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History of Early American Landscape Design

Arbor

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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.”


  • Anonymous, 9 February 1734, describing a propertyfor sale on Hog-Island, near Charleston, S.C. (South Carolina Gazette)
“On the Island is a New Dwelling House[with]. . . . A delightful Wilderness with shadyWalks and Arbours, cool in the hottest Seasons. Apiece of Garden-ground where all the best kinds ofFruits and Kitchen Greens are produced plantedwith Orange-, Apple-, Peach-, Nectarine-, andPlumb-trees.”


  • Anonymous, 28 October 1736, describing arental property in Wicaco, Pa. (Pennsylvania Gazette)
“The House late of Philip Johns, deceased,near the Swede’s Church at Wicaco; with a Garden,a small Orchard, some Pasture Ground,Brewhouse, Stable, and Arbors convenient forentertaining Company; the House being veryaccustomed as a Tavern.”


  • Anonymous, 1746, describing in the VirginiaGazette the celebration of the English victory atCulloden in Newcastle, Va. (quoted in Lounsbury1994: 7)
“where a handsome Dinner was provided; along Arbour was set up, in which 50 Gentlemenand Ladies din’d.”


  • Honyman, Robert, 1781, describing HanoverCounty, Va. (1939: 401)
“There was not one Tent in the British army,all of them lying under temporary sheds orarbours, made with boughs of Trees, fence rails&c., even officers of the highest rank.”


  • Anonymous, 1784, describing in the Magazine of American History a barbecue in Westmoreland County, Va. (quoted in Lounsbury 1994: 8)
“We then dine[d] sumptuously under a large shady tree or an arbour made of green bushes.”


  • Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 14 July 1787, describing Gray’s Tavern, Philadelphia, Pa. (1987: 1:275)
“We then rambled over the Gardens, which are large—seemed to be in a number of detachedareas, all different in size and form. The alleys were none of them straight, nor were there anytwo alike. At every end, side, and corner, there were summer-houses, arbors covered with vines orflowers, or shady bowers encircled with trees andflowering shrubs, each of which was formed in a different taste.”


  • Constantia [pseud.], 24 June 1790, “Description of Gray’s Gardens, Pennsylvania” (Massachusetts Magazine 3: 415)
“At every turn shaded seats are artfully contrived, and the ground abounds with arbours, alcoves, and summer houses, which are handsomely adorned with odoriferous flowers.”


  • Southgate, Eliza, 6 July 1802, describing Elias Hasket Derby Farm, Peabody, Mass. (quoted in Kimball 1940: 76)
“at the upper end of the garden there was a beautiful arbour formed of a mound of turf and ‘twas surrounded by a thick row of poplar trees which branched out quite to the bottom and so close together that you could not see through.”


  • Jefferson, Thomas, c. 1804, describing improvements for Monticello, plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, Va. (quoted in Martin 1991: 157)
“Through the whole line [of temples] from 1. to 4. have the walk covered by an arbor, to wit, locust forks set in the group crossed by poles at top & lathes on these. Grape vines principally to cover the top. The sides quite open.”


  • Anonymous, 3 October 1828, “Parmentier’s Horticultural Garden,” describing André Parmentier’s horticultural and botanical garden, Brooklyn, N.Y. (New England Farmer 7: 85)
“To the left of the garden an avenue leads to a Rustic Arbor curiously constructed of the crooked limbs of trees, in their rough state, covered with bark and moss; from the top of this arbor a view of the whole garden, and the surrounding scenery is exhibited, extending to Staten Island, the bay, Governor’s Island, and the city; at some distance from the rustic arbor is the French saloon, a beautiful oval, skirted with privet.” [see Fig. 4]


  • Buckingham, James Silk, April 1840, describing the garden of Father George Rapp, Economy, Pa. (1842: 227)
“This [the garden] covered about an acre and half of ground, and was neatly laid out in lawns, arbours, and flower-beds, with two prettily ornamented open octagonal arcades, each supporting a circular dome over a fountain.”


  • Committee of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, September 1845, describing its annual exhibition in Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted inBoyd 1929: 98)
“The arbor, the second in order, was a handsome design of a square form, with a circular table in the centre, and within each, angle seats, which were occasionally occupied with lady visitors, adding to its attractions and giving the finish to the object.”


  • Anonymous, January 1850, “A Few words on Rustic Arbours” (Horticulturist 4: 320)
“The most useful and most agreeable of all these [rustic seats] is the simple rustic arbor, with projecting roof, covered with thatch or bark. I send you herewith (See FRONTISPIECE) sketches of two of these, copied from a French volume on 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

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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