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===Usage===
 
===Usage===
  
Smith, John, 1612, describing Native American  
+
* Smith, John, 1612, describing Native American life in Virginia (quoted in Billings 1975: 214–15)  
life in Virginia (quoted in Billings 1975: 214–15)  
 
  
“Their buildings and habitations are for the  
+
:“Their buildings and habitations are for the most part by the rivers or not farre distant from some fresh spring. Their houses are built like our Arbors of small young springs bowed and tyed, and so close covered with mats or the barkes of trees very handsomely, that not withstanding either winde raine or weather, they are as warme as stoves.”  
most part by the rivers or not farre distant from  
 
some fresh spring. Their houses are built like our  
 
Arbors of small young springs bowed and tyed,  
 
and so close covered with mats or the barkes of  
 
trees very handsomely, that not withstanding  
 
either winde raine or weather, they are as warme  
 
as stoves.”  
 
  
Strachey, William, 1612, describing Native  
+
* Strachey, William, 1612, describing Native American settlements in Virginia (quoted in Wright and Freund 1967: 78)  
American settlements in Virginia (quoted in  
 
Wright and Freund 1967: 78)  
 
  
“As for their [Indian] howses, who knoweth  
+
:“As for their [Indian] howses, who knoweth one of them knoweth them all, even the Chief kings house yt self, for they be all alike builded one to another, they are like gardein arbours, (at best like our sheppardes Cottages,) made yet handsomely enough, though without strength or gaynes; Gaynes: gain B, notches, or mortises, as in a timber, wall, etc. for a gorder or oint. of such young plants as they can pluck up, bow, and make the greene toppes meete togither in fashion of a rownd roofe, which they thatch with mattes, throwne over, the walls are made with barkes of trees.”
one of them knoweth them all, even the Chief kings  
 
house yt self, for they be all alike builded one to  
 
another, they are like gardein arbours, (at best like  
 
our sheppardes Cottages,) made yet handsomely  
 
enough, though without strength or gaynes;  
 
Gaynes: gain B, notches, or mortises, as in a timber,  
 
wall, etc. for a gorder or oint. of such young plants  
 
as they can pluck up, bow, and make the greene  
 
toppes meete togither in fashion of a rownd roofe,  
 
which they thatch with mattes, throwne over, the  
 
walls are made with barkes of trees.”  
 
  
Anonymous, 9 February 1734, describing a prop-Southgate, Eliza, 6 July 1802, describing Elias
 
erty for sale on Hog-Island, near Charleston, S.C. Hasket Derby Farm, Peabody, Mass. (quoted in
 
(South Carolina Gazette) Kimball 1940: 76)
 
“On the Island is a New Dwelling House “at the upper end of the garden there was a
 
[with]. . . . A delightful Wilderness with shady beautiful arbour formed of a mound of turf and
 
Walks and Arbours, cool in the hottest Seasons. A ‘twas surrounded by a thick row of poplar trees
 
piece of Garden-ground where all the best kinds of which branched out quite to the bottom and so
 
Fruits and Kitchen Greens are produced planted close together that you could not see through.”
 
with Orange-, Apple-, Peach-, Nectarine-, and
 
Plumb-trees.” Jefferson, Thomas, c. 1804, describing improvements
 
for Monticello, plantation of Thomas Jef-
 
Anonymous, 28 October 1736, describing a ferson, Charlottesville, Va. (quoted in Martin 1991:
 
rental property in Wicaco, Pa. (Pennsylvania 157)
 
Gazette) “Through the whole line [of temples] from
 
“The House late of Philip Johns, deceased, 1. to 4. have the walk covered by an arbor, to wit,
 
near the Swede’s Church at Wicaco; with a Gar-locust forks set in the group crossed by poles at
 
den, a small Orchard, some Pasture Ground, top & lathes on these. Grape vines principally to
 
Brewhouse, Stable, and Arbors convenient for cover the top. The sides quite open.”
 
entertaining Company; the House being very
 
accustomed as a Tavern.” Anonymous, 3 October 1828, “Parmentier’s Horticultural
 
Garden,” describing André Parmentier’s
 
Anonymous, 1746, describing in the Virginia horticultural and botanical garden, Brooklyn, N.Y.
 
Gazette the celebration of the English victory at (New England Farmer 7: 85)
 
Culloden in Newcastle, Va. (quoted in Lounsbury “To the left of the garden an avenue leads to a
 
1994: 7) Rustic Arbor curiously constructed of the crooked
 
“where a handsome Dinner was provided; a limbs of trees, in their rough state, covered with
 
long Arbour was set up, in which 50 Gentlemen bark and moss; from the top of this arbor a view
 
and Ladies din’d.” of the whole garden, and the surrounding scenery
 
is exhibited, extending to Staten Island, the bay,
 
Honyman, Robert, 1781, describing Hanover Governor’s Island, and the city; at some distance
 
County, Va. (1939: 401) from the rustic arbor is the French saloon, a beau“
 
There was not one Tent in the British army, tiful oval, skirted with privet.” [see Fig. 4]
 
all of them lying under temporary sheds or
 
arbours, made with boughs of Trees, fence rails Buckingham, James Silk, April 1840, describing
 
&c., even officers of the highest rank.” the garden of Father George Rapp, Economy, Pa.
 
