https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=V-ikeshoji-orlati&feedformat=atomHistory of Early American Landscape Design - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T07:17:53ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.35.2https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=James_Francis_Brown&diff=35869James Francis Brown2019-02-27T14:58:39Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: </p>
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<div>'''[[James Francis Brown]]''' (c. 1793–1868) escaped slavery in Maryland in 1828 and purchased his own freedom by working for the Verplanck family in New York, eventually becoming their head gardener. His diaries document the daily lives of people who constructed and maintained the elaborate gardens and landscapes commissioned by wealthy residents of the Hudson Valley in the mid-nineteenth century.<br />
==History==<br />
James Francis Brown, also known as Anthony Chase and Anthony Fisher, was born in slavery around October 1, 1793, in northern Maryland.<ref>Myra B. Young Armstead, ''Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America'' (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 11, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Little is known about his mother. His father, Robert Chase, was also enslaved, but died a free man on July 22, 1838.<ref>Armstead 2012, 12, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> The historical evidence concerning James F. Brown’s early life is difficult to follow, and sometimes contradictory. Historian Myra Armstead convincingly argues that he learned how to read and write at one of the German Lutheran churches in Frederick County in his youth.<ref>Armstead 2012, 14, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero]. Verplanck family history asserts that it was a daughter of the Verplancks who taught him. Alice B. Lockwood, ed., ''Gardens of Colony and State: Gardens and Gardeners of the American Colonies and of the Republic before 1840'' (New York: Charles Scribner’s for the Garden Club of America, 1931), 286, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T view on Zotero].</ref> She speculates that Brown may have been owned by Matthew Brown, a farmer and co-owner of a wool processing factory, before Brown was sold to the farmer William E. Williams (1797–1822).<ref>Armstead 2012, 16–19, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> While working for the Williams family in 1818, James Brown was recorded on the Baltimore city tax list, residing on Frederick Street, where he may have enjoyed a “quasi-free” status.<ref>Armstead 2012, 19–20, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1826, in anticipation of his own promised manumission, Brown married and paid for the manumission of a woman named Julia Chase (also known as Julia Williams), but upon the death of Henry Lee Williams, Brown’s new mistress Susan F. Williams refused to free him.<ref>Armstead 2012, 22–23, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1827, Brown and his wife ran away from slavery.<br />
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By March of 1828, eight months after he fled Baltimore, Brown was living in New York City and working as a coachman and waiter for the judge and former congressman Daniel C. Verplanck (1762–1834). When Brown was recognized and his whereabouts made known to Susan Williams, Verplanck offered to pay her a security bond until Brown was able to purchase his own freedom for 300 dollars over the course of three annual installments.<ref>Armstead 2012, 28–30, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Brown earned this money working as a waiter, coachman, and gardener for Verplanck and his family, first in New York City, and later at their Hudson River estate Mount Gulian in Fishkill (modern Beacon). In 1829, he began a series of diaries that he would continue until 1866, which provide almost all of the surviving historical evidence for his life.<ref> Garden historians were early to recognize the historical importance of these diaries as a source. See, for example, Joel Elias Springarn, “[https://books.google.com/books?id=E9spAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA10-PA36&dq=Henry%20Winthrop%20Sargent&pg=RA10-PA36#v=onepage&q&f=false Henry Winthrop Sargent and the Early History of Landscape Gardening and Ornamental Horticulture in Dutchess County, New York],” in ''Year Book of the Dutchess County Historical Society'', vol. 22 (Dutchess County Historical Society, 1937), 37–38, 63–66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/2CMSH3K5 view on Zotero].</ref> Between 1831 and 1832, Brown took a year-long hiatus from his work for the Verplancks, during which he lived and worked in New York City with the lawyer and anti-slavery activist Peter A. Jay (1776–1843).<ref>Armstead 2012, 55–56, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Upon his return to the Verplancks in 1832, Brown dedicated himself to gardening, and was promoted to the position of head gardener at Mount Gulian in 1836. Daniel Verplanck had died in 1834, so Brown answered to his forty-three-year-old daughter Mary Anna Verplanck (1793–1856) in his new role. Brown’s duties always included tasks like running errands for the family and transporting them across the Hudson river to Newburgh, but as head gardener he also supervised other employees in the gardens and grounds of the estate.<ref>Armstead 2012, 60–61, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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The garden at Mount Gulian was already established by the time James F. Brown started work there in 1829. First laid out by Daniel Verplanck in 1804, it was about six acres in size, with formal flower beds near the main house, a wooded area, a brook, a [[Pond|pond]], and long [[Lawn|lawn]] providing a view across the Hudson.<ref>Lockwood 1931, 284, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T view on Zotero].</ref> Although Brown never set out to describe Mount Gulian in his diaries, his records nevertheless constitute a valuable source for reconstructing its early design. <span id="Gravel_cite"></span>One entry from 1836 notes “laying out walk round the brooke in the garden” while an 1838 entry records that “Doctor VP and Mrs. VP layed out a circular roade in front of the house and layed some grabel [gravel] on it” ([[#Gravel|view text]]).<ref>Albert James Williams-Myers, “An African Voice Among the River Folk of the Hudson River Valley. The Diary of an Exslave, 1827-1866,” in ''On the Morning Tide: African Americans, History, and Methodology in the Historical Ebb and Flow of Hudson River Society'' (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003), 86, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Dam_cite"></span> Another 1838 entry, one of only a few garden projects proudly included in the list of momentous occasions excerpted as a “Book of References” at the end of his final diary, records the completion of “a large dam in the garden” ([[#Dam|view text]]). According to Brown’s entries from that year, the damming of the brook was a substantial project that ran from August 20th until September 20th, coinciding with the construction of a pond. <span id="WinterTasks_cite"></span>Brown also installed and planted hotbeds, and “cleaned and fixed plants in the [[Greenhouse|green house]]” ([[#WinterTasks|view text]]).<ref>January 23, 1832. Via Williams-Myers 2003, 87, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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In addition to these horticultural responsibilities, Brown managed a budget for garden, which he used to make purchasing trips to New York City and to order seeds and plants from well-known seedsmen and [[Nursery|nurseries]] of the period, including Parmentier’s, Prince’s, Thorburn’s (view text), Higg’s, and Bridgeman’s.<ref>Armstead 2012, 50, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Many of the plants listed in later descriptions of Mount Gulian are mentioned in Brown’s diaries, including magnolia from New York, Isabella grape vines, rose bushes, and peach, plumb, and apricot trees.<ref>Williams-Myers 2003,” 87, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> Not all of the plants in the garden were purchased from seed catalogs or [[Nursery|nurseries]]. <span id="Wildflower_cite"></span> One entry recounts how Brown “took a walk in the woods this day and found a very pretty bunch of water flowers, brought them home and gave them a place in the [[Flower garden|flower garden]] among the wild plants of our collection” ([[#Wildflower|view text]]).<ref>May 3, 1829. Via Williams-Myers 2003, 89, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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Thanks to Brown’s position on the Hudson River he met and worked with some of the most celebrated figures in early nineteenth-century American landscape gardening. Foremost among them was [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Andrew Jackson Downing]], whose family [[Nursery|nursery]] and [[Botanic garden|botanic gardens]] was located just across the Hudson in Newburgh. <span id="Gala_cite"></span>Brown’s diaries contain many references to the Downing nursery, where he purchased fruit trees and other supplies for the garden at Mount Gulian, and where he attended a “Grand Gala” in 1836 ([[#Gala|view text]]).<ref>For his purchases from Downing, see Armstead 2012, 44–46, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero]. For the gala at Downing’s, see September 13, 1836, mentioned also in Williams-Myers 2003, 88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> Brown may also have acted as a representative of the Downing nursery when he attended the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Show in Philadelphia during the autumn of 1840.<ref>Armstead 2012, 58–59, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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Brown’s acquaintances included other owners of great gardens and horticultural collections in the Hudson Valley. Mary Anna’s brother-in-law John W. Knevels (d. 1855) collected exotic and tropical plants, and Brown visited him frequently to store plants in his [[Greenhouse|green houses]] and to obtain cuttings for Mount Gulian.<ref>Armstead 2012, 46–47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Sargent_cite"></span>In 1842 and 1845 Brown noted developments at Henry Winthrop Sargent’s estate Wodenethe, just a few miles away on the other side of Fishkill, including “a fine Grapery and a new Green House” Sargent built ([[#Sargent|view text]]).<ref>September 29, 1845. Armstead 2012, 47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Brown also knew and visited gardeners who worked at nearby estates, including William Bennett at Wodenethe; B. Manning who gardened for Robert Bayard, a neighbor of the Verplancks; Michael Ross and William Lucas at the Downing nursery; and Mrs. Deacon, the wife of a gardener in Wappingers Falls.<ref>Armstead 2012, 48–49, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> These gardeners exchanged plants with each other, and must also have shared gardening tips and social news when they met.<br />
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As Armstead has pointed out, Brown’s career in gardening anticipated later calls for African Americans to embrace the profession. Early African American newspapers such as the ''Colored American'' reprinted articles from agricultural newspapers, which praised the benefits of gardening “for health, for pleasure, and for profit.”<ref>“The Farmer’s Garden,” ''The Colored American'', July 28, 1838. Originally published in the Albany ''Cultivator'', April 1838, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/Q6LY6KTE view on Zotero]. Armstead 2012, 93, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1853, the abolitionist Lewis Woodson wrote a letter to ''Frederick Douglass’ Paper'' arguing that for African Americans, gardening was “an easy, ''practical'', and certain means of bettering their condition, and increasing their happiness and respectability.”<ref>Lewis Woodson, “Communications: Gardening,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, September 23, 1853, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/2SQVD8YE, view on Zotero]. Via Armstead 2012, 94, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Extending the arguments of Barbara Mooney, Armstead suggests that African Americans like Brown may have associated early American garden theory and practice as they developed in northern states with freedom.<ref>Barbara Burlison Mooney, “The Comfortable Tasty Framed Cottage: An African American Architectural Iconography,” ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 61, no. 1 (2002): 49–50, https://doi.org/10.2307/991811, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/7ACU57Y4 view on Zotero]; Armstead 2012, 82, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Wife_cite"></span>Brown kept a small garden for his wife and himself in which he planted vegetables, fruit trees ([[#Wife|view text]]), and a rose bush.<ref>Armstead 2012, 81–82, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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<span id="Cemetery_cite"></span>In addition to his work on the garden at Mount Gulian, James F. Brown also worked to establish a “coloured peoples [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burying place]]” in Fishkill ([[#Cemetery|view text]]).<ref>September 1, 1851. Armstead 2012, 148–49, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1851, just one week after returning from a funeral for his friend Hester Purnell Thompson at the famed rural [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood]] in Brooklyn, New York, Brown organized a meeting to buy a [[Plot/Plat|plot]] of land adjacent to the local Methodist [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] for the new [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burial place]].<ref>August 29, 1851.</ref> The [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] itself is a flat, rectangular grass [[Lawn|lawn]] surrounded by trees at the corner of Walnut Street and Verplanck Avenue known as the Colored Peoples Union Burying Ground. Brown’s efforts to support the purchase and his role as a trustee may reflect how [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemeteries]] like [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood]] and [[Mount Auburn Cemetery|Mount Auburn]] inspired African American communities across the region. As a gardener, Brown must have been especially aware of the dignifying potential of landscapes for the dead.<br />
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While Brown’s salary as a master gardener is unknown, it afforded him a comfortable life. Based on figures for comparable skilled trades, Armstead speculates that he may have earned been between 490 and 630 dollars annually, which was between one third and one half of the White House gardener’s annual salary in 1840 (1200 dollars).<ref>Armstead 2012, 92, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> With income from his job, Brown was able to buy a house and reserve a pew at the same local church as his employers.<ref>Armstead 2012, 64 (home ownership), 130 (pew at St. Anna's), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> He voted in the New York elections of 1837, when full participation in the democratic process still hinged on property ownership.<ref>Armstead 2012, 112, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> As a subscriber to the ''New York Sun'' and a reader of the ''Fishkill Standard'', Brown was informed about both local and global events.<ref>Armstead 2012, 124, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> He participated in celebrations for historic occasions, including the manumission of slaves on the West Indian Islands in 1856 and the completion of the transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858.<ref>Williams-Myers 2003, 93–94, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Barnum_cite"></span>Brown also enjoyed leisure activities like attending “Barnum’s Caravan,” the traveling circus of P.T. Barnum, which visited Newburgh in the fall of 1851 ([[#Barnum|view text]]).<ref>October 22, 1851.</ref><br />
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Denied a formal education first by slavery in Maryland and then by prejudice in New York, Brown never received schooling in subjects like history or botany. His literacy and his experiences on the job, however, offered him opportunities to acquire knowledge in both areas. Brown’s diaries mention a copy of Richard and John Lander’s ''Travels'' that Mary Anna Verplanck gave him as a gift in 1833.<ref>Armstead 2012, 79, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Armstead focuses on the political significance of Lander’s abolitionist activism, but it may likewise be useful to consider how Brown would have imagined the African royal gardens that are briefly mentioned in the text.<ref>Robert Huish, ''The Travels of Richard and John Lander into the Interior of Africa for the Discovery of the Course and Termination of the Niger...: With a Prefatory Analysis of the Previous Travels of Park, Denham, Clapperton, Adams, Lyon, Ritchie, &c. into the Hitherto Unexplored Countries of Africa'' (London: Saunders, 1836), 297, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/NJCDY4TX view on Zotero].</ref> Other books could also have played an important role in mediating between the tastes and goals of garden owners like Mary Anna and literate gardeners like Brown. A list of recipes for remedies in the back of one of his diaries reveals that Brown’s botanical knowledge extended beyond purely horticultural applications to include practical medicine.<ref>Armstead 2012, 81, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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Racism posed professional challenges for Brown as a head gardener. African Americans were barred from official membership in most gardening and horticultural organizations, and, as a consequence, denied the benefits that such organizations could provide their members. <ref>Armstead 2012, 45, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Although it was unusual for women and black men to show plants at horticultural and botanical exhibitions, Brown displayed plants and produce on behalf of Mary Anna on several occasions: first in 1830 at an exhibition in Newburgh, then in 1839 at [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing’s]] Horticultural Association for the Valley of the Hudson show in Manhattan, and finally in 1949 at the Farmers and Gardeners Association.<ref>Armstead 2012, 52, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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<span id="Injury_cite"></span>Brown may have enjoyed the time he spent working and walking in the garden at Mount Gulian, but his diaries also records the physical toll of its maintenance. He injured his back moving a log in 1839, cut his hand while pruning grape vines in 1841 ([[#Injury|view text]]), endured a skin infection in 1842, suffered a “very severe fall” in 1844, and sprained his ankle so badly that he required surgery in 1853.<ref>Armstead 2012, 68, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Brown finally retired from his position in 1864, and died in 1868. His tombstone, which has been re-erected [fig. __], reveals that he was buried not in the [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] that he helped found, but across town at the congregation he attended with his employers, the Church of Saint Luke (founded as the Episcopal parish of Saint Anna). His wife Julia remained in Fishkill until her death in 1890.<ref>Frank Hasbrouck, ed., [https://archive.org/details/cu31924028853327/page/312 ''The History of Dutchess County, New York''] (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: S.A. Matthieu, 1909), 313–14, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/MP9CPG46 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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Although the survival of the diaries detailing them is extraordinary, the daily tasks recounted by Brown may be typical of the experiences of other African-American gardeners employed at northern estates in the early nineteenth century, such as Alexander Gilson (1823–1889), the head gardener of [[Montgomery Place|Montgomery Place]]. Brown’s garden vocabulary, focused on individual species that he purchased from seedsmen and [[Nursery|nurseries]] and collected in the wild, and physical facilities including the [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]], hotbeds, and dams he oversaw, is largely free of the aesthetic categories that structured early nineteenth-century literary debates about garden and landscape design. His attention to weather patterns and his planting experiments reflect the pragmatic concerns of someone responsible for the establishment and upkeep of a garden, while his participation in horticultural shows demonstrates the pride that he and the Verplanck’s took in his accomplishments. In the field of landscape studies, Brown’s diaries attest to the significance of African Americans who maintained early American gardens, as well as a range of experiences distinct from those of patrons, owners, and designers.<br />
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—''Alexander Brey''<br />
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==Texts==<br />
*<div id="Wildflower"></div>James F. Brown, May 3, 1829, recording the use of wild flowers in the garden at Mount Gulian (Brown, vol. 4) [[#Wildflower_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Sund 3rd All this day has been Raining. Went To the D.R. [Dutch Reformed] church at the Landing. Mr. Hyer’s Text was from 10th Chapter 19 verse of the Book of Numbers. Took A walk in the woods this day and found a Very pretty Bunch of water flowers brought them home and gave them a place in the [[Flower garden|flower garden]] among the wild plants of our collection.”<br />
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*<div id="WinterTasks"></div>James F. Brown, January, 1832, describing winter tasks for garden maintenance (Brown, vol. 1) [[#WinterTasks_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“January 14th this day brought home a Frame for hot beds, made by Mr. Ward.<br />
:“16th went to Newburgh got glass, putty, oil, paint, and some Radish & Salad seeds<br />
:“[--]th Began painting hot bed frame. Hauled Dung in the garden & formed one hot bed 8[?] foot long, the frost much out of the ground. 19th glazed and mended all The hot bed lights. Snow nearby off and Much Water in the ground.<br />
:“23rd I cleaned, and fixed the plants in the [[Greenhouse|Green house]].”<br />
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*James F. Brown, March 17, 1832, describing an experimental planting technique for fruit trees purchased at the [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]] family [[Nursery|nursery]] in Newburgh (Brown, vol. 1)<br />
:“March 17th The greater part of this day has Been raining and in the afternoon came on a very severe snow storm which continued all night. On Friday the 16th Removed the old hot bed and Trans-planted some cherry trees that stood by it. Michael also finished a stone wall on one side of the brooke in the garden. Monday 19th Very cold and three or four inches of snow on the ground, so there can be no work done in the garden as yet. On Wednesday the 14th of March set out 6 Peach Trees of assorted kinds, from Mr. Downing’s, and have tryed an Experiment to prevent the fruite from droping off, by laying Some flat stones at the bottom of the roots and also tryed the Experiment with an Apricot.”<br />
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*<div id="Gala"></div>James F. Brown, September 13, 1836, mentioning a gala at the [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]] family [[Nursery|nursery]] in Newburgh (Brown, vol. 1) [[#Gala_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Tuesday 13th Warm & Cloudy but no rain. A Grand Galla at [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downings]] Garden. Received a letter [. . . .]”<br />
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*<div id="Dam"></div>James F. Brown, August 3, 1838, summarizing the completion of a project to dam the brook in the garden at Mount Gulian in August and September of 1838 (Brown, vol. 8) [[#Dam_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“August 3rd Finished a large Dam in the Garden.”<br />
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*<div id="Gravel"></div>James F. Brown, October 18, 1838, (Brown, vol. 2) [[#Gravel_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Thurs 18th This morning was frosty, but after the Early part of the day it was warm and pleasant. Dug up the crooked border in the garden and sowed the Rose Larkspur seed. The women busy cleaning house. Doct[o]r VP and Mrs. VP layed out a Circular Roade in front of The house and layed some grabel on it.” <br />
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*<div id="Injury"></div>James F. Brown, March 19, 1841, noting an injury from a gardening accident (Brown, vol. 2) [[#Injury_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Frid 19th To day the weather has been very pleasant more so than yesterday. Went to NewBurgh and bought a small water [[Pot|Pot]]. <u>Cut</u> my <u>hand</u> Triming Grape Vines.”<br />
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*James F. Brown, March 24–27, 1841, describing a trip to New York to purchase plants and seeds (Brown, vol. 2)<br />
:“Wed 14th The weather to day has been very fine. Went to New York at 5 oclock with The steam boate Jam[es] Madison, arived in Town half past 10 oclock.<br />
:“Thurs 25th Bought some flower seed &c from Thorborn<br />
:“Frid 26th Fine weather. Went over to New Ark [Newark]. Bought a Macranthan Geranium from Mrs. Webb.<br />
:“Satur 27th Bought stock Gilly flower at The fulton market for Miss Mary VP. Left New York at 4 oclock in the S.B. Highlander for Fishkill, her first trip on Saturday this seasons.”<br />
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*<div id="Wife"></div>James F. Brown, April 1, 1841, recording work in the garden that he maintained for himself and his wife (Brown, vol. 2) [[#Wife_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Thurs The first Day of April Set out some fruit trees in my own garden which I bought of [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Mr. Downing]]. The weather Cleared off in the afternoon pleasant.”<br />
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*<div id="Sargent"></div>James F. Brown, September 29, 1854, recording observations on the new grapery and [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]] at Wodenethe (Brown, vol. 4) [[#Sargent_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Mond 29th To day the weather has been Very pleasant. Finished gathering and packing grapes for winter. Mr. Sergant has built this summer a fine Grapery and a new [[Greenhouse|Green House]], And Mr. R. G. Ranking has commenced to Build a Cotton Factory on The Matteawan Creek above Mr. Newlins. And Mr. Newlins Mill has all been this year turned into Manufactory. There is great talk of War With Texes JC”<br />
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*<div id="Cemetery"></div>James F. Brown, August 20–October 31, 1851, describing the burial of Hester Thompson at [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood Cemetery]], as well as fundraising and purchase of land for the Fishkill Coloured peoples [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] (Brown, vol. 6) [[#Cemetery_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Wed. 20 Something like rain<br />
:“Hester P. Thompson Died in Brooklin<br />
:“Thurs 21 Went to New York in the S Boate Henry Clay. . . .<br />
:“Frid 22 Hester was buried this day in [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood Cementry]]. Bought some [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]] plants.<br />
:“Sat 23 Returned from New York in the Cars<br />
:“Sund 24 Heard the New Pastor preach at the Reformed Duch Church<br />
:“Mon 25 Very warm. Received some [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]] plants from Mr. Phealius N. York by the way of NewBurgh<br />
:“Tues 26 Sowed Corn Salid and Cauliflower seed and hauling the muck that cleared from the Doctors [[Pond|pond]]<br />
:“Wed 27 The Fishkill Plank Roade began This day near the long Dock. L. Wilcox inlargeing the stage in the [[Greenhouse|Greenhouse]]. The Mornings & evenings very coole at this time. Sowed spinach, cale & cornsaled<br />
:“Thurs 28 John D. Holden & wife came up<br />
:“Frid 29 A meeting to buy [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|Burying ground]]<br />
:“Sat 30 Wilcox finished [[Greenhouse|green house]]<br />
:“Sund 31 The weather Very warm and dry.<br />
:“Mon 1 Day of September dry weather still continues. Agreed for a lot of land For the Coloured peoples burying Place at a Meeting held in the Zion Church Fishkill Landing.<br />
:“Tues 2. This morning it began to Rain in small showers but was soon over<br />
:“Wed 3 Warm and dry Mr J D L Verplanck very sick<br />
:“Thurs 4 Glazeing [[Greenhouse|green house]] and earthing Celery<br />
:“Frid 5 Very warm weather<br />
:“Sat 6 Went out to collect Money to To buy a [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burieng ground]] For the Coloured People of Fishkill Landing and vicinity [. . . .]<br />
:“Tues 16 Went out to collect money for a [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burying place]] for the Coloured People of Fishkill Landing [. . . .]<br />
:“Tues 23 There was a very small quantity of rain Began to house the Green Plants. Went over to NewBurgh to Collect some Money for a [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|buriing ground]] [. . . .]<br />
:“Sat 4 [October] Paid 65 dollars to Ja[mes] Mackin For the Coloured [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burying place]] [. . . .]<br />
:“Tues 14 Clear and pleasant<br />
:“Paide all The Money for the Colored Peoples Union burying ground To James Mackin for john P. Dewint also Choesed five trustees namely Samuel Sampson, James F. Brown, Edward Bush, Christian A. Reynolds, and Samuel Gommer [. . . .]<br />
:“Mon 20 Went up to Poukeepsie to have a Deed Recorded for the Colored Peoples burrying ground went up in the cars and came down to NewBurgh in the steam Henry Clay [. . . .]<br />
:“Thur 30 John Henry Rouse Died last night<br />
:“Frid 31 The weather warm and pleasant. Let the water off from the lower [[Pond|pond]]. J. Henry Rouse was buried in the Coloured Peoples New Burying Place, it being the interment in that ground.”<br />
<br />
*<div id="Barnum"></div>James F. Brown, October 22, 1851, mentioning a visit to P. T. Barnum’s travelling circus in Newburgh (Brown, vol. 6) [[#Barnum_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Wed 22 Began to rain last night, and it has continued to rain the greater part of the night. <u>Barnum’s Caravan</u> at NewBurgh.”<br />
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*Anonymous, January 18, 1868, Obituary for James F. Brown in the ''Fishkill Standard''<ref>https://beaconcemeterytrail.wordpress.com/tag/james-f-brown/</ref><br />
:“Mr. James Brown, a colored citizen who has been a resident of this village for nearly forty years, died at his residence on the Verplanck estate, on Tuesday. Mr. Brown was well-known to nearly all our citizens. He was formerly a slave in Maryland, but his master giving him his freedom, he came north, and by industry accumulated funds enough to purchase the freedom of his wife. For about thirty-six years, he has lived with the Verplanck family, first as a coachman, but for the last twenty years as head gardener. He was, as near as we can learn, about 73 years of age. He assisted at the building of the Episcopal Church, Matteawan. Mr. Brown was an old landmark, a prominent man among the colored people, always courteous and deferential, with a good education, probably self-acquired, and his death will be regretted by many.”<br />
