, Maureen Hays, and Scott Harris 2010 The Archaeology of St Paul's Parish Church, Hollywood, South Carolina, USA. Journal of Church Archaeology 12:71-78.

South, Stanley, and Michael Hartley 1980 Deep Water and High Ground: Seventeenth Century Lowcountry Settlement. Institute of Archaeology/ Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Research Manuscript Series 166. Columbia.

Young, Amy L. 2000 Introduction: Urban Archaeology in the South. In Archaeology of Southern Urban Landscapes, Amy L. Young, editor, pp. 1-13. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Zierden, Martha, and Linda S tine 1 997 Introduction: Historical Landscapes through the Prism of Archaeology. In Carolina s Historical Landscape: Archaeological Perspectives, Linda F. Stine, 

Martha Zierden, Lesley M. Drucker, and Christopher Judge, editors, pp. xi-xvi. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Saturday, January 15, 2022

1784 Garden Design - The Pennsylvania Picture-Bible of Ludwig Denig (1755-1830)

The Picture-Bible of Ludwig Denig: A Pennsylvania German Emblem Book. by Ludwig Denig (1755 - 1830)

Ludwig Denig (1755 - 1830) was an American folk artist.  A native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he became a member of the Reformed Church, whose congregational school he attended. He served in the American Revolution & worked as a shoemaker before, in 1787, moving to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania & taking up work as an apothecary. He died in Chambersburg, in 1830.
The Picture-Bible of Ludwig Denig: A Pennsylvania German Emblem Book. by Ludwig Denig (1755 - 1830)

Denig is remembered for a 200-page illuminated manuscript he produced in 1784. The book, filled with spiritual texts & sermons & illustrated in watercolor, contains mainly scenes from the New Testament & pictures of symbolic flowers & a garden. Denig's illustrations depict their subjects dressed in the costume of contemporary Pennsylvania German people.

Because Denig's Bible depicts those around him in contemporary garb, is it possible that this is a period Pennsylvania garden?

His illustrations were painted when the fraktur tradition in the state was at its height, & accordingly they bear its imprint, as well as the influence of Christian devotional prints & illustrated Bibles popular during the period. Denig's book was published in 1990 as The Picture-Bible of Ludwig Denig: A Pennsylvania German Emblem Book. 

Friday, January 14, 2022

Seeds & Plants - Moravian Missionary & Botanist Anna Rosina Kliest Gambold (1762-1821)

 

Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania - Home of Anna Kliest. Moravian Historical Society

Anna Rosina Kliest Gambold (1762-1821) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1762. She is often remembered by her contributions to the Moravarian Missions & her relationship to the Cherokee Nation, however, her love & contributions to the early botanical field should not go unnoticed. 

She was born to Daniel Klioest who had arrived, as a single man, from London in May of 1749. In 1756, he was listed as a widower in 1756 & then remarried to 1757 to Anne Felicitas Schuster who is believed to be Anna Rosina Kliest's mother. Daniel died in 1762 & Anna Rosina's mother died in 1765. 

There is little record of Anna's early life, though a record of her only education can be seen. Anna Rosina was then placed into the Moravian Single Sisters house in 1766 & stayed there until 1777, when she was 15 years old.

After her education, she served as a teacher for the Seminary School in Bethlehem where she began to teach art classes & later science courses. It is was at the school both that she extended her love of nature & botany to her students, but also used the schools vast library to continue her own education in botany. 

William Corniuels Reichel (1824-1876), though he was born after Anna's death, was able to complete interviews with students who had Anna as a teacher during her time at the School. He notes her love for nature & her nurturing spirit to pass this wisdom to her students by saying "As she walked out into the fields, she taught her joyous flock the lessons of wisdom from the great book of nature spread before them. The flowers, the trees, the stones, the clouds, the stars....she would have her pupils retain, in a happy manner, leading them unconsciously into the secrets of science by practical & familiar illustration". (Daniel. McKinley, Anna Rosina (Kliest) Gambold (1762-1821) Moravian Missionary to the Cherokees, With a Special Reference to her Botanical Interests).

In 1803, she left her teaching position by invitation of Bishop George Loskiel (1740-1814) to accompany him & his wife to Moravian missions in Ohio. Loskiel had become the Historian of the Missions in North America & needed to travel to different missions to survey them. This particular mission, he invited Anna to attend as his diarist & secretary. This position gave Anna both a taste of missionary work but also of the world around her.

