Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

Introduction

Some years ago, James Deetz argued in an important but still unpublished paper that historical archaeology's strength lies in the contribution that it can make to reconstructing the folk cultural traditions of the recent past; traditions that escaped documentation in conventional historical sources (Deetz 1980). He was suggesting that archaeologists should lead to this strength rather than compete with historians and other scholars in the analysis of those subjects for which material evidence is rarely more than window-dressing at best for the more compelling and comprehensive evidence of the written record. While this advice may seem obvious, many archaeologists still labor to show the relevance of excavated data to questions that are now and will continue to be more convincingly answered by social and economic historians.

Gardening as Folk Tradition

One important premise of this paper is that the advice Deetz has given should be heeded when turning to the general subject of landscape archaeology, and more specifically to the topic of town and country gardens as discussed by most of the papers in this volume. It is fair to say that much of what can be called "garden archaeology" has been concerned with delineating the physical appearance of the gardens of the elite; gardens that were created by men who often did leave behind some form of written evidence of their work, whether in the form of correspondence, journals, or actual sketches and plans. Such research is especially important in light of the restoration and interpretive efforts of those organizations who manage these properties, but there is no question that the interests of these relatively few men and 3 their involvement in pleasure or ornamental gardening clearly distinguished them from the great majority of their contemporaries.

It seems, then, that archaeology's real value rests with the opportunity it affords to explore the vernacular landscape, to identify an important dimension of the folk tradition that informed the practice of gardening undertaken by most people during the colonial period. After all, this was a time when professional gardeners were scarce, and when the knowledge of what and how to plant carne with the experience of actually doing it, an accommodation, through trial and error, of the instructions contained in how-to guides written for use in England. There is no evidence to suggest that such guides were widely distributed among the general population in the colonial Tidewater, although they clearly did influence the leading gardeners of the day; again, members of a small group of well-educated elite whose libraries are known to have contained such treatises, and whose correspondence often attests to the close connections with prominent gardening authorities in England (e.g Colonel John Custis' letters to Peter Collinson in Swem 1957).

As for the much larger group that Peter Martin labels the "anonymous multitude of gardeners" in his recent book on Virginia gardening (Martin in press, 11), these folk kept essentially practical (kitchen) gardens, and did not leave behind plans of their work, write letters about it, or otherwise record what they were doing. To quote Martin:

In this late eighteenth-century world of Williamsburg plants, and their propagation, it is astonishing that 4 no American book had yet been published, as a type of supplement to Miller's Dictionary, to help gardeners tend their gardens and grow their plants. Doubtless hand-written "Calendars" were circulated, or gardeners kept their own notes taken from their own experiences or from Miller year after year, but a considerable degree of uncertainty and inconsistency must have resulted, especially as Miller did not write chiefly for American colonial gardeners (Martin in press,137-138).

Knowledge of what and how to plant appears to have been disseminated mainly through word-of-mouth and by on-site experimentation and demonstration, as gardeners made their own compromises in adapting English plants to the distinctly non-English climate of the Tidewater. Interestingly enough, within Williamsburg, this multitude of anonymous gardeners included among its members many substantial gentlemen as well as craftsmen, artisans, tavern-keepers, and the rest of the town's ordinary citizens.

At least for Williamsburg, it is not until the third-quarter of the eighteenth century that documentary evidence, in the form of John Randolph's garden treatise, and Judge Joseph Prentis' garden calendar, reveals some of the results of several decades of experimentation in cultivation. Randolph's work, thought to have been written between 1760 and 1770, does represent a notable achievement, namely the adaptation of the system described in Philip Miller's The Gardener's Dictionary (1735) to the Virginia environment. Prentis' unpublished "Monthly Kalendar" (contained in the Webb-Prentis Papers) written between 1775 and 1779, accomplishes the same kind of 5 adaptation. These sources report directly upon what had been learned in Virginia, through trial and error, by the third-quarter of the eighteenth century.

