Fence

Definition

Humphry Repton wrote in 1803 in reference to England that “every county has its peculiar mode of fencing, both in the construction of hedges and ditches, which belong rather to the farmer than the landscape gardener.” In America, where the tasks of partitioning, cultivating, and embellishing the landscape were considered inseparable, the distinction between farmer and gardener was less easily made. Frequent references to the fence in both the written and visual record place it among the most fundamental elements of the designed landscape in America. A fence, as dictionary definitions agree, enclosed areas such as gardens, cornfields, parks, woods, or groups of trees. As G. Gregory (1816) noted, the feature could be formed by a hedge, wall, ditch, or bank. Terms for different fence types abound in American landscape design vocabulary: blind, board, close, cradle, cross, double, foss, hurdle, invisible, live, open board, pale/paling, palisade, picket, post-and-plank, post-and-rail, snake, sunk, trellis, Virginia, wattle, wire, worm, and zigzag.

The choice of fence type was dictated by the materials available, local custom, and the need at hand. For instance, worm fences(also called zigzag, snake, split rail, or Virginia fences) did not require posts or post holes and therefore were easily moved to accommodate changing field use and avoided the problem of posts rotting in soil. They were also useful in areas where rocky soil made it difficult to dig post holes or in wooded areas where trees made straight fence lines impractical, as seen in the watercolor sketch by John Lewis Krimmel [Fig. 1]. Paled fences offered a more solid line of defense against deer and rabbits, but had less flexibility and required more labor and finished lumber [Fig. 2]. Such high fences were effective barriers for animals as well as humans, as attested by Robert Waln, Jr.’s 1825 description of the board fence at the Friends Asylum for the Insane in Pennsylvania.

Paling fences created visual barriers and were sometimes erected to screen unpleasant views or to provide privacy, particularly in urban settings [Fig. 3]. For instance, in 1857 John Fanning Watson complained that “in the usual selfish style of Philadelphia improved grounds” at William Bingham’s Philadelphia residence, “the whole was surrounded and hid from the public gaze by a high fence.” Fences were also used to direct the gaze, whether toward a house, as in Francis Guy’s chairback painting of Rose Hill in Baltimore [Fig. 4], or other focal point. In other cases, fences such as sunken types(later replaced by wire fences) were desired for their inconspicuous presence in the landscape. Numerous descriptions and horticultural advice columns praised the effect of unobstructed views created by enclosures that kept animals or human traffic at bay with minimal visibility (see Ha-Ha).

Fences were constructed from a variety of materials. In the Tidewater’s sedimentary soils where stone was scarce, wood was the most common material and was used mainly in paled, post-and-rail or board, and worm fences. Although types of wood that could be used were varied, a typical paling fence utilized different types of wood. For example, hard wood, such as locust, cedar, or oak, was often used for posts; wood with tensile strength, such as oak, poplar, or pine, was used for rails; and lightweight wood, such as pine, could be employed for the pales. Although worm fences [Fig. 5] have been documented in Delaware, New York, and as far north as Canada, they were so common in the Tidewater area that they were often identified as Virginia fences. Thomas Anburey even reported that New Englanders described a drunken man’s impaired movements as “making Virginia fences.” In southern New England’s glacier-formed topography, abundant fieldstone was used for stone walls, which sometimes were referred to as stone fences. Fences could also be created from live plants, predominantly thorn (hawthorn and buckthorn), although writers including Edward James Hooper (1842) and Charles Wyllys Elliott (1848) recommended osage orange, cedar, Chinese arbor vitae, privet, holly, honey and black locust, beech, willow, and hemlock. The advantages of live fences were a matter of great debate, particularly in early nineteenth-century publications that advocated the “new agriculture.” These writings included those by the New York and Massachusetts Agricultural Societies, and later, in periodical form, the Horticulturist. In addition to their durability and long-term cost savings, it was argued that live fences harmonized better with the surrounding landscape (see Hedge). A similar effect could also be achieved with other fences, as suggested by Edward Sayers (1838), by training “vines and creepers” to conceal old and unsightly fences.