1805 proved a busy year for Anna's life. She arrived at Nazareth in May of 1805, & was noted to have been recently engaged to Brother John Gamold, who was from Salem. John Gamold (1760-1827) is suspected to be the son of Hector Gambold who was married, Eleanor Gregg. Records of John's parents are limited, though they had 6 children. John was born in Shechem, New York, & was brought to Nazareth, PA to get his education. In 1773, he traveled to Bethlehem to learn his trade which would then take him back to Nazareth. 

By 1785, he had returned to Bethlehem to become the warden of the Bretehn's House, likely where he had heard of or met Anna. However, their paths were not destined for each other yet, as he traveled to Spingplace, GA in 1802 then to Friedberg, North Carolina to be a pastor. In 1805, he was directed to join the Springplace Missionary in GA. Before leaving, Anna & John were married & traveled to Springplace together. Springplace would become their home & the home to a majority of Anna's botanical work.

In 1801, a group of Moravian missionaries from Winston-Salem, N.C., started a mission and soon after, a boarding school in a plantation house in Springplace or Spring PlaceMurray CountyGeorgia, This made the Vann plantation home to the first European-style school and Christian mission on Cherokee land.

Gambold was a farmer, teacher, missionary and published botanist. In March 1819, Gambold wrote an article for the American Journal of Science and Arts, cataloging flowers found along the nearby Conasauga River by their scientific name, with the plants' uses in Cherokee medicine and culture.

Their work at Springplace was to establish a school & relationship with Cherokee tribes. Her missionary work also coincided with her botanical work. Anna worked alongside many other Morvavians & botanical enthusiasts by growing, drying, documenting & sending her plants to others. In 1817,  Elias Cornelius visited Springplace & noted the vastness of her gardens noting that "Mrs. G is quite the Botanist, & has a very good garden of plants, both ornamental & medicinal." 

Sometime after this tour, Cornelius asked Anna to document the plants along the river which is how her first paper was published. In 1819, her article that examined flowers along the Conasauga River & their uses in Cherokee medicine was published in the American Journal of Science & Arts

Her contributions to botany also helped Henry Muhlenberg (1711-1787) who was a Moravian botanist minister. In his 1813 work Catalogus Plantarum Americae Septentrionalis, he dutifully thanked her for her contributions of seeds & specimens to his work. She also contributed to his 1817 posthumous work, Descriptio Uberior Gramminum et Plantarum Calamariaum Americae Septentrinalis, in which she supplied 25 specifies of plants for him to study.

After she married John Gambold in 1805, the couple moved  to Springplace, Georgia to evangelize among the Cherokee people. In Springplace the couple established a school. They were, however, hampered in their efforts at missionary work by the complexities of the Cherokee language. Eventually, as part of the removal of the Cherokee from their ancestral lands, the mission was shuttered by the government of the United States

Anna & her husband were part of the Moravian Mission at Spring Place, Georgia until Anna's death. The day before her death, after being ill for quite some time, she walked into her garden & enjoyed her plants bringing to spring up one more time. She died in Springplace in 1821 & is buried on the Vann plantation in God's Acre Cemetery.

Among the Moravians in Springplace, Sister Anna Rosina Kliest Gambold, wife of Brother Joseph Gambold, was the main author of the Springplace Mission Diaries from 1804-1821. These diaries aid in understanding Cherokee culture & history during the early 19C & Moravian missionary efforts in the South during this time.  

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Garden Design & Plant Lists - The Hortus Medicus Garden - 1761 Moravian North Carolina Settlement of Bethabara

Bethabara, North Carolina, by Christian Gottlieb Reuter, 1766, Wachovia Area, NC. Moravian Archives, Southern Province,  MESDA

The Moravians were among the first Protestant groups in Europe during the 15C. For more than 300 years, they suffered religious persecution, which caused them to periodically  uproot their community or go into hiding.  By the early 1700s, they had fled to Germany, where they built the town of Herrnhut.  From there, they sent missionaries to many areas in the world, including the British America colonies in North America, where they established a strong foothold in Pennsylvania.  In an effort to carry their religion to other parts of the American British colonies, in 1753, Moravians purchased a 100,000-acre tract in central North Carolina. There, missionaries established Bethabara as a temporary settlement on the new frontier; while they laid plans for a more permanent central town, which would become known as Salem.