Archaeological excavation is beginning to shed some light on the gardening activities of Williamsburg residents in the years prior to the Revolution. The intention in reviewing some of this evidence here is not to draw any profound conclusions about the gardens of Williamsburg, in terms of their lay-out, precedents for their design, or planting schemes used, or wax eloquent about their symbolic or ideological import. Rather, this paper will focus on the kinds of information that archaeological research might reasonably be expected to provide about vernacular gardens as evidenced by the physical remains of activity guided by the early eighteenth century folk gardening tradition of Tidewater Virginia; a tradition that begins to be articulated in writing towards the end of the century, but for most of this period is preserved only by what cuts into subsoil.

An Archaeological View of Williamsburg Gardening

In his recent review of the role of Williamsburg in defining the colonial revival garden, Charles Hosmer draws attention to the fact that the restored gardens there and elsewhere were not really intended to be historically accurate. As he observes

the primary goal was to produce a "frame" for attractive views of the past. The plantings were rarely historically accurate revivals of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscapes. Trained in twentieth-century concepts of design, landscape architects became artists who helped to perpetuate the idea that the life of the past was always blissfully harmonious. There was a 6 conscious refusal to accept the conclusions of research reports that implied colonial gardens had been simple, functional, and even somewhat bare… The research efforts that supported garden restorations should pave been carried out by professional archaeologists along with the landscape architects, but in most cases trained archaeologists were only able to provide minimal data about walls, outbuildings, paths, and water courses. They did not have the right training to interpret postholes and fragments of fences or tools that appeared in their trenches (Hosmer 1985,53).

In some ways, Hosmer is too kind. At Williamsburg, garden restoration could not benefit even from trained archaeologists, instead it had to make do with information provided by laborers working under the supervision of an architectural draftsmen. The design process was controlled by one very persuasive and opinionated landscape architect by the name of Arthur Shurcliff (later Shurtleff), who, according to one prominent resident of the town had "'boxwood on the brain'" (Hosmer 1985,61).

It is not the intention to denigrate the legacy of one of the most prominent landscape architects of this century, or belabor the obvious—that Williamsburg's gardens are much more a creation of his depression-era vision of America's colonial landscape than they are an accurate re-creation of town gardens in Virginia's colonial capital. Instead, this paper will pursue Hosmer's observation about the role that properly executed archaeological excavation should play in research on gardens by addressing the following question-what have new techniques of excavation, focused on the problem of reconstructing the spatial organization of behavior on Williamsburg's 7 residential and commercial properties, revealed about the vernacular gardens of the town?

During the last five years, excavation has uncovered features that are clearly related to gardening activity during the first half of the eighteenth century. Many of these sites were not known to be locations of renowned or well-documented gardens. In the past few years, it has also been possible to explore sites where two of Williamsburg's most notable late eighteenth century gardeners resided, namely the properties of John Randolph, Jr., the attributed author of A Treatise on Gardening, and of Judge Joseph Prentis, author of an unpublished garden calendar and garden book.

At all of these sites, especially at those of John Randolph and Prentis, the use of careful block excavation to reveal the overall plan of gardens, kitchen or ornamental, was thwarted by the fact that subsequent use of the properties during the last two centuries had obliterated much of what must have been there; a problem of preservation not uncommon in intensively-used urban spaces. Instead, what has been observed are a variety of features in amongst outbuilding foundations, walkways, and fences, that are very likely the tangible expressions of vernacular gardening activities, especially during the first half of the century.

The sites in question, taken in order of their excavation, represent three substantial eighteenth century urban plantations, those of Sir John and Peyton Randolph, Peyton's brother John, and Judge Joseph Prentis, as well as one lot in the commercial core of Williamsburg, in which property ownership and use of properties frequently changed during the course of the eighteenth century. This latter site, on 8 Duke of Gloucester Street near the Capitol, was used as a tavern for most of the first half of the eighteenth century, and as a rental property for most of the second.

The location of each of these different sites is illustrated on the Frenchman's Map (1782), a plan of Williamsburg drawn by a French cartographer who was likely studying billeting possibilities for French troops late in the Revolutionary War (figure 1). As can be seen, gardens on two of the properties, the peripheral plantations of John Randolph, Jr. and Joseph Prentis, at Tazewell Hall and Green Hill respectively, should illustrate the merging of formal, ornamental gardens with more expansive gardens emulating the English "landscape" school of the later eighteenth century, while gardening on the Peyton Randolph and Shields Tavern sites would be expected to be primarily utilitarian, being set in the midst of active back yard areas.