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[[Category:People|Brown, James Francis]]</div>V-ikeshoji-orlatihttps://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=James_Francis_Brown&diff=35868James Francis Brown2019-02-27T14:55:25Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: </p>
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<div>'''[[James Francis Brown]]''' (c. 1793–1868) escaped slavery in Maryland in 1828 and purchased his own freedom by working for the Verplanck family in New York, eventually becoming their head gardener. His diaries document the daily lives of people who constructed and maintained the elaborate gardens and landscapes commissioned by wealthy residents of the Hudson Valley in the mid-nineteenth century.<br />
==History==<br />
James Francis Brown, also known as Anthony Chase and Anthony Fisher, was born in slavery around October 1, 1793, in northern Maryland.<ref>Myra B. Young Armstead, ''Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America'' (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 11, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Little is known about his mother. His father, Robert Chase, was also enslaved, but died a free man on July 22, 1838.<ref>Armstead 2012, 12, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> The historical evidence concerning James F. Brown’s early life is difficult to follow, and sometimes contradictory. Historian Myra Armstead convincingly argues that he learned how to read and write at one of the German Lutheran churches in Frederick County in his youth.<ref>Armstead 2012, 14, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero]. Verplanck family history asserts that it was a daughter of the Verplancks who taught him. Alice B. Lockwood, ed., ''Gardens of Colony and State: Gardens and Gardeners of the American Colonies and of the Republic before 1840'' (New York: Charles Scribner’s for the Garden Club of America, 1931), 286, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T view on Zotero].</ref> She speculates that Brown may have been owned by Matthew Brown, a farmer and co-owner of a wool processing factory, before Brown was sold to the farmer William E. Williams (1797–1822).<ref>Armstead 2012, 16–19, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> While working for the Williams family in 1818, James Brown was recorded on the Baltimore city tax list, residing on Frederick Street, where he may have enjoyed a “quasi-free” status.<ref>Armstead 2012, 19–20, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1826, in anticipation of his own promised manumission, Brown married and paid for the manumission of a woman named Julia Chase (also known as Julia Williams), but upon the death of Henry Lee Williams, Brown’s new mistress Susan F. Williams refused to free him.<ref>Armstead 2012, 22–23, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1827, Brown and his wife ran away from slavery.<br />
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By March of 1828, eight months after he fled Baltimore, Brown was living in New York City and working as a coachman and waiter for the judge and former congressman Daniel C. Verplanck (1762–1834). When Brown was recognized and his whereabouts made known to Susan Williams, Verplanck offered to pay her a security bond until Brown was able to purchase his own freedom for 300 dollars over the course of three annual installments.<ref>Armstead 2012, 28–30, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Brown earned this money working as a waiter, coachman, and gardener for Verplanck and his family, first in New York City, and later at their Hudson River estate Mount Gulian in Fishkill (modern Beacon). In 1829, he began a series of diaries that he would continue until 1866, which provide almost all of the surviving historical evidence for his life.<ref> Garden historians were early to recognize the historical importance of these diaries as a source. See, for example, Joel Elias Springarn, “[https://books.google.com/books?id=E9spAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA10-PA36&dq=Henry%20Winthrop%20Sargent&pg=RA10-PA36#v=onepage&q&f=false Henry Winthrop Sargent and the Early History of Landscape Gardening and Ornamental Horticulture in Dutchess County, New York],” in ''Year Book of the Dutchess County Historical Society'', vol. 22 (Dutchess County Historical Society, 1937), 37–38, 63–66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/2CMSH3K5 view on Zotero].</ref> Between 1831 and 1832, Brown took a year-long hiatus from his work for the Verplancks, during which he lived and worked in New York City with the lawyer and anti-slavery activist Peter A. Jay (1776–1843).<ref>Armstead 2012, 55–56, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Upon his return to the Verplancks in 1832, Brown dedicated himself to gardening, and was promoted to the position of head gardener at Mount Gulian in 1836. Daniel Verplanck had died in 1834, so Brown answered to his forty-three-year-old daughter Mary Anna Verplanck (1793–1856) in his new role. Brown’s duties always included tasks like running errands for the family and transporting them across the Hudson river to Newburgh, but as head gardener he also supervised other employees in the gardens and grounds of the estate.<ref>Armstead 2012, 60–61, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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The garden at Mount Gulian was already established by the time James F. Brown started work there in 1829. First laid out by Daniel Verplanck in 1804, it was about six acres in size, with formal flower beds near the main house, a wooded area, a brook, a [[Pond|pond]], and long [[Lawn|lawn]] providing a view across the Hudson.<ref>Lockwood 1931, 284, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T view on Zotero].</ref> Although Brown never set out to describe Mount Gulian in his diaries, his records nevertheless constitute a valuable source for reconstructing its early design. <span id="Gravel_cite"></span>One entry from 1836 notes “laying out walk round the brooke in the garden” while an 1838 entry records that “Doctor VP and Mrs. VP layed out a circular roade in front of the house and layed some grabel [gravel] on it” ([[#Gravel|view text]]).<ref>Albert James Williams-Myers, “An African Voice Among the River Folk of the Hudson River Valley. The Diary of an Exslave, 1827-1866,” in ''On the Morning Tide: African Americans, History, and Methodology in the Historical Ebb and Flow of Hudson River Society'' (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003), 86, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Dam_cite"></span> Another 1838 entry, one of only a few garden projects proudly included in the list of momentous occasions excerpted as a “Book of References” at the end of his final diary, records the completion of “a large dam in the garden” ([[#Dam|view text]]). According to Brown’s entries from that year, the damming of the brook was a substantial project that ran from August 20th until September 20th, coinciding with the construction of a pond. <span id="WinterTasks_cite"></span>Brown also installed and planted hotbeds, and “cleaned and fixed plants in the [[Greenhouse|green house]]” ([[#WinterTasks|view text]]).<ref>January 23, 1832. Via Williams-Myers 2003, 87, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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In addition to these horticultural responsibilities, Brown managed a budget for garden, which he used to make purchasing trips to New York City and to order seeds and plants from well-known seedsmen and [[Nursery|nurseries]] of the period, including Parmentier’s, Prince’s, Thorburn’s (view text), Higg’s, and Bridgeman’s.<ref>Armstead 2012, 50, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Many of the plants listed in later descriptions of Mount Gulian are mentioned in Brown’s diaries, including magnolia from New York, Isabella grape vines, rose bushes, and peach, plumb, and apricot trees.<ref>Williams-Myers 2003,” 87, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> Not all of the plants in the garden were purchased from seed catalogs or [[Nursery|nurseries]]. <span id="Wildflower_cite"></span> One entry recounts how Brown “took a walk in the woods this day and found a very pretty bunch of water flowers, brought them home and gave them a place in the [[Flower garden|flower garden]] among the wild plants of our collection” ([[#Wildflower|view text]]).<ref>May 3, 1829. Via Williams-Myers 2003, 89, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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Thanks to Brown’s position on the Hudson River he met and worked with some of the most celebrated figures in early nineteenth-century American landscape gardening. Foremost among them was [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Andrew Jackson Downing]], whose family [[Nursery|nursery]] and [[Botanic garden|botanic gardens]] was located just across the Hudson in Newburgh. <span id="Gala_cite"></span>Brown’s diaries contain many references to the Downing nursery, where he purchased fruit trees and other supplies for the garden at Mount Gulian, and where he attended a “Grand Gala” in 1836 ([[#Gala|view text]]).<ref>For his purchases from Downing, see Armstead 2012, 44–46, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero]. For the gala at Downing’s, see September 13, 1836, mentioned also in Williams-Myers 2003, 88, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> Brown may also have acted as a representative of the Downing nursery when he attended the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Show in Philadelphia during the autumn of 1840.<ref>Armstead 2012, 58–59, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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Brown’s acquaintances included other owners of great gardens and horticultural collections in the Hudson Valley. Mary Anna’s brother-in-law John W. Knevels (d. 1855) collected exotic and tropical plants, and Brown visited him frequently to store plants in his [[Greenhouse|green houses]] and to obtain cuttings for Mount Gulian.<ref>Armstead 2012, 46–47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Sargent_cite"></span>In 1842 and 1845 Brown noted developments at Henry Winthrop Sargent’s estate Wodenethe, just a few miles away on the other side of Fishkill, including “a fine Grapery and a new Green House” Sargent built ([[#Sargent|view text]]).<ref>September 29, 1845. Armstead 2012, 47, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Brown also knew and visited gardeners who worked at nearby estates, including William Bennett at Wodenethe; B. Manning who gardened for Robert Bayard, a neighbor of the Verplancks; Michael Ross and William Lucas at the Downing nursery; and Mrs. Deacon, the wife of a gardener in Wappingers Falls.<ref>Armstead 2012, 48–49, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> These gardeners exchanged plants with each other, and must also have shared gardening tips and social news when they met.<br />
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As Armstead has pointed out, Brown’s career in gardening anticipated later calls for African Americans to embrace the profession. Early African American newspapers such as the ''Colored American'' reprinted articles from agricultural newspapers, which praised the benefits of gardening “for health, for pleasure, and for profit.”<ref>“The Farmer’s Garden,” ''The Colored American'', July 28, 1838. Originally published in the Albany ''Cultivator'', April 1838, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/Q6LY6KTE view on Zotero]. Armstead 2012, 93, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1853, the abolitionist Lewis Woodson wrote a letter to ''Frederick Douglass’ Paper'' arguing that for African Americans, gardening was “an easy, ''practical'', and certain means of bettering their condition, and increasing their happiness and respectability.”<ref>Lewis Woodson, “Communications: Gardening,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, September 23, 1853, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/2SQVD8YE, view on Zotero]. Via Armstead 2012, 94, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Extending the arguments of Barbara Mooney, Armstead suggests that African Americans like Brown may have associated early American garden theory and practice as they developed in northern states with freedom.<ref>Barbara Burlison Mooney, “The Comfortable Tasty Framed Cottage: An African American Architectural Iconography,” ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 61, no. 1 (2002): 49–50, https://doi.org/10.2307/991811, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/7ACU57Y4 view on Zotero]; Armstead 2012, 82, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Wife_cite"></span>Brown kept a small garden for his wife and himself in which he planted vegetables, fruit trees ([[#Wife|view text]]), and a rose bush.<ref>Armstead 2012, 81–82, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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<span id="Cemetery_cite"></span>In addition to his work on the garden at Mount Gulian, James F. Brown also worked to establish a “coloured peoples [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burying place]]” in Fishkill ([[#Cemetery|view text]]).<ref>September 1, 1851. Armstead 2012, 148–49, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> In 1851, just one week after returning from a funeral for his friend Hester Purnell Thompson at the famed rural [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood]] in Brooklyn, New York, Brown organized a meeting to buy a [[Plot/Plat|plot]] of land adjacent to the local Methodist [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] for the new [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burial place]].<ref>August 29, 1851.</ref> The [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] itself is a flat, rectangular grass [[Lawn|lawn]] surrounded by trees at the corner of Walnut Street and Verplanck Avenue known as the Colored Peoples Union Burying Ground. Brown’s efforts to support the purchase and his role as a trustee may reflect how [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemeteries]] like [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood]] and [[Mount Auburn Cemetery|Mount Auburn]] inspired African American communities across the region. As a gardener, Brown must have been especially aware of the dignifying potential of landscapes for the dead.<br />
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While Brown’s salary as a master gardener is unknown, it afforded him a comfortable life. Based on figures for comparable skilled trades, Armstead speculates that he may have earned been between 490 and 630 dollars annually, which was between one third and one half of the White House gardener’s annual salary in 1840 (1200 dollars).<ref>Armstead 2012, 92, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> With income from his job, Brown was able to buy a house and reserve a pew at the same local church as his employers.<ref>Armstead 2012, 64 (home ownership), 130 (pew at St. Anna's), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> He voted in the New York elections of 1837, when full participation in the democratic process still hinged on property ownership.<ref>Armstead 2012, 112, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> As a subscriber to the ''New York Sun'' and a reader of the ''Fishkill Standard'', Brown was informed about both local and global events.<ref>Armstead 2012, 124, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> He participated in celebrations for historic occasions, including the manumission of slaves on the West Indian Islands in 1856 and the completion of the transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858.<ref>Williams-Myers 2003, 93–94, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8QE6MRA5 view on Zotero].</ref> <span id="Barnum_cite"></span>Brown also enjoyed leisure activities like attending “Barnum’s Caravan,” the traveling circus of P.T. Barnum, which visited Newburgh in the fall of 1851 ([[#Barnum|view text]]).<ref>October 22, 1851.</ref><br />
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Denied a formal education first by slavery in Maryland and then by prejudice in New York, Brown never received schooling in subjects like history or botany. His literacy and his experiences on the job, however, offered him opportunities to acquire knowledge in both areas. Brown’s diaries mention a copy of Richard and John Lander’s ''Travels'' that Mary Anna Verplanck gave him as a gift in 1833.<ref>Armstead 2012, 79, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Armstead focuses on the political significance of Lander’s abolitionist activism, but it may likewise be useful to consider how Brown would have imagined the African royal gardens that are briefly mentioned in the text.<ref>Robert Huish, ''The Travels of Richard and John Lander into the Interior of Africa for the Discovery of the Course and Termination of the Niger...: With a Prefatory Analysis of the Previous Travels of Park, Denham, Clapperton, Adams, Lyon, Ritchie, &c. into the Hitherto Unexplored Countries of Africa'' (London: Saunders, 1836), 297, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/NJCDY4TX view on Zotero].</ref> Other books could also have played an important role in mediating between the tastes and goals of garden owners like Mary Anna and literate gardeners like Brown. A list of recipes for remedies in the back of one of his diaries reveals that Brown’s botanical knowledge extended beyond purely horticultural applications to include practical medicine.<ref>Armstead 2012, 81, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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Racism posed professional challenges for Brown as a head gardener. African Americans were barred from official membership in most gardening and horticultural organizations, and, as a consequence, denied the benefits that such organizations could provide their members. <ref>Armstead 2012, 45, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Although it was unusual for women and black men to show plants at horticultural and botanical exhibitions, Brown displayed plants and produce on behalf of Mary Anna on several occasions: first in 1830 at an exhibition in Newburgh, then in 1839 at [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing’s]] Horticultural Association for the Valley of the Hudson show in Manhattan, and finally in 1949 at the Farmers and Gardeners Association.<ref>Armstead 2012, 52, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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<span id="Injury_cite"></span>Brown may have enjoyed the time he spent working and walking in the garden at Mount Gulian, but his diaries also records the physical toll of its maintenance. He injured his back moving a log in 1839, cut his hand while pruning grape vines in 1841 ([[#Injury|view text]]), endured a skin infection in 1842, suffered a “very severe fall” in 1844, and sprained his ankle so badly that he required surgery in 1853.<ref>Armstead 2012, 68, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/RRSFIU4K view on Zotero].</ref> Brown finally retired from his position in 1864, and died in 1868. His tombstone, which has been re-erected [fig. __], reveals that he was buried not in the [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] that he helped found, but across town at the congregation he attended with his employers, the Church of Saint Luke (founded as the Episcopal parish of Saint Anna). His wife Julia remained in Fishkill until her death in 1890.<ref>Frank Hasbrouck, ed., [https://archive.org/details/cu31924028853327/page/312 ''The History of Dutchess County, New York''] (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: S.A. Matthieu, 1909), 313–14, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/MP9CPG46 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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Although the survival of the diaries detailing them is extraordinary, the daily tasks recounted by Brown may be typical of the experiences of other African-American gardeners employed at northern estates in the early nineteenth century, such as Alexander Gilson (1823–1889), the head gardener of [[Montgomery Place|Montgomery Place]]. Brown’s garden vocabulary, focused on individual species that he purchased from seedsmen and [[Nursery|nurseries]] and collected in the wild, and physical facilities including the [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]], hotbeds, and dams he oversaw, is largely free of the aesthetic categories that structured early nineteenth-century literary debates about garden and landscape design. His attention to weather patterns and his planting experiments reflect the pragmatic concerns of someone responsible for the establishment and upkeep of a garden, while his participation in horticultural shows demonstrates the pride that he and the Verplanck’s took in his accomplishments. In the field of landscape studies, Brown’s diaries attest to the significance of African Americans who maintained early American gardens, as well as a range of experiences distinct from those of patrons, owners, and designers.<br />
<br />
—''Alexander Brey''<br />
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==Texts==<br />
*<div id="Wildflower"></div>James F. Brown, May 3, 1829, recording the use of wild flowers in the garden at Mount Gulian (Brown, vol. 4) [[#Wildflower_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Sund 3rd All this day has been Raining. Went To the D.R. [Dutch Reformed] church at the Landing. Mr. Hyer’s Text was from 10th Chapter 19 verse of the Book of Numbers. Took A walk in the woods this day and found a Very pretty Bunch of water flowers brought them home and gave them a place in the [[Flower garden|flower garden]] among the wild plants of our collection.”<br />
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*<div id="WinterTasks"></div>James F. Brown, January, 1832, describing winter tasks for garden maintenance (Brown, vol. 1) [[#WinterTasks_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“January 14th this day brought home a Frame for hot beds, made by Mr. Ward.<br />
:“16th went to Newburgh got glass, putty, oil, paint, and some Radish & Salad seeds<br />
:“[--]th Began painting hot bed frame. Hauled Dung in the garden & formed one hot bed 8[?] foot long, the frost much out of the ground. 19th glazed and mended all The hot bed lights. Snow nearby off and Much Water in the ground.<br />
:“23rd I cleaned, and fixed the plants in the [[Greenhouse|Green house]].”<br />
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*James F. Brown, March 17, 1832, describing an experimental planting technique for fruit trees purchased at the [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]] family [[Nursery|nursery]] in Newburgh (Brown, vol. 1)<br />
:“March 17th The greater part of this day has Been raining and in the afternoon came on a very severe snow storm which continued all night. On Friday the 16th Removed the old hot bed and Trans-planted some cherry trees that stood by it. Michael also finished a stone wall on one side of the brooke in the garden. Monday 19th Very cold and three or four inches of snow on the ground, so there can be no work done in the garden as yet. On Wednesday the 14th of March set out 6 Peach Trees of assorted kinds, from Mr. Downing’s, and have tryed an Experiment to prevent the fruite from droping off, by laying Some flat stones at the bottom of the roots and also tryed the Experiment with an Apricot.”<br />
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*<div id="Gala"></div>James F. Brown, September 13, 1836, mentioning a gala at the [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]] family [[Nursery|nursery]] in Newburgh (Brown, vol. 1) [[#Gala_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Tuesday 13th Warm & Cloudy but no rain. A Grand Galla at [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downings]] Garden. Received a letter [. . . .]”<br />
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*<div id="Dam"></div>James F. Brown, August 3, 1838, summarizing the completion of a project to dam the brook in the garden at Mount Gulian in August and September of 1838 (Brown, vol. 8) [[#Dam_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“August 3rd Finished a large Dam in the Garden.”<br />
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*<div id="Gravel"></div>James F. Brown, October 18, 1838, (Brown, vol. 2) [[#Gravel_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Thurs 18th This morning was frosty, but after the Early part of the day it was warm and pleasant. Dug up the crooked border in the garden and sowed the Rose Larkspur seed. The women busy cleaning house. Doct[o]r VP and Mrs. VP layed out a Circular Roade in front of The house and layed some grabel on it.” <br />
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*<div id="Injury"></div>James F. Brown, March 19, 1841, noting an injury from a gardening accident (Brown, vol. 2) [[#Injury_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Frid 19th To day the weather has been very pleasant more so than yesterday. Went to NewBurgh and bought a small water [[Pot|Pot]]. <u>Cut</u> my <u>hand</u> Triming Grape Vines.”<br />
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*James F. Brown, March 24–27, 1841, describing a trip to New York to purchase plants and seeds (Brown, vol. 2)<br />
:“Wed 14th The weather to day has been very fine. Went to New York at 5 oclock with The steam boate Jam[es] Madison, arived in Town half past 10 oclock.<br />
:“Thurs 25th Bought some flower seed &c from Thorborn<br />
:“Frid 26th Fine weather. Went over to New Ark [Newark]. Bought a Macranthan Geranium from Mrs. Webb.<br />
:“Satur 27th Bought stock Gilly flower at The fulton market for Miss Mary VP. Left New York at 4 oclock in the S.B. Highlander for Fishkill, her first trip on Saturday this seasons.”<br />
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*<div id="Wife"></div>James F. Brown, April 1, 1841, recording work in the garden that he maintained for himself and his wife (Brown, vol. 2) [[#Wife_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Thurs The first Day of April Set out some fruit trees in my own garden which I bought of [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Mr. Downing]]. The weather Cleared off in the afternoon pleasant.”<br />
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*<div id="Sargent"></div>James F. Brown, September 29, 1854, recording observations on the new grapery and [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]] at Wodenethe (Brown, vol. 4) [[#Sargent_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Mond 29th To day the weather has been Very pleasant. Finished gathering and packing grapes for winter. Mr. Sergant has built this summer a fine Grapery and a new [[Greenhouse|Green House]], And Mr. R. G. Ranking has commenced to Build a Cotton Factory on The Matteawan Creek above Mr. Newlins. And Mr. Newlins Mill has all been this year turned into Manufactory. There is great talk of War With Texes JC”<br />
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*<div id="Cemetery"></div>James F. Brown, August 20–October 31, 1851, describing the burial of Hester Thompson at [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood Cemetery]], as well as fundraising and purchase of land for the Fishkill Coloured peoples [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|cemetery]] (Brown, vol. 6) [[#Cemetery_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Wed. 20 Something like rain<br />
:“Hester P. Thompson Died in Brooklin<br />
:“Thurs 21 Went to New York in the S Boate Henry Clay. . . .<br />
:“Frid 22 Hester was buried this day in [[Green-Wood Cemetery|Greenwood Cementry]]. Bought some [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]] plants.<br />
:“Sat 23 Returned from New York in the Cars<br />
:“Sund 24 Heard the New Pastor preach at the Reformed Duch Church<br />
:“Mon 25 Very warm. Received some [[Greenhouse|greenhouse]] plants from Mr. Phealius N. York by the way of NewBurgh<br />
:“Tues 26 Sowed Corn Salid and Cauliflower seed and hauling the muck that cleared from the Doctors [[Pond|pond]]<br />
:“Wed 27 The Fishkill Plank Roade began This day near the long Dock. L. Wilcox inlargeing the stage in the [[Greenhouse|Greenhouse]]. The Mornings & evenings very coole at this time. Sowed spinach, cale & cornsaled<br />
:“Thurs 28 John D. Holden & wife came up<br />
:“Frid 29 A meeting to buy [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|Burying ground]]<br />
:“Sat 30 Wilcox finished [[Greenhouse|green house]]<br />
:“Sund 31 The weather Very warm and dry.<br />
:“Mon 1 Day of September dry weather still continues. Agreed for a lot of land For the Coloured peoples burying Place at a Meeting held in the Zion Church Fishkill Landing.<br />
:“Tues 2. This morning it began to Rain in small showers but was soon over<br />
:“Wed 3 Warm and dry Mr J D L Verplanck very sick<br />
:“Thurs 4 Glazeing [[Greenhouse|green house]] and earthing Celery<br />
:“Frid 5 Very warm weather<br />
:“Sat 6 Went out to collect Money to To buy a [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burieng ground]] For the Coloured People of Fishkill Landing and vicinity [. . . .]<br />
:“Tues 16 Went out to collect money for a [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burying place]] for the Coloured People of Fishkill Landing [. . . .]<br />
:“Tues 23 There was a very small quantity of rain Began to house the Green Plants. Went over to NewBurgh to Collect some Money for a [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|buriing ground]] [. . . .]<br />
:“Sat 4 [October] Paid 65 dollars to Ja[mes] Mackin For the Coloured [[Cemetery/Burying ground/Burial ground|burying place]] [. . . .]<br />
:“Tues 14 Clear and pleasant<br />
:“Paide all The Money for the Colored Peoples Union burying ground To James Mackin for john P. Dewint also Choesed five trustees namely Samuel Sampson, James F. Brown, Edward Bush, Christian A. Reynolds, and Samuel Gommer [. . . .]<br />
:“Mon 20 Went up to Poukeepsie to have a Deed Recorded for the Colored Peoples burrying ground went up in the cars and came down to NewBurgh in the steam Henry Clay [. . . .]<br />
:“Thur 30 John Henry Rouse Died last night<br />
:“Frid 31 The weather warm and pleasant. Let the water off from the lower [[Pond|pond]]. J. Henry Rouse was buried in the Coloured Peoples New Burying Place, it being the interment in that ground.”<br />
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*<div id="Barnum"></div>James F. Brown, October 22, 1851, mentioning a visit to P. T. Barnum’s travelling circus in Newburgh (Brown, vol. 6) [[#Barnum_cite|back up to History]]<br />
:“Wed 22 Began to rain last night, and it has continued to rain the greater part of the night. <u>Barnum’s Caravan</u> at NewBurgh.”<br />
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*Anonymous, January 18, 1868, Obituary for James F. Brown in the ''Fishkill Standard''<ref>https://beaconcemeterytrail.wordpress.com/tag/james-f-brown/</ref><br />
:“Mr. James Brown, a colored citizen who has been a resident of this village for nearly forty years, died at his residence on the Verplanck estate, on Tuesday. Mr. Brown was well-known to nearly all our citizens. He was formerly a slave in Maryland, but his master giving him his freedom, he came north, and by industry accumulated funds enough to purchase the freedom of his wife. For about thirty-six years, he has lived with the Verplanck family, first as a coachman, but for the last twenty years as head gardener. He was, as near as we can learn, about 73 years of age. He assisted at the building of the Episcopal Church, Matteawan. Mr. Brown was an old landmark, a prominent man among the colored people, always courteous and deferential, with a good education, probably self-acquired, and his death will be regretted by many.”<br />