Iron gates were used in the eighteenth century at such sites as Westover, on the James River, Va., and the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, and iron fences were employed for the fronts of elite dwellings and notable institutions. It was not, however, until the second quarter of the nineteenth century when the expansion of America’s domestic iron industry and advances in cast iron made iron fences affordable for those of more modest means. This availability is reflected in the more than one hundred fence patents that were registered between 1801 and 1857. Treatises, such as those by A. J. Downing (1849) and William H. Ranlett (1851), provided examples of fashionable designs to be installed in front of suburban yards. Elaborate iron-work fences were particularly popular as enclosures for urban parks [Fig. 6], educational institutions [Fig. 7], and family burial plots [Fig. 8]. These plots, with their elaborate fences, were favorite subjects in illustrated books of the new rural cemeteries [Fig. 9].

Despite the variety of materials and designs, fences shared many common functions. Garden fences, like walls, created micro-climates for plants: southern façades were ideal for promoting early harvests of fruit trees trained on espaliers or protecting tender nursery plants, while northern sides provided sheltered, shady spots in long dry summers. William Cobbett (1819) emphasized the value of fences as shelters in America, given its extremes of heat and cold in contrast to the more temperate English climate.

Fences were the primary boundary markers that defined property lines and distinguished “improved” from “unimproved” land, and early legislation frequently required the fencing of landholdings. Fences also marked divisions within a property owner’s estate, such as those between field, meadow, pasture, orchard, and yard; and, within the garden itself, fences separated areas such as the flower garden, kitchen garden, and nursery [Fig. 10]. The form of the fence often reflected its position or function. For example, post-and-rail fences would mark the boundaries and the divisions of the fields, while a palisaded brick wall served as a retaining wall along a slope, and a picket fence delineated the geometrically regular garden adjacent to the house [Fig. 11]. Not surprisingly, the public view of the property was often framed by more ornamented fence types, and aspiring owners could draw from pattern books, such as that by William and John Halfpenny (1755), for inspiration [Fig. 12]. Numerous images, including Caroline Betts’s painting of Lorenzo on Lake Cazenovia [Fig. 13], show a more elaborate treatment given to the fences in front of houses in contrast to the pale or post-and-rail fences that lined roads and enclosed meadows. William Cobbett (1819), in this vein, described a hierarchy of fences from the “rudest barriers” to the “grandest” and “noblest,” along with “every degree of gradation” in between, and Asher Benjamin (1830) recommended that the size of front fences be suited to the scale of the house.

Distinctions in the fence in the landscape were also made by painting sections or the sides of fences. In several New England examples, including the Dennie overmantle [Fig. 14], utilitarian fences were painted red, while more formal fence sections near the house were painted white. In still other instances, such as the painting View Along the East Battery [Fig. 15], parts of the fence furthest from the house were left unpainted in contrast to the painted fence in front of the house. Views, such as Marie L. Pilsbury’s Louisiana plantation scene [Fig. 16], are especially striking since the white gate of the drive stands out in sharp contrast to the unpainted brown post-and-rail fence. While the selective use of white served to highlight portions of the fence, it also conserved white paint, which was more costly.

Fences were critical for keeping livestock in and garden pests contained. During the early years of settlement when livestock (such as pigs) were not restrained, colonists fenced their garden plots, while animals wreaked havoc on the open fields of Native Americans. In large estates, above-ground fences or sunken fences around the house were used to separate animals grazing in the open land of larger, more naturalistic landscape parks from more densely planted areas immediately surrounding the house, as depicted in Francis Guy’s 1805 painting of Perry Hall in Baltimore [Fig. 17]. Urban gardens faced their share of potential intruders as well, both animal and human, and fences were an important element in defining urban public spaces such as commons, squares, roads, and parks [Fig. 18].