The Hortus Medicus Garden at Bethabara, planted by Bro.August Schubert, June 23, 1761. Bethabara (from the Hebrew, meaning "House of Passage," the Biblical name of the traditional site of John The Baptist & of the Baptism of Jesus Christ) was a village located in what is now Forsyth County, North Carolina. It was the site where 12 men from the Moravian Church first settled in 1753, in an abandoned cabin in the 100,000-acre (400 km2) tract of land the church had purchased from Lord Granville & dubbed Wachovia.

“Old World gardens in the New World: the gardens of the Moravian settlement of Bethabara in North Carolina, 1753-72” by Flora Ann L. Bynum, Journal of Garden History, (1996),  Southern Garden History Plant List.

Brother August Schubert, June 23, 1761 in the Kitchen Garden, the Lane and the Hops garden planted the following in the Hortus Medicus at Bethabara.

Achillea millefolium Yarrow
Althaea officinalis Marshmallow
Anethum graveolens Dill
Angelica archangelica
[A. officinalis]
Angelica
Aquilegia vulgaris Columbine
Artemisia abrotanum Southernwood
Artemisia absinthium Wormwood
Artemisia maritima Wormseed, old-woman
Artemisia vulgaris Mugwort
Bellis perennis Daisy, probably English daisy
Borago officinalis Borage
Carthamus tinctorius Safflower, wild saffron
Carum carvi Caraway
Centaurium erythraea
[C. minus, C. umbellatum]
Common centaury
Chamaemelum nobile
[Anthemis noblis]
Roman chamomile
Chamaemelum sp. Red chamomile
Chrysanthemum vulgare Tansy
Citrus medica Citrus, true citron
Cnicus benedictus
[Carduus benedictus]
Blessed thistle
Cochlearia officinalis Scurvy grass
Consolida regalis
[Delphinium consolida]
Larkspur
Coriandrum sativum Coriander
Cucumis melo Melons, mushmelons
Cucumis sativus Cucumbers
Foeniculum vulgare Fennel
Fumaria officinalis Fumitory
Hyssopus officinalis Hyssop
Inula helenium Elecampane
Lathyrus odoratus Spanish vetch, possibly sweet peas
Lavandula angustifolia
[L. officinalis, L. vera, L. spica]
Lavender
Levisticum officinale Lovage
Lilium album White or Madonna lily
Matricaria recutita
[M. chamomilla]
Wild chamomile
Melilotus officinalis Sweet clover, melilot
Melissa officinalis Balm
Mentha aquatica var. crispa Curly Mint
Nigella sativa Fennel flower
Ocinum basilicum Sweet basil
Origanum majorana
[Majorana hortensis]
Sweet marjoram
Papaver rhoeas Poppy, red, field, or corn
Papaver somniferum Poppy, white or opium
Petroselinum crispum Curly parsley
Pimpinella anisum Anise
Plantago minor Plantain
Pulmonaria officinalis Lungwort
Rheum rhabarbarum
[R. rhaponticum]
Rhubarb
Rosa alba White rose
Rosa canina Dog rose
Rosa gallica Roses, red and white
Rosa officinalis Apothecary's rose
Rumex acetosa Sorrell
Ruta graveolens Rue
Salvia hormium Hormium
Salvia officinalis Sage
Scabiosa atropurpurea Scabiosa
Scorzonera hispanica Scorzonera
Silybum marianum
[Carduus marianus]
St Mary's thistle
Smyrnium perfoliatum Alexanders
Stachys officinalis
[Betonica officinalis]
Betony
Symphytum officinale Comfrey
Tragopogon porrifolium Salsify
Tropaeolum majus or T. minus Spanish cress, nasturtium
Viola odorata Violet


Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Labor - Indentured & Convict Garden Servants in the Colonies


Slaves, indentured servants, & convict servants formed the core of the garden labor force in the Mid-Atlantic & South. When indentured servants & convict servants became scarce in the early republic, slaves became the main maintenance gardeners.

The vast majority of gardeners of whom there are records were indentured & convict servants from Scotland, Wales, Ireland & England. Although slaves often assisted in the gardens during this period, their tasks or trades were usually not recorded, so it is difficult to verify their numbers.

Originally, most indentured servants imported into the Mid-Atlantic & Upper South worked in the labor-intensive task of raising of tobacco. The second half of the 18th century, especially in Maryland, witnessed growing urbanization & artisan production as well as a steady diversification in agriculture away from tobacco & toward less labor-demanding grain crops, such as wheat.