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==Images==<br />
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==Other Resources==<br />
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==Notes==<br />
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[[Category: People|James F. Brown]]</div>V-ikeshoji-orlatihttps://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=Terrace/Slope&diff=35689Terrace/Slope2018-11-08T22:42:41Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: Fixed spelling of Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville in history section.</p>
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<div>==History==<br />
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[[File:0766.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Anonymous, ''The Battery New York, By Moonlight'', 1849.]]<br />
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[[File:1048.jpg|thumb|Fig. 2, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sketch of the Grounds of the Vassall-Carigie-Longfellow House, 1844. A “turf terrace” is noted to the left of the main house.]]<br />
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The term terrace, used to describe both natural and artificial landscape features, denoted a level area or platform, often slightly raised and of varying dimensions and materials. Although Stephen Switzer (1718) made subtle distinctions between kinds of terraces (terrace walks, great terraces, middle terraces, etc.), those distinctions were not generally followed in American usage. In practice, however, a variety of terrace types were incorporated into landscape designs throughout 18th- and 19th-century America. These included long narrow terraces that formed raised [[walk]]s, platforms of earthen and architectural materials adjacent to buildings, and earthen terraces between slopes in [[falling garden]]s.<br />
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[[File:0896.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 3, Edwin Whitefield, Sketch of Anson G. Phelps’ Villa, North Tarrytown, New York, 1851.]]<br />
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[[File:1686.jpg|thumb|Fig. 4, James Smillie after a sketch by A. O. Moore, “Italian Garden and Lake at Wellesley near Boston,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), pl. opp. p. 452.]]<br />
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Native American platform mounds, such as the one described as a terrace by <span id="Bartram_cite"></span>[[William Bartram]] in 1791, served as stages for the religious and ruling elite of the southeast before European contact ([[#Bartram|view text]]). Visible for miles, these mounds are remarkable not only as architectural monuments but also as testimonies to the leadership that mobilized a massive labor force needed to move such a vast quantity of earth.<br />
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In Anglo-American gardens, long, narrow terraces provided raised [[walk]]s that offered excellent viewing platforms, formed circulation routes through the landscape, and made ideal venues for social promenade, as depicted at the [[Battery Park]] in New York by the ''Illustrated London News'' in 1849 [Fig. 1]. In 1718,<span id="Switzer_cite"></span> Switzer declared that gardens without these elevated [[walk]]s “must be esteem’d very deficient.”([[#Switzer|view text]]) Waterside terraces were particularly common in America, because they were created with the fill dredged from rivers and [[canal]]s. Such terraces were built in residential settings, such as the gardens at Maycox Plantation in Virginia, which were described c. 1780–82 by Fran&ccedil;ois Jean Chastellux and at the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House in Cambridge [Fig. 2]. In public areas, terraces were found at the [[Battery Park]], described in 1793 by [[John Drayton]], and at the waterfront of Alexandria, Virginia, visited in 1830 by [[Frances Milton Trollope]]. <br />
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Terraces were also built adjacent to buildings, and were often created from the earth excavated from cellar construction. The term “terrace” referred to raised earthen platforms and to flat roofed structures, both of which were used as balconies, [[promenade]]s, and viewing platforms. These terraces (paved, turfed, graveled, or covered in metal compounds, as advertised in the ''Federal Gazette'' in 1816) were occasionally also ornamented with [[statue|statuary]], vases, urns, and plantings such as flower beds or, more rarely, topiary. Charles Lyell recorded his observations of a highly ornamented terrace in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1846. A paved or turfed terrace extending from the house and often bounded by a balustrade was particularly popular in Italianate architecture of the 1830s and 1840s and was promoted by [[William H. Ranlett]] (1849) and [[Andrew Jackson Downing]] (1849). These terraces required substantial investment to construct and, when planted intensively, to maintain [Figs. 3 and 4]. As <span id="Loudon_cite"></span>[[Jane Loudon]] observed in 1845, “[T]hey are chiefly adapted for mansions and places of considerable extent.” ([[#Loudon|view text]]) <span id="Downing_cite"></span> [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]] suggested that the function of the English paved terrace was often accommodated in America by the [[veranda]] ([[#Downing|view text]]).<br />
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[[File:2006.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 5, Joseph Drayton, ''View near Bordenton, from the Gardens of the Count de Survilliers'', c. 1820.]]<br />
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[[File:1477.jpg|thumb|Fig. 6, Anonymous, Honorary membership certificate for Nicholas Biddle in “The Horticultural Association of the Valley of the Hudson” [detail], June 1839.]]<br />
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Broad terraces located adjacent to a building provided a transition between the built architecture and the grounds, as [[Batty Langley]], [[Bernard M'Mahon]], [[John Abercrombie]], and [[A. J. Downing]] all noted. The terrace also provided a vantage point from which to admire [[view]]s and [[vista]]s. Both [[John Abercrombie|Abercrombie]] (1817) and [[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|J. C. Loudon's]] (1850) discussions of terraces emphasize the importance of selecting sight lines and of building proportionally in order to create an appropriate visual setting for a house, as well as to establish a viewing platform for looking outward. For example, the terrace at [[Point Breeze]], which was described by [[Frances Milton Trollope|Trollope]] and depicted in an anonymous engraving after [[Thomas Birch]] [Fig. 5], was placed to take advantage of striking [[vista]]s. Similarly, flat roofs of buildings (such as those at [[Monticello]]; the Waterworks at [[Fairmount Park]] in Philadelphia; and the [[White House]] in Washington, DC) served as elevated terrace walkways with views of distant scenery. A certificate for the Horticultural Association of the Hudson [Fig. 6] depicts an idealized garden (possibly based on [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing’s]] [[Highland Place]]) that includes a terrace, seen at right, framing an extended view of the Newburgh Basin.<ref>For a discussion of this image, see Walter L. Creese, ''The Crowning of the American Landscape: Eight Great Spaces and Their Buildings'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 75–78, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/FX78IBSV/q/Creese| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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[[File:0720.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 7, Charles Bulfinch, Ground plan of the two wings added to the Pleasant Hill, 1818. The “upper terrace” and “lower terrace” link all the buildings.]]<br />
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[[File:1042.jpg|thumb|Fig. 8, Michael van der Gucht, Illustration for chapter entitled: “Of different Terrasses and Stairs, with their most exact Proportions,” 1712.]]<br />
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Terraces of varying widths were also employed in sites with a steep grade in order to make for arable and easily navigated level areas, to control erosion, and to create the visual effects made possible by a series of slopes and flats (see [[Fall]]). These terraces were supported by earthen slopes or masonry [[wall]]s, supports which were referred to variously as banks, slopes, and terrace walls. They were also sometimes simply called by the more general term, “terrace,” as in William Dickinson Martin’s 1808 description of a “perpendicular terrace” at Salem, North Carolina. Designs for public institutions, such as Charles Bulfinch’s 1818 design for two wings to be added to the seat of Joseph Barrell in order to create the McLean Asylum [Fig. 7], used terraces to frame views of the buildings’ fa&ccedil;des while accommodating the slope of the land. The terraces of a [[falling garden]] were generally separated by turfed slopes or, less commonly, masonry [[wall]]s. As <span id="Argenville_cite"></span> [[Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville]] (1712) noted, gardens were less susceptible to erosion if their terraces were created by cutting into an existing hillside rather than constructed out of fill ([[#Argenville|view text]]) [Fig. 8].The planting schemes of [[falling garden]] terraces varied from simple turf to kitchen and flower beds, although images of terraces rarely showed plantings in detail. Among the few surviving examples is [[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson’s]] diagram (c. 1804) for a garden olitory, in which he specified a hedge at the “foot of the terras” designed to accommodate differing heights of the [[lawn]] and [[kitchen garden]]. In 1840, <span id="Hovey_cite"></span>[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|C. M. Hovey]] referred to the efforts of the Messrs. Winship of Brighton, Massachusetts, to transform the embankment of a railroad right-of-way on [[C. M. (Charles Mason)Hovey|Hovey’s]] land into an attractive terraced garden ([[#Hovey|view text]]). While the use of terraces and slopes to create [[falling garden]]s seems to have declined in popularity after the early 19th century, its use continued through mid-century in large formal landscapes of public gardens, such as the University of Virginia, and anywhere uneven or steep topography offered a challenge. <br />
<br />
—''Elizabeth Kryder-Reid''<br />
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==Texts==<br />
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===Usage===<br />
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*[[William Byrd II|Byrd, William II]], September 18, 1732, describing the estate of Gov. Alexander Spotswood, near Germanna, VA (1910; repr., 1970: 357–58)<ref>William Byrd, ''The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of Westover in Virginia, Esqr.'', ed. John Spencer Bassett (1910; repr., New York: B. Franklin, 1970), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3VVVZ9XQ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“After Breakfast the Colo. and I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs, and took a turn in the Garden, which has nothing beautiful but 3 '''Terrace''' Walks that fall in '''Slopes''' one below another.” <br />
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*Grigg, William, October 4, 1736, describing the residence of Thomas Hancock on Beacon Hill, Boston, MA (quoted in Lockwood 1931: 1:32)<ref> Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State: Gardens and Gardeners of the American Colonies and of the Republic before 1840'', 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s for the Garden Club of America, 1931),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T/q/lockwood| view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“I the Subscriber oblidge myself for Consideration of forty pounds to be well & truly paid me by Thos. Hancock Doe undertake to layout the upper garden [[alley|allys]]. Trim the Beds & fill up all the [[alley|allies]] with such Stuff as Sd Hancock shall order and Gravel the [[walk|Walks]] & prepare and Sodd ye '''Terras''' adjoining with the '''Slope''' on the side next to Mr. Yoemans land, Likewise I oblidge myself to layout the next garden or flatt from the '''Terras''' below and carry on the mold thereto belonging and fill up all the [[walk]]s with Gravel & finish all off Compleat workman like this fall to the satisfaction of said Hancock.” <br />
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*Hamilton, Alexander, June 17, 1744, describing New York, NY (1948: 46)<ref>Alexander Hamilton, ''Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744'', ed. Carl Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/EWWJNEUN view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“The Leutenant Governor had here a house and a chapell, and there are fine gardens and '''terrass''' walks from which one has a very pritty [[view]] of the city.” <br />
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<br />
[[File:0074.jpg|thumb|Fig. 9, [[Thomas Jefferson]], Plan showing the rectangular flower beds and proposed temples at the corners of the terrace walks at Monticello, before August 4, 1772.]] <br />
*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], 1771, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, VA (1944: 26)<ref>Thomas Jefferson, ''The Garden Book'', ed. Edwin M. Betts (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8ZA5VRP5 view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“a few feet below the spring level the ground 40 or 50 f. sq. let the water fall from the spring in the upper level over a '''terrace''' in the form of a [[cascade]]. then conduct it along the foot of the '''terrace''' to the Western side of the level, where it may fall into a cistern under a [[temple]], from which it may go off by the western [[border]] till it falls over another '''terrace''' at the Northern or lower side. let the [[temple]] be raised 2. f. for the first floor of stone. under this is the cistern, which may be a bath or anything else. the 1st story [[arch]]es on three sides; the back or western side being close because the hill there comes down, and also to carry up stairs on the outside. the 2d story to have a door on one side, a spacious window in each of the other sides, the rooms each 8. f. cube; with a small table and a couple of chairs. the roof may be Chinese, Grecian, or in the taste of the Lantern of Demosthenes at Athens.” [Fig. 9]<br />
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*Fithian, Philip Vickers, March 18, 1774, describing [[Nomini Hall]], Westmoreland County, VA (1943: 108)<ref>Philip Vickers Fithian, ''Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion'', ed. Hunter D. Farish (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg, 1943), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/XJX4WV8F view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“From the front yard of the Great House, to the Wash-House is a curious '''''Terrace''''', covered finely with Green turf, & about five foot high with a '''slope''' of eight feet, which appears exceeding well to persons coming to the front of the House&mdash;<br />
<p> </p><br />
:“This '''''Terrace''''' is produced along the Front of the House, and ends by the Kitchen; but before the Front-Doors is a broad flight of steps of the same Height, & slope of the '''''Terrace'''''.” <br />
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*Chastellux, Fran&ccedil;ois Jean Marquis de, 1780–82, describing Maycox Plantation, estate of David Meade, Prince George County, VA (1787: 2:166–67)<ref> Fran&ccedil;ois Jean Chastellux, Marquis de Chastellux, ''Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782,'' 2 vols. (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UXHRGXKX/q/Fran%C3%A7ois%20Jean| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“Mr. Mead’s house is by no means so handsome as that of [[Westover]]. . . . Mr. Mead’s garden, like that of Westover, is in the nature of a '''terrace''' on the bank of the river.”<br />
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*[[William Hamilton|Hamilton, William]], 1789 and 1790, in a letter to his secretary, Benjamin Hays Smith, describing [[The Woodlands]], seat of William Hamilton, near Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Madsen 1988: A6, A7)<ref>Karen Madsen, “William Hamilton’s Woodlands,” (paper presented for seminar in American Landscape, 1790–1900, instructed by E. McPeck, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 1988), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items#items/itemKey/XN8NN9QN/q/madsen?&_suid=1340895272014046677169243049543 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“[September 27, 1789] . . . The first moment after Hilton has finished weeding in the Garden as I directed he should set about weeding the '''terrace''' walk as I will endeavour to have it gravelld during the winter. . .<br />
<p> </p> <br />
:“[October 12, 1789] . . . When the '''terrace''' is weeded, the two [[Border]]s leading from the House to the [[Ice House]] Hill should be cleaned. . . <br />
<p> </p><br />
:“[June 12, 1790] . . . The newly planted trees & shrubs along the '''terrace''' respecting which you know me to be so anxious, may be alive or dead for ought I know.” <br />
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*<div id="Bartram"></div>[[William Bartram|Bartram, William]], 1791, describing the area north of Wrightsborough, GA (1928: 56–57)<ref> William Bartram, ''Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida'', ed. Mark Van Doren (New York: Dover, 1928), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/88NA3B2P view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Bartram_cite|back up to History]]<br />
<br />
:“many very magnificent monuments of the power and industry of the ancient inhabitants of these lands are visible. I observed a stupendous conical pyramid, or artificial mount of earth, vast tetragon '''terraces''', and a large sunken area, of a cubical form, encompassed with banks of earth; and certain traces of a larger Indian town, the work of a powerful nation, whose period of grandeur perhaps long preceded the discovery of this continent. . . . <br />
<p> </p><br />
:“old Indian settlements, now deserted and overgrown with forests. These are always on or near the banks of rivers, or great swamps, the artificial mounts and terraces elevating them above the surrounding [[grove]]s.”<br />
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*Smith, William Loughton, 1791, describing [[Gunston Hall]], seat of George Mason, Mason Neck, VA (1917: 64)<ref> William Loughton Smith, ''Journal of William Loughton Smith, 1790–1791'' ed. Albert Matthews, (Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1917), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ITHQH4P5/q/Loughton| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“The house is rather an ancient brick building, with a neat garden, at the end of which is a high natural '''terrace''' which commands the Potomac.” <br />
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*[[John Drayton|Drayton, John]], 1793, describing the [[Battery Park]], New York, NY (quoted in De&aacute;k, 1988: 1:130)<ref> Gloria Gilda De&aacute;k, ''Picturing America, 1497–1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory That Is Now the United States'', 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4A6QNFNX| view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“The flag staff rises from the midst of a stone tower, and is decorated on the top with a golden ball: and the back part of the ground is laid out in smaller [[walks]], '''terraces''', and a [[bowling green]].&mdash; Immediately behind this, and overlooking it, is the government house; built at the expence of the state.” <br />
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*Twining, Thomas, May 1, 1795, describing Georgetown, VA (1894: 110)<ref>Thomas Twining, ''Travels in America 100 Years Ago'' (New York: Harper, 1894), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/CKJBU8CP/| view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“As we stood one evening on the bank of the river before his door, he said, ‘Here I will make a terrace, and we will sit and smoke our hookahs.’”<br />
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<br />
[[File:0090a.jpg|thumb|Fig. 10, [[Thomas Jefferson]], “Terras” in a letter describing plans for a “Garden Olitory” at [[Monticello]] c. 1804. ]]<br />
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*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], c. 1804, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, VA (Massachusetts Historical Society, Coolidge Collection) <br />
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:“Garden Olitory. Make the upper '''slope''' [diagram] at a plant a [[hedge]] of hedgethorn & at ''b'' one of privet or Gleditria, or cedar to be trimmed down to 3 ft. high, the whole appearance thus taking a [[border]] of 8 ft. at the foot of the '''terras''' for forward production, the main beds must be reduced from 50 f. to 42 f.” [Fig. 9] <br />
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*[[Benjamin Henry Latrobe|Latrobe, Benjamin Henry]], May 11, 1805, describing the [[White House]], Washington, DC (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; hereafter CWF) <br />
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:“The obstructions to the colonnade from the stables, may be prevented by giving them a North door, as horses will easily ascend or descend the '''terras''' on the North side. But the most difficult of all is the adjustment of the new connecting building to the different levels of the three existing buildings. Nothing can be admitted short of the '''terras''' of the offices from the [[White House|Pres’s House]] to the [[pavilion]]s each way being absolutely in the level of the floor of the house.”<br />
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*[[Charles Drayton|Drayton, Charles]], November 2, 1806, describing [[The Woodlands]], seat of [[William Hamilton]], near Philadelphia, PA (1806: 57&ndash;58<ref>Charles Drayton, “The Diary of Charles Drayton I, 1806,” Drayton Papers, MS 0152, Drayton Hall, SC, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HAARCGXN view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“From the Cellar one enters under the bow window & into this Screen, which is about 6 or 7 feet square. Through these, we enter a narrow area, & ascend some few Steps [close to this side of the house,] into the garden&mdash;& thro the other opening we ascend a paved winding '''slope''', which spreads as it ascends, into the [[yard]]. This sloping passage being a segment of a circle, & its two outer [[wall]]s <u>concealed</u> by loose [[hedge]]s, & by the projection of the flat roofed Screen of masonry, keeps the [[yard]], & I believe the whole passage <u>out of sight</u> from the house&mdash;but certainly from the garden & [[park]] [[lawn]].”<br />
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*Martin, William Dickinson, 1808, describing the [[pleasure ground]]s at [[Salem Academy]], Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29)<ref name="Bynum, 1979">Flora Ann L. Bynum, ''Old Salem Garden Guide,'' (Winston-Salem, NC: Old Salem, 1979), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TJB9XNMF view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
:“Next, I visited a [[flower garden]] belonging to the female department. . . . it is situated on a hill, the East end of which is high & abrupt; some distance down this, they had dug down right in the earth, & drawing the dirt forward threw it on rock, etc., thereby forming a horizontal plane of about thirty feet in circumference; & on the back, rose a perpendicular terrace of some height, which was entirely covered over with a grass peculiar to that vicinage. At the bottom of this '''terrace''' were arranged circular [[seat]]s, which, from the height of the hill in the rear were protected from the sun in an early hour in the afternoon” <br />
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*[[Margaret Bayard Smith|Smith, Margaret Bayard]], August 1, 1809, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of [[Thomas Jefferson]], Charlottesville, VA (1906: 68)<ref name="Bayard 1906"> Margaret Bayard Smith, ''The First Forty Years of Washington Society'', ed. by Gaillard Hunt (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1906), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/FTDFHRFH view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“He [[Thomas Jefferson|[Thomas Jefferson]]] took us first to the garden he has commenced since his retirement. It is on the south side of the mountain and commands a most noble view. Little is as yet done. A '''terrace''' of 70 or 80 feet long and about 40 wide is already made and in cultivation. A broad grass [[walk]] leads along the outer edge; the inner part is laid off in beds for vegetables. This '''terrace''' is to be extended in length and another to be made below it. The [[view]] it commands, is at present its greatest beauty.” <br />
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*Gerry, Elbridge, Jr., July 1813, describing the [[White House]], Washington, DC (1927: 180–82)<ref>Elbridge Gerry Jr., ''The Diary of Elbridge Gerry, Jr.'' (New York: Brentano’s, 1927), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8P4QSRIF view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“A door opens at each end, one into the hall, and opposite, one into the '''terrace''', from whence you have an elegant [[view]] of all the rivers &c. . . . Lengthways of the house, and thro' the hall, is a walk, which extends on a '''terrace''' at each end for some way. . . .<br />
<p></p><br />
:“The grounds are surrounded by a high stone [[wall]], and on each side, at the distance of 1 or 300 yards is a large brick building, one for the Sec. of War and the other of the Navy. The '''terrace''' was to communicate to each building connecting the three.” <br />
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*Anonymous, 1816, describing in the ''Federal Gazette'' & ''Baltimore Daily Advertiser'' construction items for sale (quoted in Lounsbury 1994: 371)<ref>Carl R. Lounsbury, ed., ''An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UK5TCUQQ/ view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“[Zinc] can be made use of in cases where lead, tin or copper are employed; such as covering '''terraces'''.” <br />
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*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], March 16, 1817, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, VA (CWF) <br />
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:“I shall certainly want a very great quantity [of paint] in the course of the present year, as I have to renew the whole outer painting of this house and the '''terraces''', and to paint that in Bedford which has never been done.”<br />
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*Coolidge, Ellen Wayles Randolph, July 17, 1819, describing the effects of a hailstorm at Poplar Forest, property of [[Thomas Jefferson]], Bedford County, VA (quoted in Chambers 1993: 121)<ref> William Chambers, ''Poplar Forest and Thomas Jefferson'', (Forest, Va.: Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, 1993), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HEXFEBX9/q/Chambers| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“the planks of the '''terrace''' torn up in places by the violence of the winds.” <br />
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*Kremer, Eliza Vierling, 1824–29, describing the pleasure grounds at [[Salem Academy]], Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29)<ref name="Bynum, 1979"/><br />
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:“A large garden, some little distance from the Academy, was during the Summer Season, a place for recreation after school hours. . . . <br />
<p> </p><br />
:“The hill-side was laid off in '''terraces''' and winding [[walk]]s.” <br />
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*[[Margaret Bayard Smith|Smith, Margaret Bayard]], August 2, 1828, describing the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (1906: 225)<ref name="Bayard 1906"/> <br />
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:“on two other sides running from north to south are the [[Pavillion]]s, or Professor’s houses, at about 60 or 70 feet apart, connected by '''terraces''', beneath which are the dormitories, or lodging sleeping rooms of the students. The '''terrace''' projects about 8 feet beyond the rooms and is supported on brick [[arch]]es, forming beneath the arches a paved [[walk]], sheltered from the heat of summer and the storms of winter.” <br />
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*[[Frances Milton Trollope|Trollope, Frances Milton]], 1830, describing Alexandria, VA (1832: 2:93)<ref name="Trollope, 1832"> Frances Milton Trollope, ''Domestic Manners of the Americans'', 3rd ed., 2 vols. (London: Wittaker, Treacher, 1832), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5RXDF7G/ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“a few weeks’ residence in Alexandria restored my strength sufficiently to enable me to walk to a beautiful little grassy '''terrace''', perfectly out of the town, but very near it, from whence we could watch the various craft that peopled the Potomac between Alexandria and Washington.”<br />
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*[[Frances Milton Trollope|Trollope, Frances Milton]], 1830, describing [[Point Breeze]], estate of Joseph Bonaparte (Count de Survilliers), Bordentown, NJ (1832: 2:153)<ref name="Trollope, 1832"/> <br />
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:“The country is very flat, but a '''terrace''' of two sides has been raised, commanding a fine reach of the Delaware River; at the point where this '''terrace''' forms a right angle, a lofty chapel has been erected, which looks very much like an observatory.”<br />
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*[[Harriet Martineau|Martineau, Harriet]], 1834, describing [[Hyde Park]], seat of [[David Hosack]], on the Hudson River, NY (1838: 1:54)<ref name= "Martineau, 1838"> Harriet Martineau, ''Retrospect of Western Travel'', 2 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/H2BW5FRU view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The aspect of [[Hyde Park]] from the river had disappointed me, after all I had heard of it. It looks little more than a white house upon a ridge. I was therefore doubly delighted when I found what this ridge really was. It is a natural '''terrace''', overhanging one of the sweetest reaches of the river; and, though broad and straight at the top, not square and formal, like an artificial embankment, but undulating, sloping, and sweeping between the ridge and the river, and dropped with trees; the whole carpeted with turf, tempting grown people, who happen to have the spirits of children, to run up and down the '''slopes''', and play hide-and-seek in the hollows.” <br />
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*[[Harriet Martineau|Martineau, Harriet]], 1835, describing Cincinnati, OH (1838: 2:51)<ref name= "Martineau, 1838"/><br />
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:“The proprietor has a passion for gardening, and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to the city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in his grounds with his own hands. His garden is on a '''terrace''' which overlooks the [[canal]], and the most parklike eminences form the background of the [[view]]. Between the garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce of which he has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some of which are highly praised by good judges.” <br />