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Fig. 18, George Ropes, Salem Common on Training Day [detail], 1808

Fences were symbolic, as well as practical, boundaries. Churchyards were often fenced, in part to protect them from wandering animals, and in part to demarcate the sacred space within. The similarity of yardlike enclosures created around family burials suggests an expression of the eternal domestic unit represented within. In both images and actual landscapes, fences around residences signified the division between personal property and the world beyond. This boundary made the presence and treatment of openings, such as gates, particularly important as they marked the passage between these realms of the public and the private (see Gate). Residential fences were also a visual statement of their owners’ resources and abilities. For example, in William Dering’s portrait of George Booth, the fence in the background divides the near and middle grounds [Fig. 19]. Dering extended the view into the distant, irregular landscape, but signaled the proprietor’s control over the space within the confines of his fence with the regular plantings and trimmed path. Countless representations of houses offer a similar demarcation, usually from the reverse perspective, showing the area surrounding the dwelling separated from the larger landscape by a fence. This division of domestic space is seen in modest gardens from Eunice Pinney’s Mother and Child in Mountain Landscape [Fig. 20] to more elaborate estates such as Janika de Fériet’s The Hermitage [Fig. 21].

Descriptions by travelers, such as Timothy Dwight, also demonstrate the significance of fences as an indication of the prosperity or decline of an area. Timothy Bigelow (1805) described the Shaker Village of Hancock, N.Y., as “much better fenced than any other in [the] vicinity.” With some pride, a writer in the Horticultural Register in 1836 found Maine wanting in comparison to Massachusetts since there was “not that attention paid to the appearance of fences about the dwellings, door yards, &c. as with us.” In something of an horticultural parable the Horticultural Register (1837) described the proprietor who spent all his money on his house leaving it to stand “dreary and alone . . . an unsightly broken fence to enclose it” while, with more foresight, “a more finished appearance is presented; the house is neatly painted . . . and a picket fence encircles it.”

--Elizabeth Kryder-Reid

Texts

Common Usage

• Rex, Charles, August 1641, instructions to Sir William Berkeley (quoted in Billings 1975: 56)

“25. That they apply themselves to the Impaling of orchards and gardens for Roots and fruits, which that Country is so proper for and that every Planter be compelled for every 200 Acres Granted unto him to inclose and sufficiently Fence, either with Pales or Quick sett, and ditch, and so from time to time to preserve inclosed and Fenced a Quarter of an Acre of Ground in the most Convenient place near his dwelling house for Orchards and Gardens.”

• Fitzhugh, William, April 1686, in a letter to Dr. Ralph Smith, describing Greensprings, Va. (quoted in Lockwood 1934: 2:46)

“the Plantation where I now live contains a thousand acres, grounds and fencing . . . a large orchard of about 2500 Apple trees most grafted, well fenced with a locust fence, which is as durable as most brick walls, a Garden, a hundred foot square, well pailed in, a Yeard wherein is most of the aforesaid necessary houses, pallizad’d in with locust Punchens which is as good as if it were walled in and more lasting than any of our bricks.”

• Penn, William, c. 1687, in a letter to James Harrison, inquiring about Pennsbury Manor, country estate of William Penn, near Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in Thomforde 1986: 1)

“I should be glad to see a draugh of Pennsberry w^ch an Artist would quickly take, w^th y^e land scip of y^e hous, out houses, orchards, also w^t grounds you have cleered w^t improvem^ts made. an account how the peach & apple orchards grow; Bear. if any walks be made, & steps at ye water & how yt garden next y^e water towards ye house, is layd out & thrives, how farr you advance . . . w^t fence about ye yards gardens & orchards.”

• Virginia General Assembly, 23 October 1705, describing a legislative ruling in Virginia (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; hereafter CWF)

“(I) Be it enacted . . . that if any horses, mares, cattle, hogs, sheep, or goats, shall break into any grounds, being inclosed with a strong and sound fence, four foot and half high, and so close that the beasts or kine breaking into the same, could not creep through; or with an hedge two foot high, upon a ditch of three foot deep, and three foot broad, or instead of such hedge, a rail fence of two foot and half high, the hedge or fence being so close that none of the creatures aforesaid can creep through, (which shall be accounted a lawful fence,) the owner . . . shall for the first trespass by any of them committed, make reparation to the party injured.”

• Anonymous, 4 August 1733, describing in the South Carolina Gazette a cemetery in Berkeley County, S.C. (CWF)

“The new Burying Ground Fence to be done in the same manner it formerly was, the posts of both to be of the best light wood, Chinquepin or Cedar.”