The first notable encounter with unrecorded, vernacular gardening came in the course of excavating the Peyton Randolph backyard, in search of more and better information about the location and function of supporting outbuildings. Because the area had previously been examined through archaeological cross-trenching and a plan drawn of obvious foundations, it was decided to abandon historical archaeologists' typical excavation grid of ten-foot squares in favor of broad expanses of block excavation, in which horizontal control was kept by piece-plotting and artifact recovery in one meter (two and one half-foot) squares; a technique that is now consistently used when re-examining properties in the Historic Area.

As horizontal exposure progressed on this site, an interesting soil pattern was observed in one area. Even through the mid-summer drought, a rectangular area measuring twenty by thirteen feet remained moist and dark, even while the remainder 9 of the site parched and dried. Here, subsequent excavation revealed a pair of features filled with a rich dark brown loam, most certainly early eighteenth century garden beds, the first to be revealed in Williamsburg, and the earliest such features known for this region (figure 2). Planting beds I and II measured twenty feet by eight feet, and twenty feet by four feet, respectively, were separated by a one foot wide alley and cut .75' to 1.5' into sterile yellow clay. Further work on the site revealed two more features, again in a pair, oriented north-south rather than east-west, larger (thirty-two by twelve feet and twenty-nine by eight feet) and of a slightly later date than those first identified on the site.

There were other important differences between the two pairs of beds, most notably in the materials used as paving in their bottoms. In the case of the early beds, large animal bone and wine bottle bases were primarily used (figure 3), with some large ceramic sherds, while the later beds were lined with some bone but mostly oyster shell. From an examination of eighteenth century garden manuals, it is reasonable to assume that most planting beds in kitchen gardens of this period (i.e., circa 1715 to 1745) were raised above ground. Why then, were these beds excavated deeply into subsoil and what was the purpose of the paving? An answer seemed logically to be found in establishing what was being planted in these beds. In order to address this issue, the fill of the four beds was wet-screened through window mesh, and voluminous soil samples taken to permit seed, pollen and parisitological analyses. A large sample of seeds was recovered from these beds, and among those present in two were several remains that could represent asparagus (they were too poorly preserved to definitively determine the presence of the exterior dimple that is the distinguishing attribute of asparagus officinalis). Other seeds recovered from the beds most likely reflected 10 colonization and subsequent secondary succession, or for that matter, could have been introduced in the composted soil used as the growing medium.

From this evidence, a tentative conclusion could thus be drawn that these were special planting beds, in the sense that they were trenched into the clay substratum rather than raised, and most likely used for growing asparagus. In his discussion of asparagus, John Randolph stresses that

the principal thing to be regarded with these plants, is the bed in which they are to be placed… Nothing more is necessary than to make you beds perfectly rich and light, that the head may not be obstructed in its growth upwards. Two feet of mould and dung is depth sufficient for any plant (Randolph 1826,4).

Some months later, in doing background research on Judge Joseph Prentis' garden, it was learned that, at least by the end of the eighteenth century, gardeners had standardized what may have been an experimental method fifty years earlier. In his unpublished calendar, Prentis writes the following entry for March:

after a Rain plant out Cucumber Seed. Set out asparagus as follows. Dig a trench as wide as you intend your Beds to be, and two feet deep, lay a layer of Oyster Shells, six Inches, then lay on six Inches of Horse Dung, and as much Mould, continue so to do, till the Bed is done. Take your Roots raised from Seed, and set them out in Rows, a foot Wide let there be a space of about a foot between each Row. (Webb-Prentis Papers, CWF Transcript 30)

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The physical character of the planting beds found in the backyard of the Peyton Randolph house, closely matches the description of asparagus beds contained in the advice of both John Randolph and Judge Prentis, writing some fifty and sixty years later. The only departure from their recommendations is in the use of paving, with the early beds making use of wine bottle and bone, rather than oyster shell. English garden journals make no reference to paving of any kind. This may have been an experiment to see what worked best as drainage material in the water-retaining clay soil of the Tidewater; an accommodation not necessary in England. With these beds trenched deeply into the clay to allow room for the growth of the asparagus shoots, drainage may have been doubly important, since one of the advantages of raised beds is that they drain well.