(1842: 227)
 
Anonymous, 1784, describing in the Magazine of “This [the garden] covered about an acre and
 
American History a barbecue in Westmoreland half of ground, and was neatly laid out in lawns,
 
County, Va. (quoted in Lounsbury 1994: 8) arbours, and flower-beds, with two prettily orna“
 
We then dine[d] sumptuously under a large mented open octagonal arcades, each supporting a
 
shady tree or an arbour made of green bushes.” circular dome over a fountain.”
 
Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 14 July 1787, describing Committee of the Pennsylvania HorticulGray’s
 
Tavern, Philadelphia, Pa. (1987: 1:275) tural Society, September 1845, describing its
 
“We then rambled over the Gardens, which are annual exhibition in Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in
 
large—seemed to be in a number of detached Boyd 1929: 98)
 
areas, all different in size and form. The alleys “The arbor, the second in order, was a hand-
 
were none of them straight, nor were there any some design of a square form, with a circular table
 
two alike. At every end, side, and corner, there in the centre, and within each, angle seats, which
 
were summer-houses, arbors covered with vines or were occasionally occupied with lady visitors,
 
flowers, or shady bowers encircled with trees and adding to its attractions and giving the finish to
 
flowering shrubs, each of which was formed in a the object.”
 
different taste.”
 
Anonymous, January 1850, “A Few words on
 
Constantia [pseud.], 24 June 1790, “Description Rustic Arbours” (Horticulturist 4: 320)
 
of Gray’s Gardens, Pennsylvania” (Massachusetts “The most useful and most agreeable of all
 
Magazine 3: 415) these [rustic seats] is the simple rustic arbor, with
 
“At every turn shaded seats are artfully con-projecting roof, covered with thatch or bark. I
 
trived, and the ground abounds with arbours, send you herewith (See FRONTISPIECE) sketches
 
alcoves, and summer houses, which are hand-of two of these, copied from a French volume on
 
somely adorned with odoriferous flowers.” garden decorations. I have had one of these executed
 
in a secluded spot, and the effect is highly
 
satisfactory, and a covered arbor like this is agreeable
 
at all seasons of the year, when a walk in the
 
garden is sought after. [see Fig. 5]
 
 
“Rustic work, made of branches of trees indiscriminately,
 
and exposed to the full action of the
 
weather, perishes very speedily. But if it is protected
 
from the rains by being under the shelter of
 
an overhanging roof, as for example, covered like
 
these arbors, it will last from 10 to 15 years without
 
repairs. But by far the best material, where it can
 
be obtained, is the wood of red cedar, as it will
 
endure for 20 years or more. The stems of young
 
cedars are usually straight, and may be split in
 
halves so as to form excellent pieces for forming
 
the inlaying or panel-work of the insides of rustic
 
arbors, as shown in the figures; and the larger
 
limbs will form good pillars and lattice work for
 
the open portions of the exterior. The frame of
 
such arbors as these, is made by setting posts,
 
cedar or other, with the bark on, at the corners, an
 
then nailing rough boards between the posts, in
 
those compartments that are to be worked close.
 
Over these boards the halved or split rods, (those
 
from one or two inches in diameter, are preferable),
 
are nailed on so as to form any pleasing patterns
 
which the taste or fancy may dictate.”
 
 
Committee on the Capitol Square, Richmond
 
City Council, 26 July 1851, describing John Notman’s
 
plans for the Capitol Square, Richmond,
 
Va. (quoted in Greiff 1979: 162)
 
 
“The most beautiful feature of the contemplated
 
alterations of the Square, however, will be
 
found in the arrangement of the trees and shrubbery.
 
Instead of planting these in parallel rows,
 
like an ordinary orchard some attention will be
 
paid to landscape gardening—groves, arbours,
 
parterres, and fountains will combine to render
 
the Square a place of delightful resort.”
 
 
===Citations===
 
===Citations===
  

Revision as of 19:45, December 9, 2015

History

One of the earliest written descriptions of an arbor, as understood by Anglo-American travelers and settlers, comes from William Strachey’s statement in 1612 that the houses of indigenous peoples of Virginia were “like gardein arbours”: covered shelters made of tightly knit vegetation, large enough to accommodate several people. In design, this structure corresponds with what John James’s translation (1712) of French treatise writer A.-J. Dézallier d’Argenville described as a “natural” arbor, made by manipulating existing vegetation with artificially introduced supports (as opposed to an “artificial” arbor, fabricated from introduced materials, such as lattices).