• Ball, Joseph, February 1734, describing a property in Virginia (Library of Congress, Joseph Ball Letterbook)

“The apple Nursery Fence must be kept upright good & strong, but set upon blocks, so that small hogs may go in, to keep down the weeds.”

• Kalm, Pehr, 21 September 1748 and 22 January 1749, describing fences in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York (1937: 1:47, 238–39)

“The fences and pales are generally made here of wooden planks and posts. But a few good economists, having already thought of sparing the woods for future times, have begun to plant quick hedges round their fields; and for this purpose they take the above-mentioned privet, which they plant in a little bank that is thrown up for it.”

“Fences. The fences built in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but especially in New York, are those which on account of their serpentine form resembling worms are called ‘worm fences’* in English. The rails which compose this fence are taken from different trees, but they are not all of equal duration. . . . In order to make rails the people do not cut down the young trees . . . but they fell here and there large trees, cut them in several places, leaving the pieces as long as it is necessary, and split them into rails of the desired thickness; a single tree affords a multitude of rails. . . . Thus the worm fence is one of the most useful sorts of inclosures, especially as they cannot get any posts made of the wood of this county to last above six or eight years in the ground without rotting . . . the worm fences are easily put up again, when they are forced down. . . . Considering how much more wood the worm-fences require (since they zigzag) than other fences which go in straight lines, and that they are so soon useless, one may imagine how the forests will be consumed, and what sort of an appearance the country will have forty or fifty years hence.

“* The well-known zigzag fence of rails crossing at the ends. It is also called ‘snake fence’ or ‘Virginia rail fence.’

• Alexiowitz, Iwan, 1769, in a letter describing Bartram Botanic Garden and Nursery, vicinity of Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in Darlington 1849: 50)

“Thence we rambled through his fields, where the rightangular fences, the heaps of pitched stones, the flourishing clover, announced the best husbandry, as well as the most assiduous attention.”

• Anburey, Thomas, 20 January 1779, describing Jones’s Plantation, near Charlottesville, Va. ([1789] 1969: 2:323–24)

“The fences and enclosures in this province are different from others, for those to the northward are made either of stone or rails let into posts, about a foot asunder; here they are composed of what is termed fence rails, which are made out of trees cut or sawed into lengths of about twelve feet, that are mauld or split into rails from four to six inches diameter.

“When they form an inclosure, these rails are laid so, that they cross each other obliquely at each end, and are laid zig zag to the amount of ten or eleven rails in height, then stakes are put against each corner, double across, with the lower ends drove a little into the ground, and above these stakes is placed a rail of double the size of the others, which is termed the rider, which, in a manner, locks up the whole, and keeps the fence firm and steady.

“These enclosures are generally seven or eight feet high, they are not very strong but convenient, as they can be removed to any other place, where they may be more necessary; from a mode of constructing these enclosures in a zig zag form, the New-Englanders have a saying, when a man is in liquor, he is making Virginia fences.”

• Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 13 July 1787, describing the State House Yard, Philadelphia, Pa. (1987: 1:263)

“The Mall is at present nearly surrounded with buildings, which stand near to the board fence that incloses it, and the parts now vacant will, in a short time, be filled up.”

• Brissot de Warville, J. P., 9 August 1788, describing the journey from Boston to New York, N.Y. (1792: 127–28)

“But the uncleared lands are all located, and the proprietors have inclosed them with fences of different sorts. These several kinds of fences are composed of different materials, which announce the different degrees of culture in the country. Some are composed of the light branches of trees; others, of the trunks of trees laid one upon the other; a third sort is made of long pieces of wood, supporting each other by making angles at the end; a fourth kind is made of long pieces of hewn timber, supported at the ends by passing into holes made in an upright post; a fifth is like the garden fences in England; the last kind is made of stones thrown together to the height of three feet. This last is most durable, and is common in Massachusetts.”

• Bentley, William, 22 October 1790, describing Elias Hasket Derby Farm, Peabody, Mass. (1962: 1:180)

“[231] 22. . . . The Principal Garden is in three parts divided by an open slat fence painted white, & the fence white washed. It includes 7/8 of an Acre. . . . The House is [lined?] with a superb fence, but is itself a mere country House, one story higher than common with a rich owner.”