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*[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], November 1839, “Notices of Gardens and Horticulture, in Salem, Mass.,” describing Elfin Glen, residence of P. Dodge, Salem, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 5: 404)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Notices of Gardens and Horticulture, in Salem, Mass.,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 5, no. 11 (November 1839): 401–16, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/25HW5NZ9/q/notices%20of%20gardens%20and%20horticulture view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The cottage stands near the road, and is entered from the west front; on the south end is a [[piazza]]; the drawing-room opens into this, and thence into the garden to an open space, answering somewhat the purpose of a '''terrace''', neatly gravelled.” <br />
[[File:0536.jpg|thumb|Fig. 10, George Lehman, “Fairmount Waterworks. From the Forebay,” 1833.]]<br />
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*Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1840, describing the [[Fairmount Waterworks]], Philadelphia, PA (1840; repr., 1971: 313)<ref> Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''American Scenery, or Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature'', 2 vols. (1840; repr., Barre, MA: Imprint Society, 1971), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5CMW67U view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“Steps and '''terraces''' conduct to the reservoirs, and thence the [[view]] over the ornamented grounds of the country [[seat]]s opposite, and of a very [[picturesque]] and uneven country beyond, is exceedingly attractive. Below, the court of the principal building is laid out with gravel [[walk]]s, and ornamented with [[fountain]]s and flowering trees; and within the edifice there is a public drawing-room, of neat design and furniture; while in another wing are elegant refreshment-rooms&mdash;and, in short, all the appliances and means of a place of public amusement.” [Fig. 10] <br />
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[[File:0877.jpg|thumb|Fig. 11, Anonymous, Section of a terrace of the Messrs. Winship, 1840.]]<br />
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*<div id="Hovey"></div>[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], November 1840, “Some Notes on Gardens, and the state of Horticulture, in Worcester, Mass.,” describing the grounds of Messrs. Winship, Brighton, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 6: 402)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Some Notes on Gardens, and the state of Horticulture, in Worcester, Mass.,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 6, no. 11 (November 1840): 401–7, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/6RNGMU3F view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Hovey_cite|back up to History]] <br />
:“We recollect of reading, in the last volume of the ''Gardener’s Magazine'', some remarks on treating the ground on the margins of rail-roads, where there were embankments of any extent. These remarks we had marked for insertion in our pages, but had forgotten them until the present moment, when called to our mind as we passed the grounds of the Messrs. Winship, in Brighton. The road passes immediately through the nursery, dividing it in two parts; but these gentlemen have so arranged the sandy embankments with '''terraces''', planted with shrubs, &c., as to render them very ornamental. We only wish that other gentlemen who are able, would take the same pride in improving the embankments where they pass through their lands. <br />
<p></p><br />
:“The '''terraces''' of the Messrs. Winship are made in the following manner: the distance is from ten to fifteen feet. A [[wall]] is laid of about four feet; then a grass banking of some three to five more, at an angle of forty-five or fifty degrees; this is the first '''terrace''', and the surface, (about five feet wide,) is filled with fine flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants; another grass banking of from five feet more, at the same angle, is thrown up, and the surface prepared and planted out with shrubs and plants. When in the vigor of growth and flowering, these '''terraces''' have a fine effect, contrasted with the barren sand, which happens wherever there is a cut of ordinary depth. We have annexed the following engraving, representing the same.” [Fig. 11] <br />
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*Buckingham, James Silk, 1842, describing Red Sulphur Springs, VA (CWF) <br />
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:“Behind the ‘Bachelor’s Row,’ and on the upper part of the hill is an imposing edifice of brick, called ‘Society Hall.’ It is built of two stories, with a fine [[portico]] of twelve feet wide, running the whole length of the front, and a '''terrace''' of twenty feet wide beyond this.”<br />
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*[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], April 1842, “Notes made during a Visit to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c.,” describing the U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 8: 127)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Notes made during a Visit to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c.,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 8, no. 4 (April 1842): 121–29 , https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/IRC7B9MN/q/Notes%20made%20during%20a%20visit view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The main entrance to the west front is from Pennsylvania Avenue, where the grounds form a semi-circle, of which the [[avenue]] is the centre; a very broad [[walk]] leads from them, up the ascending surface, to the main steps, which descend from a broad semi-circular '''terrace''': two other entrances of this part of the grounds are placed at the angles or sides of this semi-circle, which also, by a straight [[walk]], lead up to the broad '''terrace'''. From this lower '''terrace''', a long flight of steps leads to the upper one, upon which the building of the Capitol is placed: on the turf between the [[walk]]s, are oval and circular [[bed]]s, planted with shrubs and roses, and filled with dahlias and other annual flowers.” <br />
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*Lyell, Sir. Charles, 1846, describing Natchez, MS (1849: 2:153)<ref>Sir Charles Lyell, ''A Second Visit to the United States of North America'', 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1849), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DU6NKKZ5 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“Many of the country-houses in the neighborhood are elegant, and some of the gardens belonging to them laid out in the [[English Style|English]], others in the [[French style]]. In the latter are seen '''terraces''', with statues and cut evergreens, straight [[walk]]s with [[border]]s of flowers, terminated by views into the wild forest, the charms of both being heightened by contrast. Some of the [[hedge]]s are made of that beautiful North American plant, the Gardenia, miscalled in England the Cape jessamine, others of the Cherokee rose, with its bright and shining leaves.” <br />
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*[[William Ranlett|Ranlett, William]], 1849, describing a proposed villa in Oswego, NY (1849; repr., 1976: 2:14)<ref> William A. Ranlett, ''The Architect,'' 2 vols. (1849–51; repr., New York: Da Capo, 1976), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QGQPCB5J/q/ranlett view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“The design given in this part of the Architect, number XXVI, is the plan of a Villa in the Anglo-Italian style, now in process of erection on the south side of Lake Ontario, in the city of Oswego. . . . On the north side which commands a full view of the lake, a balustrade gallery, or '''terrace''', extends the entire front.” [Fig. 12] <br />
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[[File:0778.jpg|thumb|Fig. 12, Frances Palmer, Italian Bracketed Villa at Oswego, New York, 1851.]] <br />
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*Justicia [pseud.], March 1849, “A Visit to Springbrook,” seat of Caleb Cope, near Philadelphia, PA (''Horticulturist'' 3: 413)<ref>Justicia [pseud.], “A Visit to Springbrook, the Seat of the President of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 3, no. 9 (March 1849): 411–14, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/AAEZMA9A/q/springbrook view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“The [[kitchen garden]] is separated from the [lawn]] and [[flower garden]] by the Cactus and Orchid-houses. It covers 1 1/2 acres, is well arranged in [[bed]]s and '''terraces''', with a large open cistern of water in its centre&mdash;all in excellent order. The quarters are interspersed with dwarf fruit trees, variously pruned and trained, and all in a young bearing state.” <br />
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*[[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1850, describing Kalorama (Kaleirama), estate of Joel Barlow, Washington, DC (1850: 331)<ref name= "Loudon, 1850"> J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening'', new ed., corr. and improved (London: Longman et al., 1850), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/W8EQFZUG view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“851. ''Kaleirama'' is about a mile from Washington, on high '''terrace''' ground, and is a very pretty place. . . . (''Dom. Man.'', &c., vol. ii. p. 330.)” <br />
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*[[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1850, describing the public gardens in Hoboken, NJ (1850: 332–33)<ref name= "Loudon, 1850"/><br />
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:“856. ''Public Gardens''. . . . <br />
<p></p><br />
:“''Hoboken'', on the North River, about three miles from New York, is a public [[walk]] of great beauty and attraction. . . . Through this beautiful little [[wood]], a broad well-gravelled '''terrace''' is led by every point which can exhibit the scenery to advantage; narrower and wilder paths diverge at intervals, some into the deeper shadow of the [[wood]]s, and some shelving gradually to the pretty coves below. . . . (''D. M., &c.'', vol. ii. p. 170)” <br />
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*[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], September 1851, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” describing Rose Hill, residence of George Leland, Waltham, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 17: 411)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 17, no. 9 (September 1851): 410–12, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/DR542Z2D/q/notes%20on%20gardens%20and%20nurseries view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“Descending the steps we reach the garden, which covers and extent of two or more acres in the form of a parallelogram, the end next Newton street. The '''slope''' is laid out in '''terraces''' on the right of the steps, and on the left is located the range of forcing houses, which is 104 feet long, comprising a centre and two wings, the former the [[greenhouse]], twenty-five feet, and the latter vineries, forty feet each.”<br />
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===Citations===<br />
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*La Quintinie, Jean de, 1693, “Dictionary,” ''The Compleat Gard'ner'' (1693; repr., 1982: n.p.)<ref> Jean de La Quintinie, ''The Compleat Gard'ner, or Directions for cultivating and right ordering of fruit-gardens and kitchen gardens'', trans. by John Evelyn (1693; repr., New York: Garland, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ET5N5PKH view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“A '''''Terrass''''', is an artificial bank or mount of Earth, commonly supported with a fronting or facing of stone, and raised like a kind of ''Bulwark'' for the ornament of a ''Garden''.” <br />
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<br />
*<div id="Argenville"></div>[[Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville | Dezallier d'Argenville, Antoine-Joseph]], 1712, ''The Theory and Practice of Gardening'' (1712; repr., 1969: 75, 116–18)<ref>A.-J. Dézallier d'Argenville, ''The Theory and Practice of Gardening'', trans. John James (1712; repr., Farnborough, England: Gregg International, 1969), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RNT8ZVZ8/q/The%20Theory%20and%20Practice%20of%20Gardening| view on Zotero]</ref> [[#Argenville_cite|back up to History]] <br />
<br />
:“'''TERRASSES''', when rightly situated, are likewise of great Ornament in Gardens, for their Regularity and Opening; especially when they are well built, and beautified with handsome Stairs, and fine Ascents. Sometimes there are made under them, Vaults, Grots, [[Cascade]]s, and Buffets of Water, with an Order of Architecture, and a great many [[Statue]]s in Niches; and, on the Coping above, are set Vases and Flower-pots, orderly ranged and disposed. . . . <br />
<br />
:“WHEN you meet with a Piece of Ground whose Shelving is very steep, as perhaps of the Hill ''A'', which you would make practicable for a Garden, it may be order’d three several Ways.<br />
<br />
:“''First'', By making '''Terrasses''' one above another, at several Heights, and supporting the Earth with sufficient [[Wall]]s of Masonry. <br />
<br />
:“''Secondly'', By making such '''Terrasses''', as will support themselves without a [[Wall]], by Means of Banks and '''Slopes''' cut at the Extremity of every '''Terrass'''. <br />
<br />
:“THE ''Third Way'' is, to make no '''Terrasses''' in strait Lines, nor long Flats between; but only to contrive Landing-Places, or Rests, at several Heights, and easy Ascents and Flights of Steps for Communication, with Foot-Paces, Counter-Terrasses, Volutes, Rolls, Banks, and '''Slopes''' of Grass, placed and disposed with Symmetry, which are called Amphitheatres. . . . <br />
<br />
:“OF these three Manners, that with the '''Slopes''' is the least Expence, and that of the Ampitheatre the most magnificent; so that '''Terrass'''-Walls may be reckon’d to hold a Medium between the other two. . . . <br />
<br />
:“THE Architect, or he that is to give the Design of a Garden, should carefully consider the '''Slope''' and Winding of the Hill, and raise and describe the Profil of it very correctly; that by making the best Advantage of the Situation, and distributing its '''Terrasses''' with Husbandry and Discretion, there may not be a great deal of Earth to remove, but that what is taken from Places that are too high, may serve to raise and make good those that are too low, which should be done with such Prudence and Circumspection, that you should neither be obliged to bring in Earth, nor have any to carry away, when your '''Terrasses''' are finished. . . . <br />
<br />
:“'''TERRASSES''' should not be made too frequent, nor too near one another, that is, you should always make as few of them as possible; and by means of Levels, or Flats, continued as long as the Ground will permit, endeavour to avoid the Defect of heaping '''Terrass''' upon '''Terrass''', it being very disagreeable in a Garden to be constantly going Up-hill, or Down-hill, without finding scarce any Resting-Place.<br />
<br />
:“WHAT we call the Level, or Flat, is the Space of Ground contained between the '''Slopes''' of two '''Terrasses''', that is to say, the Platform sustained by the [[Wall]]s or Banks of the '''Terrasses''', which, in Fortification, is call’d the ''Terra-plain''.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*<div id="Switzer"></div>Switzer, Stephen, 1718, ''Ichnographia Rustica'' (1718: 150–52)<ref>Stephen Switzer, ''Ichnographia Rustica, or The Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardener’s Recreation. . . .'', 1st ed., 3 vols. (London: D. Browne, 1718),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UWQEVT5X view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Switzer_cite|back up to History]] <br />
<br />
:“The '''Terrace''' seems to have been us’d a considerable Time since . . . But the nearest of our Derivations in ''English'', is from the ''French'', '''Terrace''', or '''Terrasse'''; and they from the ''Italians'', (from whom they, and almost all Europe, derive their Terms of Art relating to Building, Gardening, ''&c.'') ''Terraza'', ''Terrazare'', signifying with them the removing and banking up of Earth, from one Place into another. <br />
<br />
:“But be the Derivations as it will, it is very well known in these ''European'' Countries, and particularly with us, to be a small Bank of Earth, laid out and trimm’d according to Line and Level, being necessary for the proper Elevation of any Person that walks round his Garden, to view all that lyes round him. And this Elevation is so necessary, that all Gardens must be esteem’d very deficient, that have them not . . . that I dare pronounce a Seat of no Value without them; and, besides, where-ever the House is to be new built, there is no Possibility of disposing of the Earth, Clay, Rubbish, ''&c''. that necessarily comes out of Cellars and Foundation thereof, but this; which we must otherwise suppose (amidst a thousand needless Works) is to be carted away, to fill up some Hollow or other, which had been better left undone perhaps likewise. <br />
<br />
:“Of '''Terrace'''-Walks there are several Kinds, as they are particularly us’d.<br />
<br />
:“The 1st, is that great Terrace that lies next the House. <br />
<br />
:“The 2d, Side, or Middle '''Terrace''', that is commonly rais’d or cut out above the Level of the [[Parterre]], [[Lawn]], ''&c''. <br />
<br />
:“The 3d, Those that encompass a Garden; and<br />
<br />
:“The 4th, Many that lye under one another, as being cut out of a large high Hill; these are differing, in some Respect or other, from one another.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Batty Langley|Langley, Batty]], 1728, ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728; repr., 1982: vi–vii)<ref>Batty Langley, ''New Principles of Gardening, or The Laying Out and Planting Parterres, Groves, Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues, Parks, &c'' (London: A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, etc., 1728; repr., New York: Garland, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MRDTAEKC view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“When the Situation of Gardens such, that the making of '''''Slopes''''' and '''''Terraces''''' are necessary, or cannot be avoided, they not only leave them ''naked of Shade'' as aforesaid, but ''break their'' '''''Slopes''''' into so many Angles, that their ''native Beauty'' is thereby destroy’d. Thus if by waste Earth a ''Mount'' be ''raised ten or twelve Feet high'', you shall have its '''Slope''', that should be entire from top to bottom, broken into three, if not four small ''trifling ones'', and those mixt with [[Arch]]s of Circles, ''&c''. that still adds to their ill Effects: So that instead of having one ''grand'' '''''Slope''''' only with an easy Ascent, you have three or four small ones, that are ''poor and trifling''. <br />
<br />
:“And the only reason why they are made in this Stair or Step-like manner, is first to shew their Dexterity of Hand, without considering the ill Effect; and lastly to imitate those ''grand Amphitheatrical Buildings'', used by the ''Ancients'', of which they had no more Judgement, than of the excellent Proportions of Architecture that was used therein, when those noble Structures were first erected. . . . <br />
<br />
:“When very large Hills of great perpendicular Heights are to be cut into '''''Slopes''''' and '''''Terraces''''', then we may justly endeavour to imitate those grand Structures, (whereon their Gladiators exercis’d) by cutting them Concave, Convex, &c. as those looking towards ''Fair-Mile Heath'', in the Gardens of his ''Grace'' the DUKE of NEWCASTLE ''at his Grand Seat of Claremont''; but in small Elevations they are poor and trifling, and therefore not to be used.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Philip Miller|Miller, Philip]], 1754, ''The Gardeners Dictionary'' (1754; repr., 1969: 1367)<ref>Philip Miller, ''The Gardeners Dictionary'' (London: printed for the author, 1754; repr., New York: Verlag Von J. Cramer, 1969), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/356Q24EP view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“'''TERRACES''':A '''Terrace''' is a small Bank of Earth, rais’d and trimm’d according to Line and Level, for the proper Elevation of any Person that walks round a Garden, that he may have a better [[Prospect]] of all that lies around him; and these Elevations are so necessary, that those Gardens that have them not, are deficient. <br />
<br />
:“When '''Terraces''' are rightly situated, they are great Ornaments to such Gardens as have them, for their Regularity and Opening; especially when they are well built, and beautify’d with handsome Stairs, and fine Ascents. <br />
<br />
:“There are several Kinds of '''Terrace'''-walks: <br />
<br />
:“1. The great '''Terrace''', which lies next to the House. <br />
<br />
:“2. The side or middle '''Terrace''', which is commonly raised above the Level of the [[Parterre]], [[Lawn]], &c. <br />
<br />
:“3. Those '''Terraces''' which encompass a Garden. <br />
<br />
:“4. Those '''Terraces''' which lie under one another, being cut out of a large Hill; and these are different one from another, in some respect or other. <br />
<br />
:“As to the Breadth of side '''Terraces''', this is usually decided by its Correspondence with some [[Pavilion]], or some little Jettee or Building; but most of all by the Quantity of Stuff that is to spare for those Purposes. <br />
<br />
:“The side '''Terrace''' of a Garden ought not to be less than twenty Feet, and but very seldom wider than forty. <br />
<br />
:“As for the Height of a '''Terrace''', some allow it to be but five Feet high; but others more or less, according to their Fancies; but the more exact Persons never allow above five or six Feet; and in a small Garden, and a narrow '''Terrace''' [[walk]], three Feet; and sometimes three Feet and an half high are sufficient for a Terrace eighteen Feet wide; and four Feet are sufficient for a Terrace of twenty Feet wide; but when the Garden is proportionably large, and the '''Terrace''' is thirty or forty Feet wide, then it must be at least five or six Feet high. <br />
<br />
:“The noblest '''Terrace''' is very deficient without Shade; for which Elm-trees are very proper: for no [[Seat]] can be said to be complete, where there is not an immediate Shade almost as soon as out of the House; and therefore these shady Trees should be detach’d from the Body and Wings of the Edifice. <br />
<br />
:“'''Terraces''' should be planted rather with Elm or Lime-trees, than with Yew or Holly; which will not grow large enough to afford Shade.<br />
<br />
:“The Distance of the Elms across will be about twenty Feet; and they may be plac’d thirty Feet asunder in Lines.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*Salmon, William, 1762, ''Palladio Londinensis'' (1762: n.p.)<ref>William Salmon, ''Palladio Londinensis, or The London Art of Building: In Three Parts . . . with Fifty-Four Copper Plates, to Which Is Annexed, The Builder’s Dictionary'', ed. E. Hoppus, 6th ed. (London: printed for C. Hitch et al., 1762), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/IEIQ5QGM view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“''Tarrau'', or '''''Tarras''''', an open [[Walk]], or Gallery; also a flat Roof on a House; also a Kind of coarse Plaister, durable in the Weather.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*Marshall, Charles, 1799, ''An Introduction to the Knowledge and Practice of Gardening'' (1799: 1:124)<ref>Charles Marshall, ''An Introduction to the Knowledge and Practice of Gardening'', 1st American ed. from the 2nd London ed., 2 vols. (Boston: Samuel Etheridge, 1799), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GE2JPJR3/ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“A '''terrace''' as a boundary is now seldom formed, but in some situations, such as an eminence might in several respects, be agreeable.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Bernard M'Mahon|M'Mahon, Bernard]], 1806, ''The American Gardener’s Calendar'' (1806: 59, 64, 69)<ref>Bernard M’Mahon, ''The American Gardener’s Calendar: Adapted to the Climates and Seasons of the United States. Containing a Complete Account of All the Work Necessary to Be Done . . . for Every Month of the Year. . . .'' (Philadelphia: printed by B. Graves for the author, 1806), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HU4JIS9C view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“In other parts are sometimes discovered eminences, or rising grounds, as a high '''terrace''', mount, steep declivity, or other eminence, ornamented with curious trees and shrubs, with [[walk]]s leading under the shade of trees, by easy ascents to the summit, where is presented to the [[view]], an extensive prospect of the adjacent fields, buildings, hamlets, and country around, and likewise affording a fresh and cooling air in summer. . . .<br />
<br />
:“[[Fountain]]s and [[statue]]s, are generally introduced in the middle of spacious opens . . . sometimes in [[wood]]s, [[thicket]]s, and recesses, upon mounts, '''terraces''', and other stations, according to what they are intended to represent. . . .<br />
<br />
:“Regular '''terraces''' either on natural eminences or forced ground were often introduced by way of ornament, for the sake of [[prospect]], and of enjoying the fresh air in summer; they were of various dimensions with respect to height, from two, to ten, or twenty feet, according to the nature of the situation and purpose they were designed for; some being ranged singly, others double, treble, or several, one above another, on the side of some consideable rising ground in theatrical arrangement.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*[[John Abercrombie|Abercrombie, John]], with [[James Mean]], 1817, ''Abercrombie’s Practical Gardener'' (1817: 472)<ref>John Abercrombie, ''Abercrombie’s practical gardener or, Improved system of modern horticulture'', with additions by James Mean, (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1817), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TH54TADZ/q/Abercrombie's| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“If flights of stone-stairs and ballustrades are not the inseparable accompaniments, if the term '''terrace''' is merely to designate a raised walk, many situations may be imagined, in which a '''terrace''' would both conduce to the accommodation of the proprietor of the grounds, and, ''without dispute'', improve the [[view]].<br />
<br />
:“The [[view]] FROM the house, and TO the house, cannot always be consulted with mutual improvement. When a high '''terrace''' with ornaments which appear to mark the boundary of the architect’s province, is interposed between the house and the [[lawn]], the [[view]] immediately under the windows cannot certainly be so pleasant as if the house stood in a verdant field:&mdash;but let the [[prospect]] be reversed, and every stranger will see more grandeur in the house connected by a '''terrace''' with the garden; and perhaps among the spectators under the influence of cultivated taste, a few may think such a gradation conduces to general harmony.<br />
<br />
:“In a flat, or confined situation, a '''terrace''' with sloping grass banks may create a [[prospect]], or relieve the sameness of the scenery.” <br />
<br />
[[File:1339.jpg|thumb|Fig. 13, [[J.C. Loudon]], “Levelling for terrace-slopes,” 1826.]]<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[J.C. (John Claudius) Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1826, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening'' (1826: 377, 1020)<ref>J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening'', 4th ed. (London: Longman et al., 1826), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KNKTCA4W/order/creator/q/loudon/sort/desc view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“1933. ''Levelling for'' '''''terrace-slopes''''' . . . or for geometrical surfaces, however varied, is performed by the union of both modes, and requires no explanation to those who have acquired the rudiments of geometry, or understand what has been described. . . . [Fig. 13]<br />
<br />
:“7256. '''''Terrace''''' ''and [[conservatory]]''. We observed, when treating of ground, and under the [[ancient style]], that the design of the '''terrace''' must be jointly influenced by the magnitude and style of the house, the [[view]]s from its windows, (that is, from the eye of a person seated in the middle of the principal rooms,) and the [[view]]s of the house from a distance. In almost every case, more or less of architectural form will enter into these compositions. The level or levels will be supported partly by grassy '''slopes''', but chiefly by stone [[wall]]s, harmonising with the lines and forms of the house. These, in the Gothic style, may be furnished by battlements, [[gateway]]s, oriels, pinnacles, &c.; or, on a very great scale, watch-towers may form very [[picturesque]], characteristic, and useful additions. . . .<br />
<br />
:“7257. The '''breadth of''' '''''terraces''''', and their height relatively to the level of the floor of the living-rooms, must depend jointly on the height of the floor of the living-rooms and the surface of the grounds or country to be seen over them. Too broad or too high a '''terrace''' will both have the effect of foreshortening a [[lawn]] with a declining surface, or concealing a near valley. The safest mode in doubtful cases is, not to form this appendage till after the principal floor is laid, and then to determine the details of the '''terrace''' by trial and correction.<br />
<br />
:“7258. ''Narrow'' '''''terraces''''' are entirely occupied as [[promenade]]s, and may be either gravelled or paved: and different levels, when they exist, connected by inclined planes or flights of steps. Where the breadth is more than is requisite for [[walk]]s, the [[border]]s may be kept in turf with groups or marginal strips of flowers and low shrubs. In some cases, the '''terrace'''-walls may be so extended as to enclose ground sufficient for a level [[plot]] to be used as a [[bowling-green]] or a [[flower garden]]. These are generally connected with one of the living-rooms or the [[conservatory]], and to the latter is frequently joined an [[aviary]] and the entire range of botanic stoves. Or, the [[aviary]] may be made an elegant detached building, so placed as to group with the house and other surrounding objects.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*<div id="Loudon"></div>[[Jane Loudon|Loudon, Jane]], 1845, ''Gardening for Ladies'' (1845: 117)<ref> Jane Loudon, ''Gardening for Ladies; and Companion to the Flower-Garden'', ed. A. J. Downing (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1843), [//www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VJ3SM523/q/Gardening%20for%20Ladies| view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Loudon_cite|back up to History]]<br />
<br />