Despite Dézallier d’Argenville’s attempt to define arbor with great specificity, many pre-nineteenth-century accounts of gardens in America describe arbors only vaguely, perhaps due to the overlap between arbor and bower, which were nearly interchangeable in dictionary definitions of this period. For example, Ephraim Chambers (1741–43), Samuel Johnson (1755), and Thomas Sheridan (1789) each defined an arbor as a bower. [1] Nevertheless, European treatise writers, such as Dézallier d’Argenville (1712), argued for differences between arbors and bowers, perhaps reflecting the arbor’s origins in distinct seventeenth-century garden structures built to provide shade, such as berceaux, cabinets, galleries, and salons. In the American context, lexicographer Noah Webster also attempted to maintain a distinction between arbors and bowers, using shape as the distinguishing factor: bowers were “round or square” whereas arbors were “long and arched” (see Bower).

Webster’s 1828 definition of arbor—a lattice frame covered with vegetation—corresponds to the most common arbor form in nineteenth-century America. This frame could be composed of a variety of materials, from Thomas Jefferson’s forked locust limbs to the finished wood employed in the arbors attached to cottages designed by A. J. Downing [Fig. 1]. Within this general form, designs of arbors could vary, typically in correspondence to their function, and they ranged from inverted, U-shaped structures, that often bridged garden walks [Figs. 2 and 3] to structures that resembled garden seats or summerhouses. [2] Most designs could support vegetation, which enhanced their use as shaded shelters. American arbors also frequently used grapes as support vegetation. Such arbors (also called graperies) served both material and aesthetic purposes, providing both growing spaces for grapes and also structural links between different spaces and features of the garden.

Aesthetically, arbors served to frame and punctuate garden walks and views. The “rustic” arbor at Parmentier’s horticultural and botanical garden in Brooklyn, N.Y., for example, resembled a small, open house and served as a termination to a garden walk (it was also identified as a prospect tower) [Fig. 4]. The arbor’s style, materials, and manner of construction were dictated by the overall style of the garden in which it was to appear. A. J. Downing, for example, adopted a “rustic” style for those arbors placed in rural or “picturesque” settings [Figs. 5 and 6]. In several nineteenth-century treatises, in keeping with the developing tendency to assign stylistic forms to specific nation-states, writers (such as J. C. Loudon) distinguished between Italian and French arbor forms, which were differentiated from American forms by their greater use of elaborated decorative trellises or lattice work.

Arbors could be found in both private residential spaces, such as Father Rapp’s garden in Economy, and public gardens and grounds, such as Gray’s Tavern in Philadelphia. The shaded shelter provided by arbors led to their use as outdoor living spaces. In a design for a cottage for a country clergyman published in the Horticulturist, Downing proposed attaching an arbor to the house, near the front porches, entrance, and veranda, where it served as a shaded seating area [Fig. 7]. A number of eighteenth-century descriptions of arbors in America delineate their use for outdoor dining and entertainment.

Arbors could substitute for other forms of covered shelter, as in the case of the British army, which, according to Robert Honyman (1781), erected “temporary” arbors with “boughs of Trees, fence rails &c.” Such comments also indicate that arbors could be either temporary structures for short-term usage or permanent additions to the designed landscape.

-- Anne L. Helmreich

Texts

Usage

  • Smith, John, 1612, describing Native American life in Virginia (quoted in Billings 1975: 214–15)
“Their buildings and habitations are for the most part by the rivers or not farre distant from some fresh spring. Their houses are built like our Arbors of small young springs bowed and tyed, and so close covered with mats or the barkes of trees very handsomely, that not withstanding either winde raine or weather, they are as warme as stoves.”
  • Strachey, William, 1612, describing Native American settlements in Virginia (quoted in Wright and Freund 1967: 78)
“As for their [Indian] howses, who knoweth one of them knoweth them all, even the Chief kings house yt self, for they be all alike builded one to another, they are like gardein arbours, (at best like our sheppardes Cottages,) made yet handsomely enough, though without strength or gaynes; Gaynes: gain B, notches, or mortises, as in a timber, wall, etc. for a gorder or oint. of such young plants as they can pluck up, bow, and make the greene toppes meete togither in fashion of a rownd roofe, which they thatch with mattes, throwne over, the walls are made with barkes of trees.”

Citations

Images

Notes

  1. Noah Webster, in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), defined a pergola as an Italian-derived word meaning “a kind of arbor.” In our study, however, no usage examples of pergola were identified before 1850, suggesting that this term was not a common one for arbor. By 1848, in a reprint of the dictionary, Webster offered a different definition of pergola that suggests that the term was still relatively obscure. Pergola was then defined as “a sort of gallery or balcony in a garden, or a terrace overhanging one” found in “ancient architecture.” view on Zotero.
  2. This second form was quite prevalent in British treatises. In 1799 Charles Marshall equated arbors with summerhouses; this definition was continued in G. Gregory’s A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1816) and elaborated by the garden writers J. C. Loudon (1826), George William Johnson, and Jane Loudon (1845), all of whom stipulated that an arbor was a seat. view on Zotero.

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