The Revolutionary War disrupted the flow of indentured & convict servants from Britain to the colonies, & between the end of the war & the turn of the century only five additional white indentured gardeners appeared in Maryland records. White indentured & convict servants increasingly became employed in a variety of trades, as their numbers dwindled in the new republic.

Most indentured & convict gardeners were transported to Atlantic coast docks, & then their labor was sold, much like other imported goods of the period. Their arrival was usually announced in a local newspaper, but little specific information appeared in these notices.

Much information about indentured & convict servants is gained through newspaper ads placed by the master who owned the service of a runaway servant. Most gardeners who ran away during the pre-Revolutionary years were indentured servants, not slaves; & most records of them that survive are fugitive notices in contemporary newspapers. The advertisements placed to apprehend runaway gardeners described these servants ---their clothing, mannerisms, & bad habits---in hope of speedy identification & capture.

The average age of servant gardeners was between 20 & 30. When Charles Carroll the Barrister in Baltimore, Maryland, was making his request to his English factor in January 1768, he wrote, “If the above servants are Turned thirty years of age I shall like them better as they are more Likely to be Riotous & Troublesome if young.”

Many garden servants bore the scars of health problems such as smallpox, frostbite, cataracts, & past violence. Some convict gardeners wore double-riveted steel collars as a mark of their status, especially if they had a history of “stealth of self.”

In 1737, indentured gardener Edward Major, born in England and "bred to Gardening," absented himself from the service of Richard Pearne in Brockley Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.

Convict gardeners were running away in Virginia as early as 1738, when gardener Robert Shiels, "a lusty well set fellow about 26 Years of Age" ran from Northumberland, Virginia. English convict garden servant James Spencer ran from Stafford, Virginia, in August of 1747; and John Weller, a convict gardener rode away from John Sutherland in Fredericksburg, Virgina, in 1759, on a large black horse stolen from his master.

In the 1740s, several South Carolina runaway notices mentioned gardeners, both enslaved and serving under an indenture. Run away... a servant man... a Gardener by trade (South Carolina Gazette, January 8, 1750).

In 1741 Philadelphia, the vessel the Snow Prince of Orange arrived from Dublin, with "a Likely Parcel of Servants" including several gardeners. A few months earlier, the Snow Penguin arrived from Cork, also offering a gardener "to be disposed of."

The port at Philadelphia was a popular arrival point for indentured servants. In 1750, the Snow Golden Fleece arrived from Bristol with some gardeners. Several "likely servants" including gardeners arrived in November of 1751; and 1754 saw a "parcel of likely, healthy servant men" including gardeners arrive from London on the brigatine "Lark."

In Philadelphia in 1751, Edward Cross, an English indentured gardener ran away from his service wearing a brown coat with a plush collar, a striped waistcoat, brown stockings, leather breeches, & a dark brown wig.

And another gardener jumped the ship Dolphin, when it landed. Stephen Gom, an English gardener, was also wearing a brown wig, when he escaped the vessel and his indenture contract in 1752.

Convict gardener Jacob Parrott, born in the West of England, ran away from Bohemia, Maryland, in 1752. In 1753, Henry Tedder, "born in Essex, England, about 30 & brought up a Gardiner" ran away from John Hall & Jacob Giles in Baltimore, County, Maryland. Henry had a "pretty wide mouth, talks pretty quick, and snaps his eyes when he talks much, which he is apt to do; much given to drink."

Convict Thomas Warner ran from his garden indenture in Baltimore, County, in 1756; while John Johnson, by trade a gardener, about 25 years old, ran away from the ship Anna, in Lower Marlborough, Maryland. A reward was offered for his return.

John Shupard, "an Englishman, a Gardiner by Trade" ran away from his master John Brown in Cecil County, Maryland, in December of 1757. "An old man, a Gardiner, that belonged to Mr. Thomas Ringold" ran away from Chester Town, Maryland, in the fall of 1760.

English convict servant gardener Thomas Humphreys ran from Stephen Bordley in Kent County, Maryland, in 1760. Bordley noted that Humphreys "is a slippery Chap." The following year, John Nelson, a convict servant gardener, ran from Benjamin Rogers in Baltimore Town.

