Virgil Warder

Virgil Warder (1713–after 1793) was an African American slave who served for many years as gardener at Springettsbury, the Penn family estate on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

History

Virgil Warder spent his early life at Grove Place, a plantation in Falls Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, owned by Joseph Warder (d. 1775). He was about twenty years old when Joseph Warder sold him to Thomas Penn (1702–1775), a fellow Quaker, on January 26, 1734. Penn had arrived in Pennsylvania from England two years earlier in order to assume the role of Proprietor. Warder is variously described as his “house servant” and “body servant” or valet. According to the Philadelphia brewer and revolutionary leader Timothy Matlack (1736–1829), Warder also worked as a laborer under the charge of Penn’s gardener, James Alexander (d. 1778), most likely after Penn’s return to England in 1741. Although Matlack locates Warder and Alexander at Pennsbury, the Penn family’s plantation in Morrisville, contemporary sources make clear that Warder actually worked at Springettsbury, the suburban estate on the outskirts of Philadelphia, established in the 1680s by Pennsylvania’s original Proprietor William Penn.

Traces of Warder’s agricultural activities survive in a bill issued to Thomas Penn on April 7, 1752, for “a scythe for Virgil’s use” and “2 whetstones for d[itt]o.” Following James Alexander’s death in 1778, Warder assumed his responsibilities, taking charge of the garden and greenhouse. He became a well-known fixture of the place, conducting visitors through the gardens and greenhouse. Both Deborah Norris Logan and Elizabeth Drinker recalled the “curious aloe,” originally planted by James Alexander and subsequently cultivated by Warder. When it finally bloomed in August 1778, Warder was besieged by curious crowds from Philadelphia who came to see it (view text).

Warder was named in the will of Deborah Morris (1724–1793), a daughter of the wealthy Quaker brewer and politician Anthony Morris (1682–1763) and the owner of extensive property in her own right. In her will, dated March 16, 1793, Morris directed her executors to sell “my lot of ground in Seventh Street in the said city [Philadelphia], now in the tenure of Virgil Warder a blackman.” Although the extent of Warder’s relationship with Morris is unknown, her will indicates that she shared his interest in ancient Philadelphia gardens, and that she was highly sympathetic to the plight of enslaved African Americans. The ancestral Philadelphia mansion in which she lived had been erected around 1686 by her grandfather in Mulberry Court, which backed up to the lot on Seventh Street occupied by Warder. The house featured a garden that Morris went to extraordinary lengths to protect in perpetuity through the terms of her will. Morris’s will also made provisions for four annuities to benefit the Society of Friends’ Free Negro School in Philadelphia. Toward the end of the document, she articulated the sense of injustice that motivated her generosity: “And before I conclude my will, I feel it necessary to mention that I hope none of my dear relatives will think my donations in favor of the free negro school too large, as it appears to me to be a debt due to the posterity of those whom our predecessors kept in bondage.”

As a result of his longevity (already about eighty years old at the time he was mentioned in Deborah Morris’s will) and his long period of service at Springettsbury, one of Philadelphia’s oldest estates, Warder was viewed as a living historic relic by younger generations of Philadelphians. His wife, Susannah (1701–1809), the daughter of a cook at Pennsbury, was even more celebrated for her longevity than her husband. When she died at the extraordinary age of 109, her obituary appeared in numerous American and British newspapers and journals. In recognition of their many years of faithful service, both Warders reportedly received an annuity from the Penn family. It is unclear whether they also received their freedom.

—Robyn Asleson

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Texts

• Obituary of Susanna Warder, July 7, 1809, Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser: 3

“DIED, on the 30th of last month, in the hundred and ninth year of her age, Susanna Warder, formerly the wife of Virgil Warder, who was one of the house servants of William Penn [sic], proprietor of Pennsylvania.

“This aged black woman, (a daughter of one of his cooks) was born at his mansion house in Pennsbury Manor, in March 1701, being the same year in which he left the province on his return to England.

“At that time, Philadelphia, now the largest city in the United States, was a wilderness, the inhabitants of which were chiefly Indians, of the Delaware and other tribes.

“Susanna was tall and streight in her person, graceful in all her deportments, agreeable in her manners, and temperate in her speech and mode of living.

“Her memory was good, and her sight, which improved towards the close of her life, remarkably clear; but of late time she became hard of hearing.

“The Penn family, respecting her faithful services in the time of her youth, allowed an annual sum to support her comfortably, when she was not able to work, to the end of her days.”

• Matlack, Timothy, January 11, 1817, letter to William Findley (Pickering 1826: 185)

“Penn left a family of slaves behind him; one of which I have often conversed with, and he always spoke of himself as Penn’s body servant: He lived to extreme old age, and continued a gardener at Pennsbury-house [sic], near this city, comfortably provided for to the last of his days.”

• Logan, Deborah Norris, October 10, 1826, diary entry (quoted in White 2008: 19) back up to History

“The Gardens of Springetsbury were in full beauty in my youth, and were really very agreeable after the old fashion, with Parterres, Gravelled Walks, a Labyrinth of Horn-beam and a little wilderness — And the Green house, under the Superintendence of Old Virgil the Gardener, produced a flowering Aloe which almost half the town went to see, produced a comfortable Revenue to the old man — Soon after the house was burned down by accident; and now quantities of the yellow Blossoms of Broom in spring time mark the place . . . ‘where once the garden smiled.’”

• Watson, John Fanning, 1830, Annals of Philadelphia (1830: 534)

“There were black people, whose surname was Warder. They had been house servants of William Penn [sic], and because of their great age were provided for by the Penn family, living in the kitchen part of the house at Springetsbury. Virgil was probably upwards of 100 years of age when he died. His wife died in 1782; and there is something concerning both of them to be seen published in Bradford’s Gazette of that time. The aged Timothy Matlack told me he remembered talking with Virgil often about the year 1745, and that he was then quite grey headed, but very active. When Matlack saw him there he was under charge of James Alexander, the gardener.”

• Watson, John Fanning, 1844, Annals of Philadelphia (1844: 2:478–79)

“Springettsberry . . . was once cultivated in the style of a gentleman’s seat, and occupied by the Penn family. . . .

“Celebrated as it was, for its display and beauty, now almost nothing remains. . . . Its former groves of tall cedars, and ranges of catalpa trees are no more. For many years the Penn family continued to have the place kept up in appearance, even after they ceased to make it a residence. James Alexander, called Penn’s gardener, occupied the premises; and old Virgil Warder, and his wife, servant—blacks, lived there to an old age, occupying the kitchen as their home, on an annuity (as it was said) from the Penn family—paid to them till their deaths, about the year 1782–83. For many years, the young people of the city—before the war of Independence, visited Springettsberry in May time, to gather flowers, and to talk with and see old gray-headed Virgil, who had always much to say about the Penns of former days. It was all enchanted ground to the young— . . .

“In the year 1777 [sic], old Virgil had quite a harvest, derived from the blooming there—a great wonder then—of the great American aloe, which had long been nursed in the green-house. It was visited by many—and all had their gifts ready for the old black man.

“The garden had evergreens, made into arbours, and nicely trimmed and clipped in formal array. There was also a seeming wilderness of shade, with gravel paths meandering through, &c.”

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