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History of Early American Landscape Design

Charles François Adrien le Paulmier, le Chevalier d’Annemours

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Charles François Adrien le Paulmier, le Chevalier d’Annemours (1742- 1821) served as French Consul General at Baltimore from 1779 to 1793. He developed formal gardens at his homes in Baltimore and Louisiana.


History

After leaving his native Normandy for Martinique at the age of twelve, the Chevalier D'Annemours divided his time between France, England, the West Indies, and America, where he established a number of business ventures in Philadelphia and made influential connections. [1] Between 1773 and 1776, while resident in France, he wrote four memoirs on the subject of the American colonies. [2] Returning to America in 1777, he represented France in various official capacities, including Consul General at Baltimore for the five southern states of Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. [3] An amateur student of natural history, D'Annemours was elected a foreign member of the American Philosophical Society in 1783 and received a visit from his compatriot, the French botanist André Michaux, on August 24, 1789. [4]


D'Annemours demonstrated his high regard for America by erecting a monument in honor of Christopher Columbus at Belmont, his private estate on the outskirts of Baltimore. The monument, which took the form of an obelisk over 44 feet in height, was dedicated on October 12, 1792, the 300th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. [5] D’Annemours retired from service when the Baltimore consulate was closed in 1793, but preferred to remain in America rather than return to France. [6] In 1796 he purchased a plantation in the District of Ouachita in Spanish Louisiana, where he built a house and laid out formal English gardens. [7] Letters he wrote between 1796 and 1798 and a subsequent memoir of 1803 detail his efforts to promote agricultural development in the colony. [8] Hoping to interest the American Philosophical Society in publishing D'Annemours's "most excellent account of the Washita River," Thomas Jefferson sent it to the Society's secretary, John Vaughan, on May 5, 1805, together with a letter describing the Frenchman as "a man of science, good sense, & truth, and [who] may be relied on in whatever facts he states." [9]

--Robyn Asleson

Texts

References

Notes

  1. Anne Mézin, Les Consuls de France Au Siècle Des Lumières (1715-1792) (Ministère des affaires étrangères. Direction des archives et de la documentation, 1998), 398-99, view on Zotero; “Notice Sur Le Chevalier Charles François-Adrien le Paulmier d’Annemours,” ‘’Maryland Historical Magazine,’’ 5 (1910), 38-39, view on Zotero; Henry F. Thompson, “The Chevalier D’Annemours,” ‘’Maryland Historical Magazine’’, 1 (1906): 241, view on Zotero.
  2. Henry F. Thompson, “The Chevalier Palmier d’Annemours,” ‘’Maryland Historical Magazine’’, 1 (1906): 242, view on Zotero.
  3. Peter B. Hill, French Perceptions of the Early American Republic, 1783-1793, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988), 180: 6, 18, 49, 83, 90-91, 142, 168, view on Zotero; “Notice sur Le Chevalier Charles François-Adrien Le Paulmier d’Annemours,” 39-43 , view on Zotero; Henry F. Thompson, “The Chevalier D’Annemours,” ‘’Maryland Historical Magazine’’, 1 (1906): 243-44, view on Zotero; Francis Wharton, ‘’The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States’’ (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 5: 396, view on Zotero.
  4. André Michaux, " Journal de André Michaux," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 25, no. 122 (March 1889): 58.
  5. William Elleroy Curtis, ‘’Christopher Columbus: His Portraits and His Monuments: A Descriptive Catalogue’’, Part 2 (Chicago: The W. H. Lowdermilk Co., 1893), 43-44, view on Zotero see also Herbert Adams and Henry Wood, ‘’Columbus and His Discovery of America’’, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Tenth Series, vols. 10 and 11 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1892), 30-35, view on Zotero .
  6. “Notice sur Le Chevalier Charles François-Adrien Le Paulmier d’Annemours,” 43-45, view on Zotero; Thompson, 1906, 246, view on Zotero.
  7. Charles François Adrien Le Paulmier le Chevailier d’Annemours, ‘’Memoirs by Charles François Adrien Le Paulmier Le Chevalier D’Annemours,’’ ed. Wendy Bradley Richter, trans. Samuel Dorris Dickinson (Arkadelphia, Ark. : Clark County Historical Association : Institute for Regional Studies, Ouachita Baptist University, 1994), ____ view on Zotero; George Sabo III, “Review of Charles François Adrien Le Paulmier: Le Chevalier D’Annemours,” ‘’The Arkansas Historical Quarterly‘’, 54 (1995): 221, view on Zotero.
  8. Charles François Adrien Le Paulmier, chevalier d’Annemours “Memoir of Le Paulmier d’Annemours, Former Consul General of France in America, about the Ouachita District,” April 21, 1803, Pierre Clément de Laussat Papers, MSS 125, Box 4, Folder 148, Williams Research Center, The Historic New Orleans Collection, view on Zotero.
  9. Thomas Jefferson to John Vaughan, May 5, 1805, Founders Online, National Archives (http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-1679 [last update: 2015-02-20]).

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