In a daring over-the-wall escape in 1762, John McDaniel, a convict gardener, made it out of the goal in Philadelphia, wearing his own hair. Also in 1762, John Inglis, a servant "gardiner" from Leith, Scotland, escaped his master John Malcolm on the Bristol Road.
In 1766, William Firth, "a Gardiner, an Englishman, about 45 Years of Age" ran away from Rousby Hall, Patuxent River, Maryland. In Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Irish servant gardener & shoemaker John Logan, under contract to James Alexander near Philadelphia, was waiting in the Carlisle Goal to be picked up by his master or sold for costs & fees by the local jailer. Less than a year later, English servant gardener Thomas Bowman left John Lee Webster in Bushtown reportedly heading for the bright lights of Philadelphia or New York.

At least two gardeners conscripted into His Majesty's army, ran away from their military service. In 1760, Thomas Holmes, an English gardener, deserted in Philadelphia; and Dublin gardener John Fitzpatrick left the service in Annapolis, in 1762.

Some South Carolina indentured servants did not choose to serve their sea service and fled for terra firma, as evidence by this as in the Gazette on September 28, 1767, ABSENTED on the 25th of Sept. 1767, from the ship Two Friends, Samuel Ball, master, indented servant, JAMES FOSTER, aged about 22 years, well set, about 5 feet 6 inches high, his complexion ruddy, but a good deal sun-burnt , with short brown hair, inclined to curl; born in Norwich, and a gardener by trade, had on when he went away a brown coat, but may have changed his dress.

Some indentured servant gardeners were unwittingly impressed into naval service at European ports during the last half of the 18th century. At least 3 men who ended up as gardeners in the Chesapeake had jumped ship; when they arrived in the ports of the bay, in order to get back to terra firma. One of them was 30-year-old white sailor Pierre LaFitte, who fled a French privateer in Baltimore, hoping to return to his original trade as a gardener, further inland, at Frederick, Maryland.

LaFitte quickly came to enjoy some of the benefits of life on land but disliked others. He soon ran away from his gardening chores at Frederick as well; however, he did carry with him several silver spools & a 22-year-old French-speaking black girl wearing a green petticoat.

In 1762, an exceptionally well-dressed servant Englishman John Crocott, who "worked in a Garden at times whilst with me" ran away from Westmoreland County, Virginia. "He took with him a dark Kersey Coat with large Metal Buttons, and Breeches of the same almost new...a blue jump Jacket, double breasted, with small Metal Buttons, white and coloured Stockings."

The ship "Hugh and James" arrived in Philadelphia, from Ireland in 1766, offering servant gardeners among the cargo. The brig "Patty" arrived at Philadelphia bringing "about 100 Servants and Redemptioners, Men Women, Boys, and Girls" among which were serveral gardeners in 1772. It was followed by the Brigatine "Dolphin" in 1774, also with several gardeners "to be disposed of."

Welch convict gardener William Springate ran from Daniel Chamier in Baltimore in 1771; and in 1775, Springate, this time noted to be "a great thief and drunkard" ran again from Job Garretson in Baltimore County, Maryland.

James Vaux of New Providence Township in Philadelphia County, lost his English servant gardener Leonard Broom, who was weraring a handkerchief about his neck, when he took off. In 1776, English servant gardener Thomas Saltar also ran away from New Providence and his owner Rowland Evans.

In 1774 ship, "London Packet," offered "100 likely German & English servants" including one gardener. In 1775, the brig "Dolphin" returned to port with a number of "healthy Servants and Redemptioners" including gardeners, who would serve for a term of 4 years.

In the same year, Samuel Hanson of Charles County, Maryland, advertised for the return of his Irish servant gardener Robert Mills. Charles Tippin, a gardener, ran away from William Reynolds in Annapolis in November of 1775.

Irish gardener John McMahon ran away from Tom's Creek in Frederick County, Maryland, in June of 1776. He traveled north to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was calling himself John Melony there, as he looked for work. The next April, John Brown, "a Gardener by trade" ran away from John Galloway in Chestertown, Maryland.

After 1750, many of the gentry had begun to garden for both sustinance & pleasure at their in-town residences as well as out on their plantations. By the time the young Charles Carroll of Carrollton returned to Annapolis after completing his education in Europe, in 1765, the grounds has already been set in some order. Charles Carroll of Annapolis, his father, had begun working on their gardens in 1730, with the assistance of a servant gardener. Later, when planning the extensive renovations of their property, the Carrolls decided to buy the indenture of a 22-year-old Welsh convict gardener, in addition to renting the two gardeners from Colonel Sharpes.