The discovery of the evidence of early eighteenth century kitchen gardening at the Peyton Randolph site suggested that further excavation would likely uncover more such features, as well as those related to other aspects of vernacular gardening. In order to be better prepared for the identification of these physical remains when they were encountered, members of the staff undertook an examination of those few sources available that captured, in writing, what was customary procedure during most of the colonial period. As noted, except for John Randolph's treatise, these calendars were private documents, left unpublished among the personal papers of individuals who obviously enjoyed gardening and reflecting upon it. For Williamsburg immediately, there is the previously mentioned writing of Randolph and Prentis, as well as a garden journal belonging to Joseph Hornsby, once a resident of Williamsburg, who describes his gardening in Kentucky at the turn of the nineteenth century (Hornsby 1798). Hornsby is known to have gardened at several sites in Williamsburg, most notably when he 12 owned the Peyton Randolph property, which he had bought from Peyton's widow in 1783. He lived there until his departure for Kentucky in 1797.

These sources were mined for information about the physical character of planting and gardening behavior in much the same way prehistorians use the method of ethnographic reduction and analogy to aid their interpretation of the archaeological record (Bennett 1984). From this research, it is possible to identify the main types of garden or, more exactly, gardening-related features and the kinds of plants that would have been associated with them. By virtue of the information that seemed important to the keepers of garden calendars in the late eighteenth century, this information relates almost exclusively to the successful keeping of a kitchen garden. Appendix shows instructions given in various seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century English and American garden manuals for the planting of asparagus, artichokes, and cauliflower.

In view of the discovery of the asparagus beds at Peyton Randolph, one of the major concerns of this analysis was to determine the nature of bed construction, in order to anticipate those types that might have made an imprint in subsoil. It would appear that most cultivating beds and hot beds of the eighteenth century were raised and supported by wooden planks or brick (figure 4). Instructions were often quite specific as to the width (generally three to five feet) and spacing (generally one to two and a half feet) of beds, these accommodations to allow for weeding and harvesting, but depth into the ground is rarely specified. When it is, it is usually no more than six to eight inches, the depth of the spade, or "to the clay." Save for Prentis' instructions for asparagus, no mention is made of paving or drainage materials.

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Given the preponderance in the literature of instructions containing references to raised beds, it is thus understandable why so few planting beds have been identified through excavation on Williamsburg lots. They were easy to later remove by simply shoveling them away, and they would have left behind no trace in the subsoil. The intensity of activity on these properties, culminating in the extensive landscape restoration activities of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation commencing in the late 1920s, has obliterated most of this kind of evidence.

But excavated beds do survive; for, in addition to those found behind the Randolph house, they have been recovered at the Shield's Tavern, and in part of John Randolph's large garden at Tazewell Hall, and in what was almost surely Judge Joseph Prentis' garden square next to the east chimney where his "Garden Book" indicates he planted vegetables between 1784 and 1788, including asparagus. Where remains of excavated beds are encountered, furthermore, it may be assumed that other components of a kitchen garden had been present, notably the much more ephemeral raised beds, as well as planting trenches, individual planting holes, and rows of garden stakes within raised beds that, like asparagus beds, leave their mark in the ground.

Examples of these other planting features have also been encountered at Williamsburg sites, most notably trenches and stake holes. Trenches are recommended by both Prentis and Randolph for growing a number of plants, including onions, horseradish, and celery, as well as for the preservation of certain vegetables over the winter. These trenches were filled with the harvested vegetables, some horse dung, and either sawdust or straw to protect the vegetables from freezing. The excavation of trenches was especially important for the successful cultivation and preservation of cauliflower, as can be seen in the following excerpts from Prentis and Randolph: 14

Plant out your Colliflowers as follows.
Prepare your Ground as for a Hot Bed, then dig a trench Spade Deep, and two feet and a half Wide, make holes at convenient distances, set five Plants in each hole, put your Glasses on, raise them on the South Side, when it is warm (Webb-Prentis Papers).