:“'''''Terrace'''''-''gardens'' are merely architectural-gardens, formed on platforms adjoining the house, on one or more levels, each level being supported by a '''terrace'''-wall; but as they are chiefly adapted for mansions and places of considerable extent, where of course a regular gardener must be kept, it does not appear necessary to enlarge on them here.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Louisa C. Tuthill|Tuthill, Louisa C.]], 1848, ''History of Architecture'' (1848; repr., 1988: 306)<ref> Louisa C. Tuthill, ''History of Architecture, from the Earliest Times; Its Present Condition in Europe and the United States; with a Biography of Eminent Architects, and a Glossary of Architectural Terms, by Mrs. L. C. Tuthill'' (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1848; repr., New York: Garland, 1988),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4ACTS7DK/ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The garden of the Elizabethan villa should be laid out with a few simple '''terraces''' near the house, so as to unite it well with the ground.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Noah Webster|Webster, Noah]], 1848, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'' (1848: 1139)<ref>Noah Webster, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language . . . Revised and Enlarged by Chauncey A. Goodrich. . . .'' (Springfield, MA: George and Charles Merriam, 1848), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/EBZ5Z7ET view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“'''TER'RACE''', n. [Fr. ''terrasse''; It. ''terrazzo''; Sp. ''terrado''; from L. ''terra'', the earth.],<br />
<br />
:“1. A raised level space or platform of earth, supported on one or more sides by a [[wall]] or bank of turf, &c., used either for cultivation or for a [[promenade]].<br />
<br />
:“2. A balcony or open gallery. ''Johnson''.<br />
<br />
:“3. The flat roof of a house.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*<div id="Downing"></div>[[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], 1849, ''Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849: 344, 346, 376, 418–20, 423, 531)<ref>A. J. Downing, ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1849), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/5M4S2D64| view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Downing_cite|back up to History]]<br />
<br />
:“Where it is desirable to separate the house from the level grass of the [[lawn]], let it be done by an architectural '''terrace''' of stone. . . .<br />
<br />
:“In a succeeding section we shall refer to '''terraces''' with their parapets, which are by far the most elegant barriers for a highly decorated [[flower garden]], or for the purpose of maintaining a proper connexion between the house and the grounds. . . .<br />
<br />
:“the long [[veranda]] round many of our country residences stands instead of the paved '''terraces''' of the English mansions as the place for [[promenade]]. . . . <br />
<br />
:“In our finest places, or those country [[seat]]s where much of the polish of [[pleasure ground]] or [[park]] scenery is kept up, one of the most striking defects is the want of '' ‘union between the house and the grounds.’ '' . . . .<br />
<br />
:“Let us suppose . . . The house now rising directly out of the green turf which encompasses it, we will surround by a raised platform or '''terrace''', wide enough for a dry, firm [[walk]], at all seasons; on the top of the [[wall]] or [[border]] of this '''terrace''', we will form a handsome ''parapet'', or balustrade, some two or three feet high, the details of which shall be in good keeping with the house. . . . On the coping of this parapet . . .we will find suitable places, at proper intervals, for some handsome urns, vases, etc. On the drawing-room side of the house . . . we will place the [[flower-garden]], into which we descend from the '''terrace''' by a few steps. . . . <br />
<br />
:“The eye now, instead of witnessing the sudden termination of the architecture at the base of the house, where the [[lawn]] commences as suddenly, will be at once struck with the increased variety and richness imparted to the whole scene, by the addition of the architectural and garden decorations. . . . <br />
<br />
:“Where there is a '''terrace''' ornamented with urns or vases, and the proprietor wishes to give a corresponding air of elegance to his grounds, vases, sundials, etc., may be placed in various appropriate situations. . . .<br />
<br />
:“The only situation where this brilliant [white] gravel seems to us perfectly in keeping, is in the highly artificial garden of the [[ancient style|ancient]] or [[geometric style]], or in the symmetrical '''terrace''' [[flower garden]] adjoining the house. In these instances its striking appearance is in excellent keeping with the expression of all the surrounding objects, and it renders more forcible and striking the highly artificial and artistical character of the scene; and to such situations we would gladly see its use limited.”<br />
<br />
==Images==<br />
=== Inscribed ===<br />
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7"><br />
<gallery><br />
<br />
File:1042.jpg|Michael van der Gucht, Illustration for chapter entitled: “Of different Terrasses and Stairs, with their most exact Proportions,” in A.-J. Dézallier d’Argenville, ''The Theory and Practice of Gardening'' (1712), pl. opp. p. 117.<br />
<br />
File:1053.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of a ''rural Garden'',̹ after the new manner,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. III, opp. p. 208. “Terrace” is inscribed as S.S., and is located near the bottom of the plan. <br />
<br />
File:1382.jpg|Batty Langley, “An Improvement of a beautiful Garden at Twickenham,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. IX. “Terrace walk” is inscribed between the “kitchen garden” and “fruit garden.”<br />
<br />
File:1384.jpg|Batty Langley, One of two “Designs for Gardens that lye irregularly to the ground House . . .House opening to the North upon a plain Parterre of Grass,” in New Principles of Gardening (1728), pl. XI. “Terrace” is located at E and forms the walk P Q. <br />
<br />
File:0072.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Monticello: orchard and vineyard (plat), c. 1778. “Foot of terras” is inscribed above the wall. <br />
<br />
File:1749.jpg|William Bartram, “Plan of the Ancient Chunky-Yard,” in “Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians” (1789), from ''Transactions of the American Ethnological Society'', vol. 3, part 1 (1853), p. 52, fig. 2. Platform mounds are located at B and C.<br />
<br />
File:0331.jpg|George Washington, ''Drawing and Notes for a Ha-Ha Wall at Mount Vernon, October 1798'', 1798.<br />
<br />
Image:0090a.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Letter describing plans for a “Garden Olitory,” c. 1804.<br />
<br />
File:0720.jpg|Charles Bulfinch, “Joseph Barrell House remodeled as McLean Hospital,” 1817.<br />
<br />
File:1339.jpg|J. C. Loudon, “Levelling for terrace-slopes,” in ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening'' (1826), p. 377, fig. 369.<br />
<br />
File:1433.jpg|James H. Dakin, “La Grange Terrace, La Fayette Place, City of New York,” 1831&ndash;34. <br />
<br />
File:1247.jpg|[[Alexander Jackson Davis]], '“Villa for David Codwise, near New Rochelle, NY (project; elevation and four plans),” 1835.<br />
<br />
File:1147.jpg|William Strickland, Plan of the walks and avenues of Laurel Hill cemetery, c. 1836. <br />
<br />
File:0877.jpg|Anonymous, Section of a terrace of the Messrs. Winship, in ''Magazine of Horticulture'' 6, no. 11 (November 1840): 403, fig. 10.<br />
<br />
File:1048.jpg|Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sketch of the Grounds of the Longfellow Estate, 1844.<br />
<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=== Associated ===<br />
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7"><br />
<gallery><br />
<br />
Image:0187.jpg|Anonymous, Mount Clare, n.d.<br />
<br />
Image:1378.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of an Avenue with its Wildernesses on each Side,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. V.<br />
<br />
Image:0074.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Plan showing the rectangular flower beds and proposed temples at the corners of the terrace walks at Monticello, before August 4, 1772. <br />
<br />
Image:0755.jpg|George Beck, ''View of Baltimore from Howard Park'', c. 1796.<br />
<br />
Image:0873.jpg|John Rubens Smith, ''Washington, looking up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Terrace of the Capitol'', 1809–34.<br />
<br />
Image:0992.jpg|Charles B. Lawrence (attr.), ''Point Breeze, the Estate of Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte at Bordentown, New Jersey'', 1817–20.<br />
<br />
Image:2006.jpg|Joseph Drayton, ''View near Bordenton, from the Gardens of the Count de Survilliers'', c. 1820.<br />
<br />
Image:1018.jpg|Thomas Birch, Point Breeze, c. 1820, in Edward J. Nygren, ''Views and Visions: American Landscape before 1830'' (1986), p. 146, pl. 120.<br />
<br />
Image:0251.jpg|Charles Codman, ''Kalorama'', 1821.<br />
<br />
Image:0300.jpg|Thomas Birch, ''Fairmount Water Works'', 1821.<br />
<br />
Image:1994.jpg|Thomas Doughty, ''View of the Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia, from the Opposite Side of the Schuylkill River'', c. 1824–26.<br />
<br />
Image:2014.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, “Front View of Mount Airy, Virginia,” 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520A.<br />
<br />
Image:1216.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, Mount Airy, Virginia; northeast front, 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520A.<br />
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Image:0537.jpg|Tucker Factory, Pair of vases with views of the Fairmount Waterworks, c. 1830.<br />
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Image:0536.jpg|George Lehman, “Fairmount Waterworks. From the Forebay,” 1833.<br />
<br />
Image:1458.jpg|Henry Cheever Pratt, ''The House of Gardiner Greene'', c. 1834.<br />
<br />
Image:0542.jpg|Nicolino Calyo, ''The Philadelphia Water Works'', 1835–36.<br />
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Image:0540.jpg|John Caspar Wild,“Fairmount Waterworks,” 1838.<br />
<br />
File:1120.jpg|W. H. Bartlett, “Fairmount Gardens, with the Schuylkill Bridge. (Philadelphia),” in [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]], ''American Scenery'', vol. II (1840), pl. 24. <br />
<br />
File:1121.jpg|W. H. Bartlett, “Schuylkill Water-Works. (Philadelphia),” in [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]], ''American Scenery'', vol. II (1840), pl. 37.<br />
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File:1103.jpg|W. Mason, engraver Tucker, W. E., “Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane,” c. 1841, in [[Thomas S. Kirkbride]], ''Reports of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane'' (1851), frontispiece.<br />
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File:0550.jpg|Victor de Grailly, ''The Tomb at Mount Vernon'', c. 1840&ndash;50.<br />
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File:0549.jpg|Victor de Grailly, ''Mount Vernon'', c. 1840&ndash;50.<br />
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File:1866.jpg|Alexander Jackson Davis, “A Villa in the Italian Style,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), p. 386, fig. 45.<br />
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File:0766.jpg|Anonymous, “The Battery, New York, By Moonlight,” in ''Illustrated London News'' (October 27, 1849): 277.<br />
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Image:0459.jpg|Jenny Emily Snow, ''Fairmount Park Waterworks'', c. 1850.<br />
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File:0778.jpg|Frances Palmer, “Italian Bracketed Villa,” in [[William H. Ranlett]], ''The Architect'' (1851), vol. 2, pl. 7.<br />
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Image:0786.jpg|Frances Palmer, “Italian Villa,” in [[William H. Ranlett]], ''The Architect'' (1851), vol. 2, pl. 22, design XXXIII.<br />
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File:0632.jpg|Anonymous, View of the terraces at Middleton Place, in Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State'' (1934), vol. 2, p. 196.<br />
<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=== Attributed ===<br />
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7"><br />
<gallery><br />
<br />
File:1388.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of a Garden and Wilderness in an Island,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XV.<br />
<br />
Image:0056.jpg|John or William Bartram, ''A Draught of John Bartram’s House and Garden as it appears from the River'', 1758.<br />
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File:0881.jpg|Anonymous, “Plan de la ville et environs de Williamsburg en Virginie, America,” 1782.<br />
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File:0207.jpg|Francis Guy, ''Mt. Deposit'', 1803-05.<br />
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File:0124.jpg|Jane Shearer, Brick House with Terraces, 1806, in Sotheby’s New York, ''Important American Schoolgirl Embroideries: The Landmark Collection of Betty Ring'' (January 2012), p. 80. <br />
<br />
File:1152.jpg|Anonymous, ''The Lilacs'', Residence of Thomas Kidder [perspective rendering, front], c. 1810. <br />
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File:1153.jpg|J. G. Hales, Plan of Mansion House, Garden &c. in Portsmouth, Belonging to James Rundlet Esqr., 1812.<br />
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File:0102.jpg|Joseph Jacques Ramée, Plan of the Campus Grounds, Union College, 1813.<br />
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File:1464.jpg|Joseph Jacques Ramée, Plan of Union College, 1813.<br />
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File:0694.jpg|Thomas Ender, Main Alley Leading to the Fountain of the Alligators and the Terrace, 1817.<br />
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File:0169.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Bird’s-eye view of the University of Virginia, c. 1820.<br />
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File:2119.jpg|Robert Campbell, after Thomas Birch, ''View of the Dam and Water Works at Fairmount, Philadelphia'', 1824.<br />
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File:0514.jpg|Catherine Mary Wheeler, Sampler, 1825.<br />
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File:0505.jpg|Anonymous (artist), Benjamin Tanner (engraver), ''University of Virginia'', 1826.<br />
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Image:2013.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, “Back View of Mount Airy, Va.” 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520B.<br />
<br />
File:1217.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, Mount Airy, Virginia; southwest front as viewed from the bowling green, 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520B.<br />
<br />
File:1281.jpg|John Rubens Smith, West Front of the Capitol, c. 1828.<br />
<br />
File:1279.jpg|John Rubens Smith, West front of the United States Capitol with cows in the foreground, c. 1831. <br />
<br />
File:1432.jpg|Milo Osborne, “Deaf and Dumb Asylum,” in Theodore S. Fay, ''Views in New-York and its Environs'' (1831).<br />
<br />
File:1477.jpg|Anonymous, Honorary membership certificate for Nicholas Biddle in “The Horticultural Association of the Valley of the Hudson” [detail], June 1839.<br />
<br />
Image:0896.jpg|Edwin Whitefield, Sketch of Anson G. Phelps' Villa, North Tarrytown, 1841-44.<br />
<br />
File:0706.jpg|Anonymous, “Pegg’s Run,” in John Fanning Watson, ''Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time'' (1844), p. 436. <br />
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File:0823.jpg|Joshua Barney, Map of the Hampton Estate, 1843.<br />
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File:1437.jpg|C. Bachman(n), ''New York'', 1848.<br />
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File:1686.jpg|James Smillie, “Italian Garden and Lake at Wellesley near Boston,” 1859, in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), pl. opp. p. 452.<br />
<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
==Notes==<br />
<br />
<references></references><br />
<br />
[[Category: Keywords]]<br />
[[Category: Circulation]]<br />
[[Category: Topographic Features]]<br />
[[Category: Transition Between House and Garden]]</div>V-ikeshoji-orlatihttps://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=Terrace/Slope&diff=35688Terrace/Slope2018-11-08T22:40:52Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: fixed 'view text' link in history section for Switzer, added 'back up to History' button to Switzer citation</p>
<hr />
<div>==History==<br />
<br />
[[File:0766.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Anonymous, ''The Battery New York, By Moonlight'', 1849.]]<br />
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[[File:1048.jpg|thumb|Fig. 2, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sketch of the Grounds of the Vassall-Carigie-Longfellow House, 1844. A “turf terrace” is noted to the left of the main house.]]<br />
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The term terrace, used to describe both natural and artificial landscape features, denoted a level area or platform, often slightly raised and of varying dimensions and materials. Although Stephen Switzer (1718) made subtle distinctions between kinds of terraces (terrace walks, great terraces, middle terraces, etc.), those distinctions were not generally followed in American usage. In practice, however, a variety of terrace types were incorporated into landscape designs throughout 18th- and 19th-century America. These included long narrow terraces that formed raised [[walk]]s, platforms of earthen and architectural materials adjacent to buildings, and earthen terraces between slopes in [[falling garden]]s.<br />
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[[File:0896.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 3, Edwin Whitefield, Sketch of Anson G. Phelps’ Villa, North Tarrytown, New York, 1851.]]<br />
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[[File:1686.jpg|thumb|Fig. 4, James Smillie after a sketch by A. O. Moore, “Italian Garden and Lake at Wellesley near Boston,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), pl. opp. p. 452.]]<br />
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Native American platform mounds, such as the one described as a terrace by <span id="Bartram_cite"></span>[[William Bartram]] in 1791, served as stages for the religious and ruling elite of the southeast before European contact ([[#Bartram|view text]]). Visible for miles, these mounds are remarkable not only as architectural monuments but also as testimonies to the leadership that mobilized a massive labor force needed to move such a vast quantity of earth.<br />
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In Anglo-American gardens, long, narrow terraces provided raised [[walk]]s that offered excellent viewing platforms, formed circulation routes through the landscape, and made ideal venues for social promenade, as depicted at the [[Battery Park]] in New York by the ''Illustrated London News'' in 1849 [Fig. 1]. In 1718,<span id="Switzer_cite"></span> Switzer declared that gardens without these elevated [[walk]]s “must be esteem’d very deficient.”([[#Switzer|view text]]) Waterside terraces were particularly common in America, because they were created with the fill dredged from rivers and [[canal]]s. Such terraces were built in residential settings, such as the gardens at Maycox Plantation in Virginia, which were described c. 1780–82 by Fran&ccedil;ois Jean Chastellux and at the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House in Cambridge [Fig. 2]. In public areas, terraces were found at the [[Battery Park]], described in 1793 by [[John Drayton]], and at the waterfront of Alexandria, Virginia, visited in 1830 by [[Frances Milton Trollope]]. <br />
<br />
Terraces were also built adjacent to buildings, and were often created from the earth excavated from cellar construction. The term “terrace” referred to raised earthen platforms and to flat roofed structures, both of which were used as balconies, [[promenade]]s, and viewing platforms. These terraces (paved, turfed, graveled, or covered in metal compounds, as advertised in the ''Federal Gazette'' in 1816) were occasionally also ornamented with [[statue|statuary]], vases, urns, and plantings such as flower beds or, more rarely, topiary. Charles Lyell recorded his observations of a highly ornamented terrace in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1846. A paved or turfed terrace extending from the house and often bounded by a balustrade was particularly popular in Italianate architecture of the 1830s and 1840s and was promoted by [[William H. Ranlett]] (1849) and [[Andrew Jackson Downing]] (1849). These terraces required substantial investment to construct and, when planted intensively, to maintain [Figs. 3 and 4]. As <span id="Loudon_cite"></span>[[Jane Loudon]] observed in 1845, “[T]hey are chiefly adapted for mansions and places of considerable extent.” ([[#Loudon|view text]]) <span id="Downing_cite"></span> [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]] suggested that the function of the English paved terrace was often accommodated in America by the [[veranda]] ([[#Downing|view text]]).<br />
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[[File:2006.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 5, Joseph Drayton, ''View near Bordenton, from the Gardens of the Count de Survilliers'', c. 1820.]]<br />
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[[File:1477.jpg|thumb|Fig. 6, Anonymous, Honorary membership certificate for Nicholas Biddle in “The Horticultural Association of the Valley of the Hudson” [detail], June 1839.]]<br />
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Broad terraces located adjacent to a building provided a transition between the built architecture and the grounds, as [[Batty Langley]], [[Bernard M'Mahon]], [[John Abercrombie]], and [[A. J. Downing]] all noted. The terrace also provided a vantage point from which to admire [[view]]s and [[vista]]s. Both [[John Abercrombie|Abercrombie]] (1817) and [[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|J. C. Loudon's]] (1850) discussions of terraces emphasize the importance of selecting sight lines and of building proportionally in order to create an appropriate visual setting for a house, as well as to establish a viewing platform for looking outward. For example, the terrace at [[Point Breeze]], which was described by [[Frances Milton Trollope|Trollope]] and depicted in an anonymous engraving after [[Thomas Birch]] [Fig. 5], was placed to take advantage of striking [[vista]]s. Similarly, flat roofs of buildings (such as those at [[Monticello]]; the Waterworks at [[Fairmount Park]] in Philadelphia; and the [[White House]] in Washington, DC) served as elevated terrace walkways with views of distant scenery. A certificate for the Horticultural Association of the Hudson [Fig. 6] depicts an idealized garden (possibly based on [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing’s]] [[Highland Place]]) that includes a terrace, seen at right, framing an extended view of the Newburgh Basin.<ref>For a discussion of this image, see Walter L. Creese, ''The Crowning of the American Landscape: Eight Great Spaces and Their Buildings'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 75–78, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/FX78IBSV/q/Creese| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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[[File:0720.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 7, Charles Bulfinch, Ground plan of the two wings added to the Pleasant Hill, 1818. The “upper terrace” and “lower terrace” link all the buildings.]]<br />
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[[File:1042.jpg|thumb|Fig. 8, Michael van der Gucht, Illustration for chapter entitled: “Of different Terrasses and Stairs, with their most exact Proportions,” 1712.]]<br />
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Terraces of varying widths were also employed in sites with a steep grade in order to make for arable and easily navigated level areas, to control erosion, and to create the visual effects made possible by a series of slopes and flats (see [[Fall]]). These terraces were supported by earthen slopes or masonry [[wall]]s, supports which were referred to variously as banks, slopes, and terrace walls. They were also sometimes simply called by the more general term, “terrace,” as in William Dickinson Martin’s 1808 description of a “perpendicular terrace” at Salem, North Carolina. Designs for public institutions, such as Charles Bulfinch’s 1818 design for two wings to be added to the seat of Joseph Barrell in order to create the McLean Asylum [Fig. 7], used terraces to frame views of the buildings’ fa&ccedil;des while accommodating the slope of the land. The terraces of a [[falling garden]] were generally separated by turfed slopes or, less commonly, masonry [[wall]]s. As <span id="Argenville_cite"></span> [[Anotine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville]] (1712) noted, gardens were less susceptible to erosion if their terraces were created by cutting into an existing hillside rather than constructed out of fill ([[#Argenville|view text]]) [Fig. 8].The planting schemes of [[falling garden]] terraces varied from simple turf to kitchen and flower beds, although images of terraces rarely showed plantings in detail. Among the few surviving examples is [[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson’s]] diagram (c. 1804) for a garden olitory, in which he specified a hedge at the “foot of the terras” designed to accommodate differing heights of the [[lawn]] and [[kitchen garden]]. In 1840, <span id="Hovey_cite"></span>[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|C. M. Hovey]] referred to the efforts of the Messrs. Winship of Brighton, Massachusetts, to transform the embankment of a railroad right-of-way on [[C. M. (Charles Mason)Hovey|Hovey’s]] land into an attractive terraced garden ([[#Hovey|view text]]). While the use of terraces and slopes to create [[falling garden]]s seems to have declined in popularity after the early 19th century, its use continued through mid-century in large formal landscapes of public gardens, such as the University of Virginia, and anywhere uneven or steep topography offered a challenge. <br />
<br />
—''Elizabeth Kryder-Reid''<br />
<br />
==Texts==<br />
<br />
===Usage===<br />
<br />
*[[William Byrd II|Byrd, William II]], September 18, 1732, describing the estate of Gov. Alexander Spotswood, near Germanna, VA (1910; repr., 1970: 357–58)<ref>William Byrd, ''The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of Westover in Virginia, Esqr.'', ed. John Spencer Bassett (1910; repr., New York: B. Franklin, 1970), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3VVVZ9XQ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“After Breakfast the Colo. and I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs, and took a turn in the Garden, which has nothing beautiful but 3 '''Terrace''' Walks that fall in '''Slopes''' one below another.” <br />
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*Grigg, William, October 4, 1736, describing the residence of Thomas Hancock on Beacon Hill, Boston, MA (quoted in Lockwood 1931: 1:32)<ref> Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State: Gardens and Gardeners of the American Colonies and of the Republic before 1840'', 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s for the Garden Club of America, 1931),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T/q/lockwood| view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“I the Subscriber oblidge myself for Consideration of forty pounds to be well & truly paid me by Thos. Hancock Doe undertake to layout the upper garden [[alley|allys]]. Trim the Beds & fill up all the [[alley|allies]] with such Stuff as Sd Hancock shall order and Gravel the [[walk|Walks]] & prepare and Sodd ye '''Terras''' adjoining with the '''Slope''' on the side next to Mr. Yoemans land, Likewise I oblidge myself to layout the next garden or flatt from the '''Terras''' below and carry on the mold thereto belonging and fill up all the [[walk]]s with Gravel & finish all off Compleat workman like this fall to the satisfaction of said Hancock.” <br />
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*Hamilton, Alexander, June 17, 1744, describing New York, NY (1948: 46)<ref>Alexander Hamilton, ''Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744'', ed. Carl Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/EWWJNEUN view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“The Leutenant Governor had here a house and a chapell, and there are fine gardens and '''terrass''' walks from which one has a very pritty [[view]] of the city.” <br />
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<br />
[[File:0074.jpg|thumb|Fig. 9, [[Thomas Jefferson]], Plan showing the rectangular flower beds and proposed temples at the corners of the terrace walks at Monticello, before August 4, 1772.]] <br />
*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], 1771, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, VA (1944: 26)<ref>Thomas Jefferson, ''The Garden Book'', ed. Edwin M. Betts (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8ZA5VRP5 view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“a few feet below the spring level the ground 40 or 50 f. sq. let the water fall from the spring in the upper level over a '''terrace''' in the form of a [[cascade]]. then conduct it along the foot of the '''terrace''' to the Western side of the level, where it may fall into a cistern under a [[temple]], from which it may go off by the western [[border]] till it falls over another '''terrace''' at the Northern or lower side. let the [[temple]] be raised 2. f. for the first floor of stone. under this is the cistern, which may be a bath or anything else. the 1st story [[arch]]es on three sides; the back or western side being close because the hill there comes down, and also to carry up stairs on the outside. the 2d story to have a door on one side, a spacious window in each of the other sides, the rooms each 8. f. cube; with a small table and a couple of chairs. the roof may be Chinese, Grecian, or in the taste of the Lantern of Demosthenes at Athens.” [Fig. 9]<br />
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*Fithian, Philip Vickers, March 18, 1774, describing [[Nomini Hall]], Westmoreland County, VA (1943: 108)<ref>Philip Vickers Fithian, ''Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion'', ed. Hunter D. Farish (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg, 1943), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/XJX4WV8F view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“From the front yard of the Great House, to the Wash-House is a curious '''''Terrace''''', covered finely with Green turf, & about five foot high with a '''slope''' of eight feet, which appears exceeding well to persons coming to the front of the House&mdash;<br />
<p> </p><br />
:“This '''''Terrace''''' is produced along the Front of the House, and ends by the Kitchen; but before the Front-Doors is a broad flight of steps of the same Height, & slope of the '''''Terrace'''''.” <br />
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*Chastellux, Fran&ccedil;ois Jean Marquis de, 1780–82, describing Maycox Plantation, estate of David Meade, Prince George County, VA (1787: 2:166–67)<ref> Fran&ccedil;ois Jean Chastellux, Marquis de Chastellux, ''Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782,'' 2 vols. (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UXHRGXKX/q/Fran%C3%A7ois%20Jean| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“Mr. Mead’s house is by no means so handsome as that of [[Westover]]. . . . Mr. Mead’s garden, like that of Westover, is in the nature of a '''terrace''' on the bank of the river.”<br />
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*[[William Hamilton|Hamilton, William]], 1789 and 1790, in a letter to his secretary, Benjamin Hays Smith, describing [[The Woodlands]], seat of William Hamilton, near Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Madsen 1988: A6, A7)<ref>Karen Madsen, “William Hamilton’s Woodlands,” (paper presented for seminar in American Landscape, 1790–1900, instructed by E. McPeck, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 1988), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items#items/itemKey/XN8NN9QN/q/madsen?&_suid=1340895272014046677169243049543 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“[September 27, 1789] . . . The first moment after Hilton has finished weeding in the Garden as I directed he should set about weeding the '''terrace''' walk as I will endeavour to have it gravelld during the winter. . .<br />