Over the next few years, they directly employed several indentured servant gardeners as well as slaves to dig drainage ditches. (The gentlemen themselves were busy ordering seeds, grasses, & clover from their English factors.) In 1772, various laborers built garden gates & a washhouse, & by 1774, brick masons had laid the brick wall surrounding the gardens.

Stonemasons & slaves completed a sea wall at the bottom of the garden terraces in 1775, & the next year laborers were erecting the two octagonal pavilions that would sit 400 feet apart at either end of the sea wall. The servants’ & slaves’ final addition to the grounds, a bathhouse, was up & working in 1778. The artisans & gardeners who achieved these complicated additions to the Carroll grounds at Annapolis worked side by side with Carroll slaves regularly assigned to garden work.

By the 1780s, the Carroll garden was established & only needed to be maintained, so after that date the Carrolls employed few new white garden indentured servants, using for the maintenance work the slaves who had been trained during the renovation.

Similarly, young Annapolis attorney William Paca married wealthy Mary Chew in 1763, & immediately began to plan his Annapolis home & gardens, which he began building in 1765. Paca employed at least one indentured garden servant, who doubled as a shoemaker, to help plan & construct his brick-walled pleasure grounds. His garden was dominated by geometric terraces that fell to a small naturalized wilderness garden boasting a pond, a Chinese-style bridge, & a classical pavilion.

Of the 30 gardeners identified in Maryland documents before the Revolution, all but four were white indentured servants. Many were seasoned British gardeners. The first Maryland servant gardener appeared in Anne Arundel County records in 1720.
Mid-Atlantic & Upper South colonists often looked for specific experience in their indentured servant gardeners. Charles Carroll of Annapolis asked each prospective gardener “How long he served, in what Place, in what places & Gardens He has Worked Since He was out of his apprenticesh[ip], in What Branch He has been Chiefly employed, the Kitchen or Flower Garden of Nursery, whether He understands Grafting Inoculating & Trimming.”

During the 1770s, these indentured servants were usually paid between 6 pounds & 32 pounds per year plus their meat, drink, washing, & lodging. Garden servants often supplemented their regular duties in the winter by doubling as dyers, & weavers. Familiarity with the dyes produced by various plants led gardeners naturally into textile trades. The combination of crafts flourished outside the Mid-Atlantic & Upper South as well. Slaves who served as summer gardeners also sometimes doubled as shoemakers during the winter months.

Some of Maryland’s convict gardeners had practiced the gardening trade before arriving in the colonies, & one possessed an unusual knowledge of sophisticated gardening techniques. In January of 1768, Charles Carroll the Barrister, cousin to the Carrolls of Annapolis & Carrolton, wrote to his English agents, “I am in want of a Gardener that understands a Kitchen Garden…Grafting, Budding, Inoculating & the Management of an orchard & Fruit Trees…under Indenture for four or five years…There come in Gardeners in every Branch from Scotland at Six pounds a year.”

The requested servant arrived at Mount Clare later that year & was apparently well respected by the Barrister & his fellow gentry, even though he was a convict. When Charles Carroll of Carrollton bought a gardener for his father at the docks in Baltimore, he asked the Barrister’s convict gardener to interview the new immigrant & then wrote his father, “I have bought a new gardiner from Captain Frost. I gave 23 pounds currency for him; he is not about 21 years of age, appears to be healthy & stout & orderly; he says he understands a kitchen garden pretty well; Mr. Carroll’s gardener examined him: he has 4 years to serve.”

Carroll Barrister’s convict gardener may have been a good judge of men, but he did have a few negative qualities. Five years into the man’s indenture, the exasperated Carroll placed & advertisement in the Maryland Gazette on May 6,1773: “TEN POUNDS REWARD…Ran away…a convict servant man, names John Adam Smithby trade a gardener; has with him…a treatise of raising the pineapple, which he pretends is of his own writing, talks much of his trade & loves liquor.”

Occasionally masters placed a spiked iron collar around the necks of their white indentured servants for other offenses. In 1770, one of the servant gardeners of Charles Carroll of Annapolis got drunk & insulted several women in the Carroll family. Carroll threatened to have the man whipped, but the women begged for leniency on his behalf.

Carroll wrote to his son, “Squires was not whipt, He wears a collar in terrorem to others, & as a Punishment which He justly deserves, but I think to take it off soon." Carroll felt fully justified in often whipping his favorite servant gardener, John Turnbull, for drinking too much & was surprised when the man chose to work for Carroll no more, when his indenture expired in 1772.  Ah, freedom.