Dig a trench eighteen Inches Wide and of a sufficient depth, put in Rotten Dung, then lay your Plants with their Heads to the Sun. Cover them with Mould up to their Leaves. add to this a coat of Saw Dust—When apprehensive of Frost, cover them with Straw. (Webb-Prentis Papers)

Put them in the ground, in a hole dug about two feet below the surface, well sheltered by straw or thatching, as near one another as you please (Randolph 1826,12).

It seems clear that advice such as this resulted from years of experimenting with the growing of this plant and others, particularly in the difficult seasons of the tidewater, which experienced extreme weather conditions in comparison to the mother country. There was clearly no one standard way of doing things learned from a book, but rather individuals like Prentis, Hornsby, and Randolph, and no doubt others whose 15 identities will never be known, were actively engaged in trial and error that surely brought many failures for every success. Prentis' "Garden Book" gives evidence of his experimentation in his "Chimney garden" immediately to the east of his house, where, in addition to planting beds, evidence of planting trenches were observed.

Evidence of more elaborate experimentation was seen at the site of what became John Randolph's large formal garden during the period 1762 to 1775. In the course of examining what remained of the garden area closest to the house on the west side, several trenches were revealed, as well as an unusual circular pattern of stake holes. These features, and the fact that they stratigraphically pre-date the construction of the house, most likely attest to the John Randolph's use of this area as an experimental garden before the time when he formally received title to the land, which occurred upon his mother's death sometime towards the end of the 1750s. It is thought that he wrote his treatise during this period, or shortly thereafter (ie. sometime between 1760 and 1770). As may be seen in the profiles of the trenches illustrated in figure 5, they are of slightly different sizes and shapes, perhaps relating to the kinds of plants with which Randolph was experimenting.

This brief examination of some of the recent evidence regarding the physical remains of vegetable cultivation in Williamsburg over a period of nearly one hundred years, indicates that the overall plan of kitchen gardens will be most difficult to reconstruct from archaeological excavation alone. Nor is it really possible to identify these expressions of a vernacular, or folk gardening tradition, without turning to those few written sources that articulate this tradition towards the end of the eighteenth century.

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Without physical remains marking the overall plan of raised beds in relationship to excavated beds, and to other planting features such as trenches and holes that also left behind some signature in the ground, as well as to those like rows and hills that did not, it is necessary to look again to these same written sources for glimpses of the overall spatial organization of these vernacular gardens. For example, in his garden diary, Joseph Hornsby describes his planting in such a way that it is possible to position beds relative to one another. There may be other such detailed diaries that can be reasonably used, by extension and analogy, to create such comprehensive planting schemes.

It is fortunate, too, that some later garden plans, drawn from memory, do help in this process; for Williamsburg proper these are Eliza Blow's turn-of-the-nineteenth century sketch of her grandfather Benjamin Waller's garden behind his Francis Street house, and the plan drawn by Kate Blankenship of the Wythe House garden between 1837 and 1844 (figure 6).

These later glimpses are especially tantalizing, 'showing as they do the position of vegetable and fruit in relationship to trees, ornamental shrubs, and herbaceous borders, as well as capturing the character of overall garden design. While they may be helpful for the actual treatment of the yards at these two properties, they are really too late to be of use in reconstructing the plans of early eighteenth century utilitarian gardens of the kind found on most Williamsburg lots; gardens created by the actions of ordinary citizens, working within a folk gardening tradition.

As it turns out, these are the very gardens that the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation would like to more accurately portray. While there are several notable 17 gardens, whose stature as monuments to the colonial revival vision argue for their preservation, there are many more small and less visible gardens which are now clearly too formal for the backyard work spaces where they have been planted. Already, as part of Colonial Williamsburg's new interpretation at the Benjamin Powell House, the garden has been greatly simplified, losing ground to Benjamin Powell's lumber yard and storage shed. It can be hoped, too, that this early fifties garden behind Shield's Tavern, charming in its symmetrical simplicity, but baseless in fact, can be replaced with a landscape plan incorporating the fencelines and walkways contemporary with the Shield's period (circa 1735-50), and the kitchen garden area revealed by the presence of the planting beds.