<p> </p> <br />
:“[October 12, 1789] . . . When the '''terrace''' is weeded, the two [[Border]]s leading from the House to the [[Ice House]] Hill should be cleaned. . . <br />
<p> </p><br />
:“[June 12, 1790] . . . The newly planted trees & shrubs along the '''terrace''' respecting which you know me to be so anxious, may be alive or dead for ought I know.” <br />
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<br />
*<div id="Bartram"></div>[[William Bartram|Bartram, William]], 1791, describing the area north of Wrightsborough, GA (1928: 56–57)<ref> William Bartram, ''Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida'', ed. Mark Van Doren (New York: Dover, 1928), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/88NA3B2P view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Bartram_cite|back up to History]]<br />
<br />
:“many very magnificent monuments of the power and industry of the ancient inhabitants of these lands are visible. I observed a stupendous conical pyramid, or artificial mount of earth, vast tetragon '''terraces''', and a large sunken area, of a cubical form, encompassed with banks of earth; and certain traces of a larger Indian town, the work of a powerful nation, whose period of grandeur perhaps long preceded the discovery of this continent. . . . <br />
<p> </p><br />
:“old Indian settlements, now deserted and overgrown with forests. These are always on or near the banks of rivers, or great swamps, the artificial mounts and terraces elevating them above the surrounding [[grove]]s.”<br />
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<br />
*Smith, William Loughton, 1791, describing [[Gunston Hall]], seat of George Mason, Mason Neck, VA (1917: 64)<ref> William Loughton Smith, ''Journal of William Loughton Smith, 1790–1791'' ed. Albert Matthews, (Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1917), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ITHQH4P5/q/Loughton| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“The house is rather an ancient brick building, with a neat garden, at the end of which is a high natural '''terrace''' which commands the Potomac.” <br />
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<br />
*[[John Drayton|Drayton, John]], 1793, describing the [[Battery Park]], New York, NY (quoted in De&aacute;k, 1988: 1:130)<ref> Gloria Gilda De&aacute;k, ''Picturing America, 1497–1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory That Is Now the United States'', 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4A6QNFNX| view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“The flag staff rises from the midst of a stone tower, and is decorated on the top with a golden ball: and the back part of the ground is laid out in smaller [[walks]], '''terraces''', and a [[bowling green]].&mdash; Immediately behind this, and overlooking it, is the government house; built at the expence of the state.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*Twining, Thomas, May 1, 1795, describing Georgetown, VA (1894: 110)<ref>Thomas Twining, ''Travels in America 100 Years Ago'' (New York: Harper, 1894), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/CKJBU8CP/| view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“As we stood one evening on the bank of the river before his door, he said, ‘Here I will make a terrace, and we will sit and smoke our hookahs.’”<br />
<br />
<br />
[[File:0090a.jpg|thumb|Fig. 10, [[Thomas Jefferson]], “Terras” in a letter describing plans for a “Garden Olitory” at [[Monticello]] c. 1804. ]]<br />
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*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], c. 1804, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, VA (Massachusetts Historical Society, Coolidge Collection) <br />
<br />
:“Garden Olitory. Make the upper '''slope''' [diagram] at a plant a [[hedge]] of hedgethorn & at ''b'' one of privet or Gleditria, or cedar to be trimmed down to 3 ft. high, the whole appearance thus taking a [[border]] of 8 ft. at the foot of the '''terras''' for forward production, the main beds must be reduced from 50 f. to 42 f.” [Fig. 9] <br />
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<br />
*[[Benjamin Henry Latrobe|Latrobe, Benjamin Henry]], May 11, 1805, describing the [[White House]], Washington, DC (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; hereafter CWF) <br />
<br />
:“The obstructions to the colonnade from the stables, may be prevented by giving them a North door, as horses will easily ascend or descend the '''terras''' on the North side. But the most difficult of all is the adjustment of the new connecting building to the different levels of the three existing buildings. Nothing can be admitted short of the '''terras''' of the offices from the [[White House|Pres’s House]] to the [[pavilion]]s each way being absolutely in the level of the floor of the house.”<br />
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*[[Charles Drayton|Drayton, Charles]], November 2, 1806, describing [[The Woodlands]], seat of [[William Hamilton]], near Philadelphia, PA (1806: 57&ndash;58<ref>Charles Drayton, “The Diary of Charles Drayton I, 1806,” Drayton Papers, MS 0152, Drayton Hall, SC, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HAARCGXN view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“From the Cellar one enters under the bow window & into this Screen, which is about 6 or 7 feet square. Through these, we enter a narrow area, & ascend some few Steps [close to this side of the house,] into the garden&mdash;& thro the other opening we ascend a paved winding '''slope''', which spreads as it ascends, into the [[yard]]. This sloping passage being a segment of a circle, & its two outer [[wall]]s <u>concealed</u> by loose [[hedge]]s, & by the projection of the flat roofed Screen of masonry, keeps the [[yard]], & I believe the whole passage <u>out of sight</u> from the house&mdash;but certainly from the garden & [[park]] [[lawn]].”<br />
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*Martin, William Dickinson, 1808, describing the [[pleasure ground]]s at [[Salem Academy]], Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29)<ref name="Bynum, 1979">Flora Ann L. Bynum, ''Old Salem Garden Guide,'' (Winston-Salem, NC: Old Salem, 1979), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TJB9XNMF view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
:“Next, I visited a [[flower garden]] belonging to the female department. . . . it is situated on a hill, the East end of which is high & abrupt; some distance down this, they had dug down right in the earth, & drawing the dirt forward threw it on rock, etc., thereby forming a horizontal plane of about thirty feet in circumference; & on the back, rose a perpendicular terrace of some height, which was entirely covered over with a grass peculiar to that vicinage. At the bottom of this '''terrace''' were arranged circular [[seat]]s, which, from the height of the hill in the rear were protected from the sun in an early hour in the afternoon” <br />
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*[[Margaret Bayard Smith|Smith, Margaret Bayard]], August 1, 1809, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of [[Thomas Jefferson]], Charlottesville, VA (1906: 68)<ref name="Bayard 1906"> Margaret Bayard Smith, ''The First Forty Years of Washington Society'', ed. by Gaillard Hunt (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1906), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/FTDFHRFH view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“He [[Thomas Jefferson|[Thomas Jefferson]]] took us first to the garden he has commenced since his retirement. It is on the south side of the mountain and commands a most noble view. Little is as yet done. A '''terrace''' of 70 or 80 feet long and about 40 wide is already made and in cultivation. A broad grass [[walk]] leads along the outer edge; the inner part is laid off in beds for vegetables. This '''terrace''' is to be extended in length and another to be made below it. The [[view]] it commands, is at present its greatest beauty.” <br />
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*Gerry, Elbridge, Jr., July 1813, describing the [[White House]], Washington, DC (1927: 180–82)<ref>Elbridge Gerry Jr., ''The Diary of Elbridge Gerry, Jr.'' (New York: Brentano’s, 1927), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8P4QSRIF view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“A door opens at each end, one into the hall, and opposite, one into the '''terrace''', from whence you have an elegant [[view]] of all the rivers &c. . . . Lengthways of the house, and thro' the hall, is a walk, which extends on a '''terrace''' at each end for some way. . . .<br />
<p></p><br />
:“The grounds are surrounded by a high stone [[wall]], and on each side, at the distance of 1 or 300 yards is a large brick building, one for the Sec. of War and the other of the Navy. The '''terrace''' was to communicate to each building connecting the three.” <br />
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*Anonymous, 1816, describing in the ''Federal Gazette'' & ''Baltimore Daily Advertiser'' construction items for sale (quoted in Lounsbury 1994: 371)<ref>Carl R. Lounsbury, ed., ''An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UK5TCUQQ/ view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“[Zinc] can be made use of in cases where lead, tin or copper are employed; such as covering '''terraces'''.” <br />
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*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], March 16, 1817, describing [[Monticello]], plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, VA (CWF) <br />
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:“I shall certainly want a very great quantity [of paint] in the course of the present year, as I have to renew the whole outer painting of this house and the '''terraces''', and to paint that in Bedford which has never been done.”<br />
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*Coolidge, Ellen Wayles Randolph, July 17, 1819, describing the effects of a hailstorm at Poplar Forest, property of [[Thomas Jefferson]], Bedford County, VA (quoted in Chambers 1993: 121)<ref> William Chambers, ''Poplar Forest and Thomas Jefferson'', (Forest, Va.: Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, 1993), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HEXFEBX9/q/Chambers| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“the planks of the '''terrace''' torn up in places by the violence of the winds.” <br />
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*Kremer, Eliza Vierling, 1824–29, describing the pleasure grounds at [[Salem Academy]], Salem, NC (quoted in Bynum 1979: 29)<ref name="Bynum, 1979"/><br />
<br />
:“A large garden, some little distance from the Academy, was during the Summer Season, a place for recreation after school hours. . . . <br />
<p> </p><br />
:“The hill-side was laid off in '''terraces''' and winding [[walk]]s.” <br />
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*[[Margaret Bayard Smith|Smith, Margaret Bayard]], August 2, 1828, describing the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (1906: 225)<ref name="Bayard 1906"/> <br />
<br />
:“on two other sides running from north to south are the [[Pavillion]]s, or Professor’s houses, at about 60 or 70 feet apart, connected by '''terraces''', beneath which are the dormitories, or lodging sleeping rooms of the students. The '''terrace''' projects about 8 feet beyond the rooms and is supported on brick [[arch]]es, forming beneath the arches a paved [[walk]], sheltered from the heat of summer and the storms of winter.” <br />
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*[[Frances Milton Trollope|Trollope, Frances Milton]], 1830, describing Alexandria, VA (1832: 2:93)<ref name="Trollope, 1832"> Frances Milton Trollope, ''Domestic Manners of the Americans'', 3rd ed., 2 vols. (London: Wittaker, Treacher, 1832), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5RXDF7G/ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“a few weeks’ residence in Alexandria restored my strength sufficiently to enable me to walk to a beautiful little grassy '''terrace''', perfectly out of the town, but very near it, from whence we could watch the various craft that peopled the Potomac between Alexandria and Washington.”<br />
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*[[Frances Milton Trollope|Trollope, Frances Milton]], 1830, describing [[Point Breeze]], estate of Joseph Bonaparte (Count de Survilliers), Bordentown, NJ (1832: 2:153)<ref name="Trollope, 1832"/> <br />
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:“The country is very flat, but a '''terrace''' of two sides has been raised, commanding a fine reach of the Delaware River; at the point where this '''terrace''' forms a right angle, a lofty chapel has been erected, which looks very much like an observatory.”<br />
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*[[Harriet Martineau|Martineau, Harriet]], 1834, describing [[Hyde Park]], seat of [[David Hosack]], on the Hudson River, NY (1838: 1:54)<ref name= "Martineau, 1838"> Harriet Martineau, ''Retrospect of Western Travel'', 2 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/H2BW5FRU view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The aspect of [[Hyde Park]] from the river had disappointed me, after all I had heard of it. It looks little more than a white house upon a ridge. I was therefore doubly delighted when I found what this ridge really was. It is a natural '''terrace''', overhanging one of the sweetest reaches of the river; and, though broad and straight at the top, not square and formal, like an artificial embankment, but undulating, sloping, and sweeping between the ridge and the river, and dropped with trees; the whole carpeted with turf, tempting grown people, who happen to have the spirits of children, to run up and down the '''slopes''', and play hide-and-seek in the hollows.” <br />
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*[[Harriet Martineau|Martineau, Harriet]], 1835, describing Cincinnati, OH (1838: 2:51)<ref name= "Martineau, 1838"/><br />
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:“The proprietor has a passion for gardening, and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to the city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in his grounds with his own hands. His garden is on a '''terrace''' which overlooks the [[canal]], and the most parklike eminences form the background of the [[view]]. Between the garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce of which he has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some of which are highly praised by good judges.” <br />
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*[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], November 1839, “Notices of Gardens and Horticulture, in Salem, Mass.,” describing Elfin Glen, residence of P. Dodge, Salem, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 5: 404)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Notices of Gardens and Horticulture, in Salem, Mass.,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 5, no. 11 (November 1839): 401–16, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/25HW5NZ9/q/notices%20of%20gardens%20and%20horticulture view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The cottage stands near the road, and is entered from the west front; on the south end is a [[piazza]]; the drawing-room opens into this, and thence into the garden to an open space, answering somewhat the purpose of a '''terrace''', neatly gravelled.” <br />
[[File:0536.jpg|thumb|Fig. 10, George Lehman, “Fairmount Waterworks. From the Forebay,” 1833.]]<br />
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*Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1840, describing the [[Fairmount Waterworks]], Philadelphia, PA (1840; repr., 1971: 313)<ref> Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''American Scenery, or Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature'', 2 vols. (1840; repr., Barre, MA: Imprint Society, 1971), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5CMW67U view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“Steps and '''terraces''' conduct to the reservoirs, and thence the [[view]] over the ornamented grounds of the country [[seat]]s opposite, and of a very [[picturesque]] and uneven country beyond, is exceedingly attractive. Below, the court of the principal building is laid out with gravel [[walk]]s, and ornamented with [[fountain]]s and flowering trees; and within the edifice there is a public drawing-room, of neat design and furniture; while in another wing are elegant refreshment-rooms&mdash;and, in short, all the appliances and means of a place of public amusement.” [Fig. 10] <br />
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[[File:0877.jpg|thumb|Fig. 11, Anonymous, Section of a terrace of the Messrs. Winship, 1840.]]<br />
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*<div id="Hovey"></div>[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], November 1840, “Some Notes on Gardens, and the state of Horticulture, in Worcester, Mass.,” describing the grounds of Messrs. Winship, Brighton, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 6: 402)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Some Notes on Gardens, and the state of Horticulture, in Worcester, Mass.,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 6, no. 11 (November 1840): 401–7, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/6RNGMU3F view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Hovey_cite|back up to History]] <br />
:“We recollect of reading, in the last volume of the ''Gardener’s Magazine'', some remarks on treating the ground on the margins of rail-roads, where there were embankments of any extent. These remarks we had marked for insertion in our pages, but had forgotten them until the present moment, when called to our mind as we passed the grounds of the Messrs. Winship, in Brighton. The road passes immediately through the nursery, dividing it in two parts; but these gentlemen have so arranged the sandy embankments with '''terraces''', planted with shrubs, &c., as to render them very ornamental. We only wish that other gentlemen who are able, would take the same pride in improving the embankments where they pass through their lands. <br />
<p></p><br />
:“The '''terraces''' of the Messrs. Winship are made in the following manner: the distance is from ten to fifteen feet. A [[wall]] is laid of about four feet; then a grass banking of some three to five more, at an angle of forty-five or fifty degrees; this is the first '''terrace''', and the surface, (about five feet wide,) is filled with fine flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants; another grass banking of from five feet more, at the same angle, is thrown up, and the surface prepared and planted out with shrubs and plants. When in the vigor of growth and flowering, these '''terraces''' have a fine effect, contrasted with the barren sand, which happens wherever there is a cut of ordinary depth. We have annexed the following engraving, representing the same.” [Fig. 11] <br />
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*Buckingham, James Silk, 1842, describing Red Sulphur Springs, VA (CWF) <br />
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:“Behind the ‘Bachelor’s Row,’ and on the upper part of the hill is an imposing edifice of brick, called ‘Society Hall.’ It is built of two stories, with a fine [[portico]] of twelve feet wide, running the whole length of the front, and a '''terrace''' of twenty feet wide beyond this.”<br />
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*[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], April 1842, “Notes made during a Visit to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c.,” describing the U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 8: 127)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Notes made during a Visit to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c.,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 8, no. 4 (April 1842): 121–29 , https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/IRC7B9MN/q/Notes%20made%20during%20a%20visit view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The main entrance to the west front is from Pennsylvania Avenue, where the grounds form a semi-circle, of which the [[avenue]] is the centre; a very broad [[walk]] leads from them, up the ascending surface, to the main steps, which descend from a broad semi-circular '''terrace''': two other entrances of this part of the grounds are placed at the angles or sides of this semi-circle, which also, by a straight [[walk]], lead up to the broad '''terrace'''. From this lower '''terrace''', a long flight of steps leads to the upper one, upon which the building of the Capitol is placed: on the turf between the [[walk]]s, are oval and circular [[bed]]s, planted with shrubs and roses, and filled with dahlias and other annual flowers.” <br />
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*Lyell, Sir. Charles, 1846, describing Natchez, MS (1849: 2:153)<ref>Sir Charles Lyell, ''A Second Visit to the United States of North America'', 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1849), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DU6NKKZ5 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“Many of the country-houses in the neighborhood are elegant, and some of the gardens belonging to them laid out in the [[English Style|English]], others in the [[French style]]. In the latter are seen '''terraces''', with statues and cut evergreens, straight [[walk]]s with [[border]]s of flowers, terminated by views into the wild forest, the charms of both being heightened by contrast. Some of the [[hedge]]s are made of that beautiful North American plant, the Gardenia, miscalled in England the Cape jessamine, others of the Cherokee rose, with its bright and shining leaves.” <br />
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*[[William Ranlett|Ranlett, William]], 1849, describing a proposed villa in Oswego, NY (1849; repr., 1976: 2:14)<ref> William A. Ranlett, ''The Architect,'' 2 vols. (1849–51; repr., New York: Da Capo, 1976), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QGQPCB5J/q/ranlett view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“The design given in this part of the Architect, number XXVI, is the plan of a Villa in the Anglo-Italian style, now in process of erection on the south side of Lake Ontario, in the city of Oswego. . . . On the north side which commands a full view of the lake, a balustrade gallery, or '''terrace''', extends the entire front.” [Fig. 12] <br />
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[[File:0778.jpg|thumb|Fig. 12, Frances Palmer, Italian Bracketed Villa at Oswego, New York, 1851.]] <br />
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*Justicia [pseud.], March 1849, “A Visit to Springbrook,” seat of Caleb Cope, near Philadelphia, PA (''Horticulturist'' 3: 413)<ref>Justicia [pseud.], “A Visit to Springbrook, the Seat of the President of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 3, no. 9 (March 1849): 411–14, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/AAEZMA9A/q/springbrook view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“The [[kitchen garden]] is separated from the [lawn]] and [[flower garden]] by the Cactus and Orchid-houses. It covers 1 1/2 acres, is well arranged in [[bed]]s and '''terraces''', with a large open cistern of water in its centre&mdash;all in excellent order. The quarters are interspersed with dwarf fruit trees, variously pruned and trained, and all in a young bearing state.” <br />
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*[[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1850, describing Kalorama (Kaleirama), estate of Joel Barlow, Washington, DC (1850: 331)<ref name= "Loudon, 1850"> J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening'', new ed., corr. and improved (London: Longman et al., 1850), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/W8EQFZUG view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
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:“851. ''Kaleirama'' is about a mile from Washington, on high '''terrace''' ground, and is a very pretty place. . . . (''Dom. Man.'', &c., vol. ii. p. 330.)” <br />
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*[[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1850, describing the public gardens in Hoboken, NJ (1850: 332–33)<ref name= "Loudon, 1850"/><br />
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:“856. ''Public Gardens''. . . . <br />
<p></p><br />
:“''Hoboken'', on the North River, about three miles from New York, is a public [[walk]] of great beauty and attraction. . . . Through this beautiful little [[wood]], a broad well-gravelled '''terrace''' is led by every point which can exhibit the scenery to advantage; narrower and wilder paths diverge at intervals, some into the deeper shadow of the [[wood]]s, and some shelving gradually to the pretty coves below. . . . (''D. M., &c.'', vol. ii. p. 170)” <br />
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*[[C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey|Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason)]], September 1851, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” describing Rose Hill, residence of George Leland, Waltham, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 17: 411)<ref>C. M. Hovey, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 17, no. 9 (September 1851): 410–12, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/DR542Z2D/q/notes%20on%20gardens%20and%20nurseries view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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:“Descending the steps we reach the garden, which covers and extent of two or more acres in the form of a parallelogram, the end next Newton street. The '''slope''' is laid out in '''terraces''' on the right of the steps, and on the left is located the range of forcing houses, which is 104 feet long, comprising a centre and two wings, the former the [[greenhouse]], twenty-five feet, and the latter vineries, forty feet each.”<br />
{{break}}<br />
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===Citations===<br />
<br />
*La Quintinie, Jean de, 1693, “Dictionary,” ''The Compleat Gard'ner'' (1693; repr., 1982: n.p.)<ref> Jean de La Quintinie, ''The Compleat Gard'ner, or Directions for cultivating and right ordering of fruit-gardens and kitchen gardens'', trans. by John Evelyn (1693; repr., New York: Garland, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ET5N5PKH view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“A '''''Terrass''''', is an artificial bank or mount of Earth, commonly supported with a fronting or facing of stone, and raised like a kind of ''Bulwark'' for the ornament of a ''Garden''.” <br />
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*<div id="Argenville"></div>[[Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville | Dezallier d'Argenville, Antoine-Joseph]], 1712, ''The Theory and Practice of Gardening'' (1712; repr., 1969: 75, 116–18)<ref>A.-J. Dézallier d'Argenville, ''The Theory and Practice of Gardening'', trans. John James (1712; repr., Farnborough, England: Gregg International, 1969), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RNT8ZVZ8/q/The%20Theory%20and%20Practice%20of%20Gardening| view on Zotero]</ref> [[#Argenville_cite|back up to History]] <br />
<br />
:“'''TERRASSES''', when rightly situated, are likewise of great Ornament in Gardens, for their Regularity and Opening; especially when they are well built, and beautified with handsome Stairs, and fine Ascents. Sometimes there are made under them, Vaults, Grots, [[Cascade]]s, and Buffets of Water, with an Order of Architecture, and a great many [[Statue]]s in Niches; and, on the Coping above, are set Vases and Flower-pots, orderly ranged and disposed. . . . <br />
<br />
:“WHEN you meet with a Piece of Ground whose Shelving is very steep, as perhaps of the Hill ''A'', which you would make practicable for a Garden, it may be order’d three several Ways.<br />
<br />
:“''First'', By making '''Terrasses''' one above another, at several Heights, and supporting the Earth with sufficient [[Wall]]s of Masonry. <br />
<br />
:“''Secondly'', By making such '''Terrasses''', as will support themselves without a [[Wall]], by Means of Banks and '''Slopes''' cut at the Extremity of every '''Terrass'''. <br />
<br />
:“THE ''Third Way'' is, to make no '''Terrasses''' in strait Lines, nor long Flats between; but only to contrive Landing-Places, or Rests, at several Heights, and easy Ascents and Flights of Steps for Communication, with Foot-Paces, Counter-Terrasses, Volutes, Rolls, Banks, and '''Slopes''' of Grass, placed and disposed with Symmetry, which are called Amphitheatres. . . . <br />
<br />
:“OF these three Manners, that with the '''Slopes''' is the least Expence, and that of the Ampitheatre the most magnificent; so that '''Terrass'''-Walls may be reckon’d to hold a Medium between the other two. . . . <br />
<br />
:“THE Architect, or he that is to give the Design of a Garden, should carefully consider the '''Slope''' and Winding of the Hill, and raise and describe the Profil of it very correctly; that by making the best Advantage of the Situation, and distributing its '''Terrasses''' with Husbandry and Discretion, there may not be a great deal of Earth to remove, but that what is taken from Places that are too high, may serve to raise and make good those that are too low, which should be done with such Prudence and Circumspection, that you should neither be obliged to bring in Earth, nor have any to carry away, when your '''Terrasses''' are finished. . . . <br />
<br />
:“'''TERRASSES''' should not be made too frequent, nor too near one another, that is, you should always make as few of them as possible; and by means of Levels, or Flats, continued as long as the Ground will permit, endeavour to avoid the Defect of heaping '''Terrass''' upon '''Terrass''', it being very disagreeable in a Garden to be constantly going Up-hill, or Down-hill, without finding scarce any Resting-Place.<br />
<br />
:“WHAT we call the Level, or Flat, is the Space of Ground contained between the '''Slopes''' of two '''Terrasses''', that is to say, the Platform sustained by the [[Wall]]s or Banks of the '''Terrasses''', which, in Fortification, is call’d the ''Terra-plain''.” <br />
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*<div id="Switzer"></div>Switzer, Stephen, 1718, ''Ichnographia Rustica'' (1718: 150–52)<ref>Stephen Switzer, ''Ichnographia Rustica, or The Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardener’s Recreation. . . .'', 1st ed., 3 vols. (London: D. Browne, 1718),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/UWQEVT5X view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Switzer_cite|back up to History]] <br />
<br />
:“The '''Terrace''' seems to have been us’d a considerable Time since . . . But the nearest of our Derivations in ''English'', is from the ''French'', '''Terrace''', or '''Terrasse'''; and they from the ''Italians'', (from whom they, and almost all Europe, derive their Terms of Art relating to Building, Gardening, ''&c.'') ''Terraza'', ''Terrazare'', signifying with them the removing and banking up of Earth, from one Place into another. <br />
<br />