It the next few years, then, research in the archaeology department at Colonial Williamsburg will continue to emphasize recovering as much information as possible about the ordinary gardens of the town, and their placement in among the outbuildings, walkways and fences of individual lots; evidence to be sought both from both the ground and from contemporary garden diaries, journals, and "Calendars". This study will seek to unravel the grammar of the vernacular code that guided Williamsburg's "anonymous multitude of gardeners" during the colonial period, leaving the grand formal gardens of a precious few to stand as beautiful reminders of one era's perception of our colonial past.

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REFERENCES CITED

• Abercrombie, John. Every Man His Own Gardener. London: Printed for J. F. and C. Rivington, T. Longman and B. Law, 1791.
• Anonymous. Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery or, the Kitchen-Garden Display'd in Two Parts. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1744.
• Bailey, Nathan. Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum, and Botanicum. London: Printed for J. Nicholson, 1717.
• Bennett, Amy E. "A Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia: Three Sources of Documentation for Physical Remains of Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg Gardens." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Williamsburg, January 1984.
• Bradley, Richard. New Improvements of Planting and Gardening. London: Printed for J. and J. Knapton, 1731. 6th edition.
• Bridgeman, Thomas. The Young Gardener's Assistant. New York: For sale by the Author, 1853.
• Cobbett, William. The American Gardener. New York: C. M. Saxton & Co., 1856.
• Deetz, James. "Historical Archaeology, Anthropology and Folklife Studies." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Albuquerque, January 1980.
• Frenchman's Map. Plan de la ville et environs de Williamsburg en Virginie, 1782. Special Collections, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA.
• Gardiner, John and David Hepburn. The American Gardener. Washington: Printed by Samuel H. Smith, 1804.
• Hornsby, Joseph. Diary of Gardening and Planting, 1798. Unpublished manuscript microfilm on file, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA.
• Hosmer, Charles B. Jr. "The Colonial Revival in the Public Eye: Williamsburg and Early Garden Restoration." In The Colonial Revival in America, edited by Alan Axelrod. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1985.
• Justice, James. The Scots Gardiners Director. Edinburgh: Printed for A. Donaldson, 1759.
• Langley, Batty. New Principles of Gardening. London: A Betteswoth and J. Batley, 1728. 19
• M'Mahon, Bernard. The American Gardener's Calendar; Adapted to the Climate and Seasons of the United States. Philadelphia: Published by T. P. M'Mahon, 1820.
• Martin, Peter. From Jamestown to Jefferson: The World of Virginia Gardening. In press.
• Miller, Philip. The Gardeners Dictionary: Containing the Methods of Cultivating and Improving the Kitchen. Fruit and Flower Gardens, as also the Physick Garden, Wilderness, Conservatory, and Vineyard. Volumes I-III. London: Printed for the author and sold by C. Rivington, 1735.
• Quintinie, Jean de la. The Complete Gard'ner: or, Directions for Cultivating and Right Ordering of Fruit-Gardens and Kitchen-Gardens. London: Printed for A. & W. Bell, 1717. Abridged by George London and Henry Wise.
• Randolph, John Jr. A Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia. Edited by M. F. Warner. Reprinted from The American Gardener of John Gardiner and David Hepburn, 3rd edition, 1826. Richmond: Appeals Press, 1924.
• Squibb, Robert. The Gardener's Calendar for South-Carolina, Georgia, and North­Carolina. Charleston: Printed by Samuel Wright and Co. for R. Squibb, 1787. Reprint Athens, GA: Brown Thrasher Books, The University of Georgia Press, 1980.
• Stevenson, Reverend Mr. Henry. The Gentleman Gardener. London: Printed for J. Hinton, 1766.
• Swem, Earl Gregg. Brothers of the Spade: Correspondence of Peter Collinson of London, and of John Custis, of Williamsburg, Virginia 1734-1746. Barre, MA: Barre Gazette, 1957.
• Webb-Prentis Papers. Alderman Library, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
• White, Gilbert. Garden Kalendaar 1751-1771. London: The Scholar Press, 1975.
• Worlidge, John. The Gardeners Monthly Directions. London: Printed for the Dring, 1688. Reprinted Edinburgh: Clark Constable, Limited, 1980.