:“But be the Derivations as it will, it is very well known in these ''European'' Countries, and particularly with us, to be a small Bank of Earth, laid out and trimm’d according to Line and Level, being necessary for the proper Elevation of any Person that walks round his Garden, to view all that lyes round him. And this Elevation is so necessary, that all Gardens must be esteem’d very deficient, that have them not . . . that I dare pronounce a Seat of no Value without them; and, besides, where-ever the House is to be new built, there is no Possibility of disposing of the Earth, Clay, Rubbish, ''&c''. that necessarily comes out of Cellars and Foundation thereof, but this; which we must otherwise suppose (amidst a thousand needless Works) is to be carted away, to fill up some Hollow or other, which had been better left undone perhaps likewise. <br />
<br />
:“Of '''Terrace'''-Walks there are several Kinds, as they are particularly us’d.<br />
<br />
:“The 1st, is that great Terrace that lies next the House. <br />
<br />
:“The 2d, Side, or Middle '''Terrace''', that is commonly rais’d or cut out above the Level of the [[Parterre]], [[Lawn]], ''&c''. <br />
<br />
:“The 3d, Those that encompass a Garden; and<br />
<br />
:“The 4th, Many that lye under one another, as being cut out of a large high Hill; these are differing, in some Respect or other, from one another.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Batty Langley|Langley, Batty]], 1728, ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728; repr., 1982: vi–vii)<ref>Batty Langley, ''New Principles of Gardening, or The Laying Out and Planting Parterres, Groves, Wildernesses, Labyrinths, Avenues, Parks, &c'' (London: A. Bettesworth and J. Batley, etc., 1728; repr., New York: Garland, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MRDTAEKC view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“When the Situation of Gardens such, that the making of '''''Slopes''''' and '''''Terraces''''' are necessary, or cannot be avoided, they not only leave them ''naked of Shade'' as aforesaid, but ''break their'' '''''Slopes''''' into so many Angles, that their ''native Beauty'' is thereby destroy’d. Thus if by waste Earth a ''Mount'' be ''raised ten or twelve Feet high'', you shall have its '''Slope''', that should be entire from top to bottom, broken into three, if not four small ''trifling ones'', and those mixt with [[Arch]]s of Circles, ''&c''. that still adds to their ill Effects: So that instead of having one ''grand'' '''''Slope''''' only with an easy Ascent, you have three or four small ones, that are ''poor and trifling''. <br />
<br />
:“And the only reason why they are made in this Stair or Step-like manner, is first to shew their Dexterity of Hand, without considering the ill Effect; and lastly to imitate those ''grand Amphitheatrical Buildings'', used by the ''Ancients'', of which they had no more Judgement, than of the excellent Proportions of Architecture that was used therein, when those noble Structures were first erected. . . . <br />
<br />
:“When very large Hills of great perpendicular Heights are to be cut into '''''Slopes''''' and '''''Terraces''''', then we may justly endeavour to imitate those grand Structures, (whereon their Gladiators exercis’d) by cutting them Concave, Convex, &c. as those looking towards ''Fair-Mile Heath'', in the Gardens of his ''Grace'' the DUKE of NEWCASTLE ''at his Grand Seat of Claremont''; but in small Elevations they are poor and trifling, and therefore not to be used.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Philip Miller|Miller, Philip]], 1754, ''The Gardeners Dictionary'' (1754; repr., 1969: 1367)<ref>Philip Miller, ''The Gardeners Dictionary'' (London: printed for the author, 1754; repr., New York: Verlag Von J. Cramer, 1969), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/356Q24EP view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“'''TERRACES''':A '''Terrace''' is a small Bank of Earth, rais’d and trimm’d according to Line and Level, for the proper Elevation of any Person that walks round a Garden, that he may have a better [[Prospect]] of all that lies around him; and these Elevations are so necessary, that those Gardens that have them not, are deficient. <br />
<br />
:“When '''Terraces''' are rightly situated, they are great Ornaments to such Gardens as have them, for their Regularity and Opening; especially when they are well built, and beautify’d with handsome Stairs, and fine Ascents. <br />
<br />
:“There are several Kinds of '''Terrace'''-walks: <br />
<br />
:“1. The great '''Terrace''', which lies next to the House. <br />
<br />
:“2. The side or middle '''Terrace''', which is commonly raised above the Level of the [[Parterre]], [[Lawn]], &c. <br />
<br />
:“3. Those '''Terraces''' which encompass a Garden. <br />
<br />
:“4. Those '''Terraces''' which lie under one another, being cut out of a large Hill; and these are different one from another, in some respect or other. <br />
<br />
:“As to the Breadth of side '''Terraces''', this is usually decided by its Correspondence with some [[Pavilion]], or some little Jettee or Building; but most of all by the Quantity of Stuff that is to spare for those Purposes. <br />
<br />
:“The side '''Terrace''' of a Garden ought not to be less than twenty Feet, and but very seldom wider than forty. <br />
<br />
:“As for the Height of a '''Terrace''', some allow it to be but five Feet high; but others more or less, according to their Fancies; but the more exact Persons never allow above five or six Feet; and in a small Garden, and a narrow '''Terrace''' [[walk]], three Feet; and sometimes three Feet and an half high are sufficient for a Terrace eighteen Feet wide; and four Feet are sufficient for a Terrace of twenty Feet wide; but when the Garden is proportionably large, and the '''Terrace''' is thirty or forty Feet wide, then it must be at least five or six Feet high. <br />
<br />
:“The noblest '''Terrace''' is very deficient without Shade; for which Elm-trees are very proper: for no [[Seat]] can be said to be complete, where there is not an immediate Shade almost as soon as out of the House; and therefore these shady Trees should be detach’d from the Body and Wings of the Edifice. <br />
<br />
:“'''Terraces''' should be planted rather with Elm or Lime-trees, than with Yew or Holly; which will not grow large enough to afford Shade.<br />
<br />
:“The Distance of the Elms across will be about twenty Feet; and they may be plac’d thirty Feet asunder in Lines.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*Salmon, William, 1762, ''Palladio Londinensis'' (1762: n.p.)<ref>William Salmon, ''Palladio Londinensis, or The London Art of Building: In Three Parts . . . with Fifty-Four Copper Plates, to Which Is Annexed, The Builder’s Dictionary'', ed. E. Hoppus, 6th ed. (London: printed for C. Hitch et al., 1762), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/IEIQ5QGM view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“''Tarrau'', or '''''Tarras''''', an open [[Walk]], or Gallery; also a flat Roof on a House; also a Kind of coarse Plaister, durable in the Weather.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*Marshall, Charles, 1799, ''An Introduction to the Knowledge and Practice of Gardening'' (1799: 1:124)<ref>Charles Marshall, ''An Introduction to the Knowledge and Practice of Gardening'', 1st American ed. from the 2nd London ed., 2 vols. (Boston: Samuel Etheridge, 1799), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GE2JPJR3/ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
<br />
:“A '''terrace''' as a boundary is now seldom formed, but in some situations, such as an eminence might in several respects, be agreeable.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Bernard M'Mahon|M'Mahon, Bernard]], 1806, ''The American Gardener’s Calendar'' (1806: 59, 64, 69)<ref>Bernard M’Mahon, ''The American Gardener’s Calendar: Adapted to the Climates and Seasons of the United States. Containing a Complete Account of All the Work Necessary to Be Done . . . for Every Month of the Year. . . .'' (Philadelphia: printed by B. Graves for the author, 1806), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HU4JIS9C view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“In other parts are sometimes discovered eminences, or rising grounds, as a high '''terrace''', mount, steep declivity, or other eminence, ornamented with curious trees and shrubs, with [[walk]]s leading under the shade of trees, by easy ascents to the summit, where is presented to the [[view]], an extensive prospect of the adjacent fields, buildings, hamlets, and country around, and likewise affording a fresh and cooling air in summer. . . .<br />
<br />
:“[[Fountain]]s and [[statue]]s, are generally introduced in the middle of spacious opens . . . sometimes in [[wood]]s, [[thicket]]s, and recesses, upon mounts, '''terraces''', and other stations, according to what they are intended to represent. . . .<br />
<br />
:“Regular '''terraces''' either on natural eminences or forced ground were often introduced by way of ornament, for the sake of [[prospect]], and of enjoying the fresh air in summer; they were of various dimensions with respect to height, from two, to ten, or twenty feet, according to the nature of the situation and purpose they were designed for; some being ranged singly, others double, treble, or several, one above another, on the side of some consideable rising ground in theatrical arrangement.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*[[John Abercrombie|Abercrombie, John]], with [[James Mean]], 1817, ''Abercrombie’s Practical Gardener'' (1817: 472)<ref>John Abercrombie, ''Abercrombie’s practical gardener or, Improved system of modern horticulture'', with additions by James Mean, (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1817), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TH54TADZ/q/Abercrombie's| view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“If flights of stone-stairs and ballustrades are not the inseparable accompaniments, if the term '''terrace''' is merely to designate a raised walk, many situations may be imagined, in which a '''terrace''' would both conduce to the accommodation of the proprietor of the grounds, and, ''without dispute'', improve the [[view]].<br />
<br />
:“The [[view]] FROM the house, and TO the house, cannot always be consulted with mutual improvement. When a high '''terrace''' with ornaments which appear to mark the boundary of the architect’s province, is interposed between the house and the [[lawn]], the [[view]] immediately under the windows cannot certainly be so pleasant as if the house stood in a verdant field:&mdash;but let the [[prospect]] be reversed, and every stranger will see more grandeur in the house connected by a '''terrace''' with the garden; and perhaps among the spectators under the influence of cultivated taste, a few may think such a gradation conduces to general harmony.<br />
<br />
:“In a flat, or confined situation, a '''terrace''' with sloping grass banks may create a [[prospect]], or relieve the sameness of the scenery.” <br />
<br />
[[File:1339.jpg|thumb|Fig. 13, [[J.C. Loudon]], “Levelling for terrace-slopes,” 1826.]]<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[J.C. (John Claudius) Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1826, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening'' (1826: 377, 1020)<ref>J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening'', 4th ed. (London: Longman et al., 1826), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KNKTCA4W/order/creator/q/loudon/sort/desc view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“1933. ''Levelling for'' '''''terrace-slopes''''' . . . or for geometrical surfaces, however varied, is performed by the union of both modes, and requires no explanation to those who have acquired the rudiments of geometry, or understand what has been described. . . . [Fig. 13]<br />
<br />
:“7256. '''''Terrace''''' ''and [[conservatory]]''. We observed, when treating of ground, and under the [[ancient style]], that the design of the '''terrace''' must be jointly influenced by the magnitude and style of the house, the [[view]]s from its windows, (that is, from the eye of a person seated in the middle of the principal rooms,) and the [[view]]s of the house from a distance. In almost every case, more or less of architectural form will enter into these compositions. The level or levels will be supported partly by grassy '''slopes''', but chiefly by stone [[wall]]s, harmonising with the lines and forms of the house. These, in the Gothic style, may be furnished by battlements, [[gateway]]s, oriels, pinnacles, &c.; or, on a very great scale, watch-towers may form very [[picturesque]], characteristic, and useful additions. . . .<br />
<br />
:“7257. The '''breadth of''' '''''terraces''''', and their height relatively to the level of the floor of the living-rooms, must depend jointly on the height of the floor of the living-rooms and the surface of the grounds or country to be seen over them. Too broad or too high a '''terrace''' will both have the effect of foreshortening a [[lawn]] with a declining surface, or concealing a near valley. The safest mode in doubtful cases is, not to form this appendage till after the principal floor is laid, and then to determine the details of the '''terrace''' by trial and correction.<br />
<br />
:“7258. ''Narrow'' '''''terraces''''' are entirely occupied as [[promenade]]s, and may be either gravelled or paved: and different levels, when they exist, connected by inclined planes or flights of steps. Where the breadth is more than is requisite for [[walk]]s, the [[border]]s may be kept in turf with groups or marginal strips of flowers and low shrubs. In some cases, the '''terrace'''-walls may be so extended as to enclose ground sufficient for a level [[plot]] to be used as a [[bowling-green]] or a [[flower garden]]. These are generally connected with one of the living-rooms or the [[conservatory]], and to the latter is frequently joined an [[aviary]] and the entire range of botanic stoves. Or, the [[aviary]] may be made an elegant detached building, so placed as to group with the house and other surrounding objects.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*<div id="Loudon"></div>[[Jane Loudon|Loudon, Jane]], 1845, ''Gardening for Ladies'' (1845: 117)<ref> Jane Loudon, ''Gardening for Ladies; and Companion to the Flower-Garden'', ed. A. J. Downing (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1843), [//www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VJ3SM523/q/Gardening%20for%20Ladies| view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Loudon_cite|back up to History]]<br />
<br />
:“'''''Terrace'''''-''gardens'' are merely architectural-gardens, formed on platforms adjoining the house, on one or more levels, each level being supported by a '''terrace'''-wall; but as they are chiefly adapted for mansions and places of considerable extent, where of course a regular gardener must be kept, it does not appear necessary to enlarge on them here.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Louisa C. Tuthill|Tuthill, Louisa C.]], 1848, ''History of Architecture'' (1848; repr., 1988: 306)<ref> Louisa C. Tuthill, ''History of Architecture, from the Earliest Times; Its Present Condition in Europe and the United States; with a Biography of Eminent Architects, and a Glossary of Architectural Terms, by Mrs. L. C. Tuthill'' (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1848; repr., New York: Garland, 1988),[https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/4ACTS7DK/ view on Zotero].</ref><br />
:“The garden of the Elizabethan villa should be laid out with a few simple '''terraces''' near the house, so as to unite it well with the ground.”<br />
<br />
<br />
*[[Noah Webster|Webster, Noah]], 1848, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'' (1848: 1139)<ref>Noah Webster, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language . . . Revised and Enlarged by Chauncey A. Goodrich. . . .'' (Springfield, MA: George and Charles Merriam, 1848), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/EBZ5Z7ET view on Zotero].</ref> <br />
<br />
:“'''TER'RACE''', n. [Fr. ''terrasse''; It. ''terrazzo''; Sp. ''terrado''; from L. ''terra'', the earth.],<br />
<br />
:“1. A raised level space or platform of earth, supported on one or more sides by a [[wall]] or bank of turf, &c., used either for cultivation or for a [[promenade]].<br />
<br />
:“2. A balcony or open gallery. ''Johnson''.<br />
<br />
:“3. The flat roof of a house.” <br />
<br />
<br />
*<div id="Downing"></div>[[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], 1849, ''Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849: 344, 346, 376, 418–20, 423, 531)<ref>A. J. Downing, ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1849), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/5M4S2D64| view on Zotero].</ref> [[#Downing_cite|back up to History]]<br />
<br />
:“Where it is desirable to separate the house from the level grass of the [[lawn]], let it be done by an architectural '''terrace''' of stone. . . .<br />
<br />
:“In a succeeding section we shall refer to '''terraces''' with their parapets, which are by far the most elegant barriers for a highly decorated [[flower garden]], or for the purpose of maintaining a proper connexion between the house and the grounds. . . .<br />
<br />
:“the long [[veranda]] round many of our country residences stands instead of the paved '''terraces''' of the English mansions as the place for [[promenade]]. . . . <br />
<br />
:“In our finest places, or those country [[seat]]s where much of the polish of [[pleasure ground]] or [[park]] scenery is kept up, one of the most striking defects is the want of '' ‘union between the house and the grounds.’ '' . . . .<br />
<br />
:“Let us suppose . . . The house now rising directly out of the green turf which encompasses it, we will surround by a raised platform or '''terrace''', wide enough for a dry, firm [[walk]], at all seasons; on the top of the [[wall]] or [[border]] of this '''terrace''', we will form a handsome ''parapet'', or balustrade, some two or three feet high, the details of which shall be in good keeping with the house. . . . On the coping of this parapet . . .we will find suitable places, at proper intervals, for some handsome urns, vases, etc. On the drawing-room side of the house . . . we will place the [[flower-garden]], into which we descend from the '''terrace''' by a few steps. . . . <br />
<br />
:“The eye now, instead of witnessing the sudden termination of the architecture at the base of the house, where the [[lawn]] commences as suddenly, will be at once struck with the increased variety and richness imparted to the whole scene, by the addition of the architectural and garden decorations. . . . <br />
<br />
:“Where there is a '''terrace''' ornamented with urns or vases, and the proprietor wishes to give a corresponding air of elegance to his grounds, vases, sundials, etc., may be placed in various appropriate situations. . . .<br />
<br />
:“The only situation where this brilliant [white] gravel seems to us perfectly in keeping, is in the highly artificial garden of the [[ancient style|ancient]] or [[geometric style]], or in the symmetrical '''terrace''' [[flower garden]] adjoining the house. In these instances its striking appearance is in excellent keeping with the expression of all the surrounding objects, and it renders more forcible and striking the highly artificial and artistical character of the scene; and to such situations we would gladly see its use limited.”<br />
<br />
==Images==<br />
=== Inscribed ===<br />
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7"><br />
<gallery><br />
<br />
File:1042.jpg|Michael van der Gucht, Illustration for chapter entitled: “Of different Terrasses and Stairs, with their most exact Proportions,” in A.-J. Dézallier d’Argenville, ''The Theory and Practice of Gardening'' (1712), pl. opp. p. 117.<br />
<br />
File:1053.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of a ''rural Garden'',̹ after the new manner,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. III, opp. p. 208. “Terrace” is inscribed as S.S., and is located near the bottom of the plan. <br />
<br />
File:1382.jpg|Batty Langley, “An Improvement of a beautiful Garden at Twickenham,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. IX. “Terrace walk” is inscribed between the “kitchen garden” and “fruit garden.”<br />
<br />
File:1384.jpg|Batty Langley, One of two “Designs for Gardens that lye irregularly to the ground House . . .House opening to the North upon a plain Parterre of Grass,” in New Principles of Gardening (1728), pl. XI. “Terrace” is located at E and forms the walk P Q. <br />
<br />
File:0072.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Monticello: orchard and vineyard (plat), c. 1778. “Foot of terras” is inscribed above the wall. <br />
<br />
File:1749.jpg|William Bartram, “Plan of the Ancient Chunky-Yard,” in “Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians” (1789), from ''Transactions of the American Ethnological Society'', vol. 3, part 1 (1853), p. 52, fig. 2. Platform mounds are located at B and C.<br />
<br />
File:0331.jpg|George Washington, ''Drawing and Notes for a Ha-Ha Wall at Mount Vernon, October 1798'', 1798.<br />
<br />
Image:0090a.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Letter describing plans for a “Garden Olitory,” c. 1804.<br />
<br />
File:0720.jpg|Charles Bulfinch, “Joseph Barrell House remodeled as McLean Hospital,” 1817.<br />
<br />
File:1339.jpg|J. C. Loudon, “Levelling for terrace-slopes,” in ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening'' (1826), p. 377, fig. 369.<br />
<br />
File:1433.jpg|James H. Dakin, “La Grange Terrace, La Fayette Place, City of New York,” 1831&ndash;34. <br />
<br />
File:1247.jpg|[[Alexander Jackson Davis]], '“Villa for David Codwise, near New Rochelle, NY (project; elevation and four plans),” 1835.<br />
<br />
File:1147.jpg|William Strickland, Plan of the walks and avenues of Laurel Hill cemetery, c. 1836. <br />
<br />
File:0877.jpg|Anonymous, Section of a terrace of the Messrs. Winship, in ''Magazine of Horticulture'' 6, no. 11 (November 1840): 403, fig. 10.<br />
<br />
File:1048.jpg|Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sketch of the Grounds of the Longfellow Estate, 1844.<br />
<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=== Associated ===<br />
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7"><br />
<gallery><br />
<br />
Image:0187.jpg|Anonymous, Mount Clare, n.d.<br />
<br />
Image:1378.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of an Avenue with its Wildernesses on each Side,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. V.<br />
<br />
Image:0074.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Plan showing the rectangular flower beds and proposed temples at the corners of the terrace walks at Monticello, before August 4, 1772. <br />
<br />
Image:0755.jpg|George Beck, ''View of Baltimore from Howard Park'', c. 1796.<br />
<br />
Image:0873.jpg|John Rubens Smith, ''Washington, looking up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Terrace of the Capitol'', 1809–34.<br />
<br />
Image:0992.jpg|Charles B. Lawrence (attr.), ''Point Breeze, the Estate of Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte at Bordentown, New Jersey'', 1817–20.<br />
<br />
Image:2006.jpg|Joseph Drayton, ''View near Bordenton, from the Gardens of the Count de Survilliers'', c. 1820.<br />
<br />
Image:1018.jpg|Thomas Birch, Point Breeze, c. 1820, in Edward J. Nygren, ''Views and Visions: American Landscape before 1830'' (1986), p. 146, pl. 120.<br />
<br />
Image:0251.jpg|Charles Codman, ''Kalorama'', 1821.<br />
<br />
Image:0300.jpg|Thomas Birch, ''Fairmount Water Works'', 1821.<br />
<br />
Image:1994.jpg|Thomas Doughty, ''View of the Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia, from the Opposite Side of the Schuylkill River'', c. 1824–26.<br />
<br />
Image:2014.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, “Front View of Mount Airy, Virginia,” 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520A.<br />
<br />
Image:1216.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, Mount Airy, Virginia; northeast front, 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520A.<br />
<br />
Image:0537.jpg|Tucker Factory, Pair of vases with views of the Fairmount Waterworks, c. 1830.<br />
<br />
Image:0536.jpg|George Lehman, “Fairmount Waterworks. From the Forebay,” 1833.<br />
<br />
Image:1458.jpg|Henry Cheever Pratt, ''The House of Gardiner Greene'', c. 1834.<br />
<br />
Image:0542.jpg|Nicolino Calyo, ''The Philadelphia Water Works'', 1835–36.<br />
<br />
Image:0540.jpg|John Caspar Wild,“Fairmount Waterworks,” 1838.<br />
<br />
File:1120.jpg|W. H. Bartlett, “Fairmount Gardens, with the Schuylkill Bridge. (Philadelphia),” in [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]], ''American Scenery'', vol. II (1840), pl. 24. <br />
<br />
File:1121.jpg|W. H. Bartlett, “Schuylkill Water-Works. (Philadelphia),” in [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]], ''American Scenery'', vol. II (1840), pl. 37.<br />
<br />
File:1103.jpg|W. Mason, engraver Tucker, W. E., “Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane,” c. 1841, in [[Thomas S. Kirkbride]], ''Reports of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane'' (1851), frontispiece.<br />
<br />
File:0550.jpg|Victor de Grailly, ''The Tomb at Mount Vernon'', c. 1840&ndash;50.<br />
<br />
File:0549.jpg|Victor de Grailly, ''Mount Vernon'', c. 1840&ndash;50.<br />
<br />
File:1866.jpg|Alexander Jackson Davis, “A Villa in the Italian Style,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), p. 386, fig. 45.<br />
<br />
File:0766.jpg|Anonymous, “The Battery, New York, By Moonlight,” in ''Illustrated London News'' (October 27, 1849): 277.<br />
<br />
Image:0459.jpg|Jenny Emily Snow, ''Fairmount Park Waterworks'', c. 1850.<br />
<br />
File:0778.jpg|Frances Palmer, “Italian Bracketed Villa,” in [[William H. Ranlett]], ''The Architect'' (1851), vol. 2, pl. 7.<br />
<br />
Image:0786.jpg|Frances Palmer, “Italian Villa,” in [[William H. Ranlett]], ''The Architect'' (1851), vol. 2, pl. 22, design XXXIII.<br />
<br />
File:0632.jpg|Anonymous, View of the terraces at Middleton Place, in Alice B. Lockwood, ''Gardens of Colony and State'' (1934), vol. 2, p. 196.<br />
<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=== Attributed ===<br />
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7"><br />
<gallery><br />
<br />
File:1388.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of a Garden and Wilderness in an Island,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XV.<br />
<br />
Image:0056.jpg|John or William Bartram, ''A Draught of John Bartram’s House and Garden as it appears from the River'', 1758.<br />
<br />
File:0881.jpg|Anonymous, “Plan de la ville et environs de Williamsburg en Virginie, America,” 1782.<br />
<br />
File:0207.jpg|Francis Guy, ''Mt. Deposit'', 1803-05.<br />
<br />
File:0124.jpg|Jane Shearer, Brick House with Terraces, 1806, in Sotheby’s New York, ''Important American Schoolgirl Embroideries: The Landmark Collection of Betty Ring'' (January 2012), p. 80. <br />
<br />
File:1152.jpg|Anonymous, ''The Lilacs'', Residence of Thomas Kidder [perspective rendering, front], c. 1810. <br />
<br />
File:1153.jpg|J. G. Hales, Plan of Mansion House, Garden &c. in Portsmouth, Belonging to James Rundlet Esqr., 1812.<br />
<br />
File:0102.jpg|Joseph Jacques Ramée, Plan of the Campus Grounds, Union College, 1813.<br />
<br />
File:1464.jpg|Joseph Jacques Ramée, Plan of Union College, 1813.<br />
<br />
File:0694.jpg|Thomas Ender, Main Alley Leading to the Fountain of the Alligators and the Terrace, 1817.<br />
<br />
File:0169.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Bird’s-eye view of the University of Virginia, c. 1820.<br />
<br />
File:2119.jpg|Robert Campbell, after Thomas Birch, ''View of the Dam and Water Works at Fairmount, Philadelphia'', 1824.<br />
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File:0514.jpg|Catherine Mary Wheeler, Sampler, 1825.<br />
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File:0505.jpg|Anonymous (artist), Benjamin Tanner (engraver), ''University of Virginia'', 1826.<br />
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Image:2013.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, “Back View of Mount Airy, Va.” 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520B.<br />
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File:1217.jpg|Anthony St. John Baker, Mount Airy, Virginia; southwest front as viewed from the bowling green, 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, p. 520B.<br />
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File:1281.jpg|John Rubens Smith, West Front of the Capitol, c. 1828.<br />
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File:1279.jpg|John Rubens Smith, West front of the United States Capitol with cows in the foreground, c. 1831. <br />
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File:1432.jpg|Milo Osborne, “Deaf and Dumb Asylum,” in Theodore S. Fay, ''Views in New-York and its Environs'' (1831).<br />
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File:1477.jpg|Anonymous, Honorary membership certificate for Nicholas Biddle in “The Horticultural Association of the Valley of the Hudson” [detail], June 1839.<br />
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Image:0896.jpg|Edwin Whitefield, Sketch of Anson G. Phelps' Villa, North Tarrytown, 1841-44.<br />
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File:0706.jpg|Anonymous, “Pegg’s Run,” in John Fanning Watson, ''Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time'' (1844), p. 436. <br />
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File:0823.jpg|Joshua Barney, Map of the Hampton Estate, 1843.<br />
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File:1437.jpg|C. Bachman(n), ''New York'', 1848.<br />
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File:1686.jpg|James Smillie, “Italian Garden and Lake at Wellesley near Boston,” 1859, in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849), pl. opp. p. 452.<br />
<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
==Notes==<br />
<br />
<references></references><br />
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[[Category: Keywords]]<br />
[[Category: Circulation]]<br />
[[Category: Topographic Features]]<br />
[[Category: Transition Between House and Garden]]</div>V-ikeshoji-orlatihttps://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=Current_Staff&diff=35664Current Staff2018-11-08T16:09:35Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: updated to 2018 project team</p>
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<div>* Therese O'Malley, Project Director<br />
<hr><br />
* Alexander Brey, Postdoctoral Research Associate<br />
* Veronica Ikeshoji-Orlati, Robert H. Smith Postdoctoral Research Associate for Digital Projects<br />
* Kathleen Lee, Assistant to the Program of Research<br />
<hr></div>V-ikeshoji-orlatihttps://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=Home&diff=35548Home2018-10-09T17:38:56Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: moved welcome message below gallery of images</p>
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<div><gallery mode="packed" heights=275px><br />
File:0855.jpg|link=Category:Keywords|<span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: #777777; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 2px;">KEYWORDS</span><br><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 13px">[[:File:0855.jpg|Alexander Jackson Davis, ''Garden Arch at Montgomery Place'', c. 1850.]]</span><br />
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File:0521.jpg|link=Category:Places|<span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: #777777; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 2px;">PLACES</span><br><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: sans-serif">[[:File:0521.jpg|William Rush, ''North East or Franklin Public Square, Philadelphia'', 1824.]]</span><br />
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File:Deborah_Norris_Logan_Portrait.jpg|link=Category:People|<span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: #777777; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 2px;">PEOPLE</span><br><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: sans-serif;">[[:File:Deborah_Norris_Logan_Portrait.jpg|Anonymous, ''Portrait of Deborah Norris Logan'', n.d.]]</span><br />
</gallery><br />
===''Welcome''===<br />
{{break}}<br />
The ''History of Early American Landscape Design'' digital resource represents an inquiry into the vocabulary of early American landscape aesthetics and garden design in the colonial and national periods. Thousands of texts are combined with a corpus of more than 1800 images in order to trace the development of landscape and garden terminology from British colonial America to the mid-19th century. By placing terms in relation to representations in the visual record, the project clarifies and corrects their meanings, providing for more “accurate” histories of designed landscapes in early America.<br />
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The project has been organized according to three rubrics: 100 keywords, 100 key places, and 100 significant people. Without claiming to be comprehensive, this project models an approach to the history of landscapes and gardens that helps scholars understand past conditions, uncover former appearances, and better apprehend the experiences and meanings of designed environments as they were built, and also as they were imagined.<br />
This site is a companion to the book [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300101744/keywords-american-landscape-design ''Keywords in American Landscape Design'' (Yale University Press, 2010)]. <br />
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Read more about CASVA [https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/research-projects.html research projects]. <br />
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<div style="font-size:14px; font-family: sans-serif; color:#777777; line-height:2em;">Banner Images:</div><br />
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<div style="font-size:14px; font-family: sans-serif; line-height:2em;">[[:File:0464.jpg|Nicolino Calyo, ''Harlem, the Country House of Dr. Edmondson'', 1834]]<br><br />
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<div style="font-size:14px; font-family: sans-serif;">[[:File:1213.jpg|C. A. Hedin, “Front Elevation on Live Oak Street,” 1853]]<br></div><br />
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<div style="font-size:14px; font-family: sans-serif;">[[:File:0072.jpg|Thomas Jefferson, Plan of an orchard at Monticello, c. 1778]]<br></div><br />
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<div style="font-size:14px; font-family: sans-serif;">[[:File:0033.jpg|Robert Mills, ''Plan of the Mall'', Washington, DC, 1841]]</div><br />
{{break}}</div>V-ikeshoji-orlatihttps://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php?title=Project_Introduction&diff=35214Project Introduction2018-09-24T18:56:07Z<p>V-ikeshoji-orlati: added a space between sentences in paragraph 4 of 'project methodology.'</p>
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<div>The digital resource ''History of Early American Landscape Design (HEALD)'' is an illustrated historical inquiry into landscape and garden design in America from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries that explores the relationships between textual and visual representations of landscape design. With an extensive corpus of original texts and images, it offers a discussion of select terms, places, and people from this period, modeling an approach to interpreting early American gardens and landscapes as they were both imagined and actually built. Drawing upon a wealth of newly compiled documentation, ''HEALD'' brings together interpretive essays, textual citations, and images in an effort to reveal landscape history as integral to the study of American cultural history. <br />
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This digital database results from a research project of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts under the direction of Therese O’Malley, and is based on the book ''Keywords in American Landscape Design'' (Yale University Press, 2010). The ''Keywords'' title was inspired by Raymond Williams’s book ''Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society'', because both works share a cultural rather than etymological approach to language.<ref>Raymond Williams, ''Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/FQM4WRPK/q/keywords, view on Zotero]. Two other books, both written by advisors to the project, served as models: Michel Conan, ''Dictionnaire Historique de l’Art des Jardins'' (Paris: Hazan Editions, 1997), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8BNKBWXF view on Zotero], and Carl R. Lounsbury, ed., ''An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/UK5TCUQQ/q/An%20Illustrated%20Glossary%20of%20Early%20Southern%20Architecture%20and%20Landscape, view on Zotero].</ref> The ''HEALD'' database resource, like its predecessor, ''Keywords'', establishes an historically documented vocabulary for describing landscape and garden features that arises out of contemporaneous primary materials. <br />
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In its expanded digital edition, ''HEALD'' incorporates many more features than the original Keywords project, including, most importantly, pages devoted to one hundred significant Places and one hundred notable People; nearly 2,000 images, each with detailed object pages; enriched archival materials; and a bibliographic feature that links directly to thousands of digitized sources. For ease of navigation, the website uses an open-source MediaWiki format because of its familiarity for web users worldwide, and also because of its utilization of a popular, scripting language that is especially suited to web development. <br />
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The corpus of essays and archival materials—both textual and visual—can be examined comparatively, enabling users to see designed landscapes in dynamic contexts and through materials that are in many cases rare and difficult to access. Due to the flexible nature of the digital format, scholars will be able to consider gardens and landscape as part of a larger set of processes—aesthetic, social, economic, and political—rather than as static locations. The website’s flexibility and ease of navigation will permit the user to direct how the information is compiled, organized, and viewed.<br />
<hr><br />
<h2><span style="font-size: 22px;">Project Methodology</span></h2><br />
<br />
From its inception, the major effort of this project was gathering evidence of gardens as they were represented textually and visually in a variety of documents and objects. These two bodies of evidence are intimately related, and it is at their intersection that landscape history becomes most powerful as an avenue of inquiry into American cultural history. Each source demands an understanding of the particular conventions, contexts, and issues surrounding it. <br />
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The primary task was selecting terms found in primary historical sources. In developing the project, the focus was not on creating a comprehensive list encompassing every term referenced in writings on landscape design, but rather on identifying the significant elements as indicated by the frequency of use, the richness of the visual record associated with them, the contemporary importance of the concepts they conveyed, and their position in the history of landscape design. We began with a list of sources, rather than a list of terms, letting the voices in the works determine the words selected. The initial list of selected terms was quite long, but fairly quickly the repetition, detail, and significance of a smaller number of those terms became evident. The final one hundred terms are truly “keywords” in the history of American landscape design.<ref>In order to keep the scope of the project within reasonable limits, species names, botanical terms, and other words relating to plant material were not included. Verbs related to the maintenance, propagation, and construction were also not considered (ex., “pleach,” “prune,” “topiary”), except as examples such as [[espalier]] and [[walk]] where the verbs are synonymous with design features. Terms related more strictly to agriculture and husbandry were also excluded, although some, such as “barn,” “dairy,” “field,” and “springhouse,” were clearly integral to certain aspects of designed landscapes. A distinction was also made between descriptions of the natural scenery or the general countryside, albeit “improved,” and those of intentional designed landscapes. While the vocabulary of descriptions for the two types of landscape is often similar (see works listed in the bibliography by William Bartram and by William Wood), and while many of the same conventions and themes are evident in such writings, ''HEALD'' focuses on the particular context of the designed spaces. For an influential discussion of landscape types, see John Dixon Hunt, ''Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture'' (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 1–4, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/JCMHQZIP view on Zotero].</ref> They represent a spectrum of landscape features along a number of interpretive axes. These include both “high art” and “vernacular” features, stylistic and architectural terms, the common and the rare, features valued for their iconographical associations and those whose importance lay in their essential functions in the landscape. The corpus comprises terms of archaeological interest (landscape features that tend to have below-ground impact and can be recovered archaeologically) and terms of art historical interest (those of relevance to the interpretation of visual representations of the American landscape).<br />
<br />
The geographic boundaries of this project focus on sites in what is today the continental United States, with the vast majority of citations and images coming from the English colonies of the Eastern Seaboard and the states that they became in the new Republic. It does not include sites in Canada, the Caribbean, or Latin America.<ref>For Canadian sources, see Edwinna von Baeyer, ''A Selected Bibliography for Garden History in Canada'' (Ottawa: Environment Canada-Parks, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, 1987), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/TWIUQ83I/q/A%20Selected%20Bibliography%20for%20Garden%20History%20in%20Canada, view on Zotero].</ref> The temporal parameters range from the 17th century to the year 1852, which marks the death of landscape designer and theorist [[Andrew Jackson Downing]]. This date range encompasses the significant period of development of landscape-design vocabulary when books, such as [[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing]]’s ''Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'', and periodicals, such as his ''Horticulturist'', ushered in a new era for the transmission of landscape theory and the standardization of design vocabulary. <br />
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Due in part to the geographic and temporal range of the project, textual evidence is limited to English-language sources. Terms from other languages are included when they appear to have been used commonly in American English sources and when no American-English equivalent appears to have been used (for example, [[parterre]] and [[veranda]]). If a foreign-language term is used interchangeably with an American-English equivalent or in anglicized spelling, it is included within the English term record (for example, ''allée'' under [[alley]] and ''jet d’eau'' under [[jet]]). Citations from English-language translations of treatises are included, provided they were made prior to 1852 and known in America. Translated accounts have been included under the date of the translation, rather than the date of the original account, assuming that they reflect the vocabulary of the translator, a significant factor in the understanding of the passage. <br />
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References were compiled from published and unpublished primary sources such as diaries, correspondence, travelers’ accounts, treatises, newspapers, periodicals, drawings, insurance documents, maps, and almanacs. The secondary literature on American landscape design also provided information on primary sources, as well as discussions of the issues and themes of landscape design history.<ref>In these cases, the bibliographic reference reflects the published secondary source from which the primary source was taken.</ref> Of particular value were publications and other materials produced at historic sites. These included not only annual reports, newsletters, archaeological site reports, research reports, and brochures, but also a growing body of cultural landscape reports and inventories, which were helpful in locating otherwise unpublished images and descriptions and for summarizing archaeological investigations. Research in archives yielded some citations, but the vast majority of those presented were compiled from published sources. They also include generous contributions by scholars of their original research.<ref>Scholars who contributed original research include Carl Lounsbury, Barbara Wells Sarudy, Helen Tangires, and Dell Upton.</ref> <br />
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The data gathered do not represent a statistically significant sample of designed landscapes, but rather they reflect the history of research on American landscapes. Coverage is broader for the Chesapeake and mid-Atlantic regions, because of the concentration of sites and the preservation of records in these areas, and, as a result of these fortuitous circumstances, the wealth of garden history research pertaining to these regions. As a result of the 1852 end date for inclusion, the coverage for sites west of the Appalachians is sparse because landscape design in that area was generally not well developed until the second half of the 19th century. Furthermore, the restriction to English-language sources limits the information on garden practices in Dutch, Spanish, German, and French settlements, not to mention the built environments of Native or African-American peoples.<ref>The richness of American landscape design is clearly indebted to the heterogeneous influences of diverse European gardening traditions and Native American practice. Further research is needed concerning Native American precedents and the Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and French landscape design vocabulary and influence in colonial and early America.</ref> <br />
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The records for keyword terms vary considerably in length, in part because of the ubiquity of certain features ([[walk]] and [[fence]], for instance) as opposed to those found only in a small number of designed landscapes (for example, [[grotto]] and [[deer park]]). In some cases, a record is brief because the term it covers became significant in landscape-design vocabulary late in the period covered by this study. In still other cases, the term was rarely used in the historical period under study but has become important in the writing of landscape history, albeit anachronistically (for example, [[ferme ornée]] and “folly”).<br />
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The range in quantity of material is also due to the nature of garden discourse. Most travelers’ accounts and descriptions in letters were more likely to comment on the particular features seen in a garden, such as the fish [[pond]] or garden [[mount]], than wax eloquent on the advantages of the beautiful over the sublime or detail the distinguishing characteristics of the [[English style]] versus the [[Dutch style|Dutch]]. On the other hand, privies, although often decorative and a significant feature in the landscape (as at Poplar Forest and in the Yale University campus design), usually go unmentioned, perhaps for reasons of decorum. Many records, particularly those in deeds or advertisements, merely mention the presence of a garden and occasionally its most prominent features, offering little detailed description and even less commentary. As a result, the entries for style terms tend to be informed more heavily by garden treatises, which were promoting the concept of particular garden styles, and by a few individuals, such as [[Thomas Jefferson]], who were well versed in aesthetic debates and applied the principles to their own gardening endeavors.<br />
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The selection of Keywords embraces a spectrum of landscape design terms. Entries on topographic forms such as [[mound]] and [[slope]] and water features such as [[pond]] and [[basin]] explicate some of the basic building blocks of landscape design. Those on circulation routes such as [[walk]], [[avenue]], and [[drive]] elucidate how a visitor’s progression through the landscape was manipulated. Terms related to the organization of vision, such as [[prospect]], [[view]], and [[eminence]], reveal the visual logic of gardens and the importance of perception in the American landscape experience. Structures for keeping plants and animals, such as [[hothouse]], [[green-house]], and [[dovecote]], bring to the fore the intimate relationships of botanical knowledge, climate, technology, and husbandry to landscape design. By including terms such as [[orchard]], [[yard]], [[lawn]], and [[beehive]], the project addresses a variety of gardens from across the socioeconomic spectrum and includes a range of what are often counted as vernacular landscapes. Terms such as [[kitchen garden]] and [[icehouse]] speak to the intersection of domestic landscape design and changing market conditions in the early years of the nation. <br />
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By including terms often associated with the public sphere, such as [[common]], [[green]], and [[square]], the project also addresses the changing space of cities and towns and the issues surrounding their development. Landscape types such as [[botanic garden]], [[burying ground]], and [[park]] represent the diverse applications of landscape design and the variety of spaces that informed American landscape aesthetics. Planting arrangement terms such as [[shrubbery]], [[wilderness]], and [[grove]] reveal the complex and often misunderstood specific meanings of these important landscape design elements. Terms for ornaments such as [[urn]], [[vase]], [[statue]], and [[sundial]] highlight the importance of decorative objects that were often made of perishable material and have rarely survived. Stylistic terms help to penetrate the intricacies of aesthetic theory and changing fashion in landscape design taste.<ref>Within each of these term categories are many words that were not included. For instance, [[vase]], [[urn]], and [[pot]] are included but not “box.” [[Ice-house]] is included but not “dairy” or “spring-house.” [[English style|English]] and [[French style|French]] styles are included, but not “Italian.” [[Seat]] is included but not “bench.” In each case the selection of terms reflects the richness of the record of primary sources and the term’s relevance to the history of American landscape design while representing the broadest array of design vocabulary possible.</ref> <br />
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A premise of this project has been to be as inclusive as possible, with the aim of expanding not only the amount of information available on early American gardens, but also the range of garden types and the number of sites used as evidence for American garden history. The kinds of sources consulted, both verbal and visual, are as varied as possible. Images found on samplers and painted fire screens offer different perspectives on the representation of the American landscape as compared with the background of a commissioned portrait by a trained artist. So too, accounts in advertisements, deeds, and insurance records provide very different views from those found in [[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson]]’s musings on his landscaping efforts at [[Monticello]] or in [[Timothy Dwight]]’s record of his travels through New England. The best-known sites, such as [[Mount Vernon]], [[Montgomery Place]], the [[National Mall|Mall]] in Washington, [[Monticello]], [[Belfield]], [[Crowfield]], [[Elgin Botanic Garden]], the [[University of Virginia]], the [[Vale]], and [[Bartram Botanic Garden and Nursery|John Bartram’s garden]], still contribute an invaluable quantity of descriptions, documents, and images, but ''HEALD'' goes beyond these canonical landscapes to include sites of modest size and simple design.<br />
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This illustrated historical resource takes as one of its greatest tools, and yet one of its greatest challenges, the connection of word and image with the ultimate goal of elucidating the meaning of both. And yet, this recursive relationship of playing word against image and image against word highlights the subjectivity of both forms of representation. It calls to the fore the importance of the context of the image or the “speech act,” to borrow a phrase from linguistics, in the construction of the meaning of those visual and textual accounts. The variety of voices represented—the court officer concerned with a boundary dispute, the owner of a property for sale, the ambitious gardener, the clergyman promoting the security and prosperity of a young democracy—expands the scope of American landscape history. <br />
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But, by including anonymous articles, unknown artists, and otherwise obscure authors, the project opens itself up to the challenges of interpreting sources with little-known context. Thus, the entries are preceded by three introductory essays that relate the sites and the primary sources to broader currents of American landscape design history. The addition of Place and People pages to the database is made possible by the richness of the documentary evidence the project has amassed. While they are limited in number, they are wide ranging in the types of sites they examine and the various roles—proprietor, landscape designer, enslaved gardener—that they highlight. In this, the Places and People pages are exemplary in their breadth of consideration of the subject.<br />
<hr><br />
<br />
<h2><span style="font-size: 22px;">A Guide to Using ''HEALD''</span></h2><br />
<br />
Beyond background information and navigational elements, ''HEALD'' has several components accessed through the top menu bar: Introductory essays; the three Categories of Keywords, Places, and People, as well as Keyword Subjects; and Bibliography (the latter of which is located under the “About” tab). Within each Keyword, Place, or People page, the user can access further access images and primary and secondary references. <br />
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'''Introductory Essays:''' <br />
The first essay, by Therese O’Malley, focuses on the history of the sites themselves, relating changing design practices to the broader social and cultural currents of American landscape and garden history. Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, in the second essay, discusses the textual sources for landscape history, examining both the history of the sources and the theoretical aspects of issues to be addressed when using documentary evidence for garden history. The third essay, by Anne L. Helmreich and Therese O’Malley, discusses the visual representation of the American landscape, including both the theoretical challenges of interpreting visual evidence and the history of landscape images in America.<br />
<br />
'''Keywords:''' <br />
Each of the one hundred Keywords records includes an interpretive essay that discusses the shifts in the term’s historical meaning and usage. The essay traces, where possible, the design history of each keyword, including its form, function, and materials, while it raises issues of the social and cultural significance of the landscape feature. It is followed by the primary documents, drawn from wide range of verbal sources, such as diaries, correspondence, travel accounts, garden treatises, dictionaries, legal records, advertisements, and periodical literature. <br />
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On Keywords pages, text is subdivided to highlight the difference between common and prescriptive usage. “Usage” quotations contain the term in common language such as letters, inventories, surveys or diaries, while “citations” contain generally published definitions, treatises and dictionaries. This dichotomy often reveals regional varieties and changes over time as a professional vocabulary evolves.<ref>The treatises and dictionaries include European and American publications, although only those sources known to have been available in America before 1852 were consulted. See Kryder-Reid essay for further discussion of American garden literature.</ref> Each primary source is identified by a short citation of the bibliographical reference with full citations in the endnotes and linked to the project bibliography. <br />
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Images providing visual evidence for each entry, which were compiled from diverse media including paintings, prints, maps, textiles, drawings, and painted furniture and ceramics, appear throughout. Each image has its own object page that provides information about the artist, title, date, media, and source or repository. This feature in itself represents an unprecedented corpus of American garden imagery. <br />
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[[File:0942.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1, Anonymous, “Plan of a Suburban Garden,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''The Horticulturist'' 3, no. 8 (February 1849): pl. opp. p. 353.]]<br />
The degree of certainty with which words may be associated with images varies, so throughout the Keywords pages of ''HEALD'' a concerted effort has been made to use the most secure associations possible. Each caption includes, along with the above information, an indication of how the image and term relate to one another. To this end, there are three designations used within the gallery of images: inscribed, associated, and attributed. An “inscribed” image incorporates the word or is directly related to it through a key or an immediately accompanying text such as a caption or a description of the site published with the image. For example, ''The Horticulturist'' published a “Plan of a Suburban Garden” (taken from “an elaborate French work”) with an accompanying article which describes the site using the letters on the plan as orientation points [Fig. 1].<ref>Anonymous, “Design for a Suburban Garden,” ''The Horticulturist'' 3, no. 8 (February 1849): 380, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/U5E5BQ72 view on Zotero].</ref><br />
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[[File:1051.jpg|thumb|right|Fig. 2, Daniel Wadsworth, “[[Monte Video]], Approach to the House,” in [[Benjamin Silliman]], ''Remarks Made on a Short Tour between Hartford and Quebec, in the Autumn of 1819'' (1824), pl. opp. p. 16.]]<br />
An “associated” image is related to the term less directly by a contemporaneous description of the feature or an inscribed image of the same feature. For example, two engravings of [[Monte Video]] are published in [[Benjamin Silliman]]’s ''Remarks Made on a Short Tour between Hartford and Quebec'', which includes a description of the site, specifically commenting on the lake and the tower, both visible in one of the prints [Fig. 2].<ref>Benjamin Silliman, ''Remarks Made on a Short Tour Between Hartford and Quebec, in the Autumn of 1819'' (New Haven, CT: S. Converse, 1824); see description on pages 11 and 15 and the illustration bound between pages 16 and 17, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/B5VWTWM5/q/Remarks%20Made%20on%20a%20Short%20Tour%20Between%20Hartford%20and%20Quebec%2C%20in%20the%20Autumn%20of%201819, view on Zotero].</ref> A range of certainty exists in linking an image with an associated text. For example, Mount Vernon, a landscape that was continually modified, was visited and recorded by numerous visitors over the years, making it difficult at times to determine whether a particular feature described in a text is the same one depicted in an image.<br />
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[[File:0743.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 3, John Izard Middleton, “[[Greenhouse]],” 1813.]]<br />
The third category, “attributed” images, are those for which there are no inscribed terms or associated texts [Fig. 3]. Identification of the garden features visible in these images is based on comparative examples. The problems with interjecting modern identifications are not inconsequential and are discussed in more depth in the essay on visual representation of the landscape, but these attributed images offer the opportunity to include a range and variety of works not otherwise accessible. In this category are imaginary, allegorical, or instructive images that are often revealing of principles of landscape design and representation, even if they are not records of executed designs. Also in this category are naïve art and textiles, often by unknown artists, as well as lesser-known images from painted furniture, ceramics, and wall murals. <br />
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'''People and Places:'''<br />
Throughout the database, a selection of people and place names are hyperlinked to their own pages. The pages for People provide brief historical essays on a range of individuals of particular note or interest in which their relation to the theory and practice of early American gardens and landscapes design is discussed. The Place pages include historical essays on a selection of gardens or landscapes, in which key features, events, or associated figures are discussed. How the site evolved over time and, when possible, a statement of the site’s current condition, and geographic coordinates are included. The essays for both People and Place pages are followed by citations and a gallery of images related to the subject of the page. Other resources include links to relevant external websites and maps when appropriate. <br />
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'''Keyword Subjects:'''<br />
This general search function under “categories” in the menu bar assists in both browsing by design genres and also locating a term for which the reader has an illustration but no name. In the case of the latter, the entries for “plant-keeping structure” or “water feature” direct the reader to specific types of garden structures such as [[orangery]], [[hothouse]], and [[conservatory]], or to types of water features such as [[basin]], [[canal]], [[fountain]], and [[pond]]. <br />
<br />
'''Bibliography''' <br />
The extensive bibliography comprises all published and manuscript sources used in this project. It was built with Zotero, a free, open-source reference software that can manage bibliographic data and related research materials. It many cases it links to digitized editions of the primary sources. Furthermore, the user can add the source to one’s own personal Zotero library. <br />
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Taken as a whole, the ''HEALD'' website provides both an overview and in-depth resource of key terms, places in public, private, and institutional realms, and a wide array of people—designers, writers, patrons, artists, theorists, professionals, and amateurs—that together contribute to a rich and vibrant picture of a significant chapter in the history of American garden and landscape design in the colonial, early national, and antebellum periods.<br />
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==<span style="font-size: 22px;">Notes</span>==<br />
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