A Project of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
History of Early American Landscape Design

Difference between revisions of "Park"

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==History==
 
==History==
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The term park denotes both private and public expanses of ground. 18th-century writers used park to refer exclusively to private grounds often enclosed by [[fence]]s, [[wall]]s, or [[ha-ha]]s; if devoted to keeping deer, it was sometimes called a [[deer park]]. Early 19th-century lexicographers continued to stress the definition of park as an expanse of private property, although [[Noah Webster]] in 1828 noted that parks also designated army encampments, perhaps anticipating the term’s increasing association with [[public ground]]s. Writers also focused upon the material advantages of parks, which included the production of timber in addition to grazing land. It is clear from treatises that parks also fulfilled aesthetic and symbolic functions.
  
The term park denotes both private and public expanses of ground. Eighteenth-century writers used park to refer exclusively to private grounds often enclosed by fences, walls, or ha-has; if devoted to keeping deer, it was sometimes called a deer park (see Deer park). Early nineteenth-century lexicographers continued to stress the definition of park as an expanse of private property, although Noah Webster in 1828 noted that parks also designated army encampments, perhaps anticipating the term’s increasing association with public grounds. Writers also focused upon the material advantages of parks, which included the production of timber in addition to grazing land. It is clear from treatises that parks also fulfilled aesthetic and symbolic functions.  
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[[File:0994.jpg|thumb|Fig. 1, Anonymous, “Williamsburgh & the slip of land between York & James rivers from thence to Hampton,” c. 1781. According to Hugh Jones, a “large pasture enclosed like a park” surrounded the governor’s residence and was encircled and marked on the plan as "Governor’s Park.”]]
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[[J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon|J. C. Loudon]], for example, stated in 1826 that a park added “grandeur and dignity to the mansion.” The notion of park as part of a large estate was closely connected to 18th-century British land practices, and, in particular, to the idea that land ownership provided both prestige and economic security.<ref>Joseph S. Wood, ''The New England Village'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 65, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PNBEMHX6 view on Zotero].</ref> The concept translated to America despite differences in landholding practices and in the legal system. As landscape gardener [[A. J. Downing]] noted in 1851, Americans generally would have much smaller parks than their British counterparts because inheritable land and money typically were divided among descendants instead of passing only to the first son, as was the case in Great Britain.  
  
J. C. Loudon, for example, stated in 1826 that a park added “grandeur and dignity to the mansion.” The notion of park as part of a large estate was closely connected to eighteenth-century British land practices, and, in particular, to the idea that land ownership provided both prestige and economic security. <ref>Joseph S. Wood, ''The New England Village'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 65, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PNBEMHX6 view on Zotero].</ref> The concept translated to America despite differences in landholding practices and in the legal system. As landscape gardener A. J. Downing noted in 1851, Americans generally would have much smaller parks than their British counterparts because inheritable land and money typically were divided among descendants instead of passing only to the first son, as was the case in Great Britain.  
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One of the earliest documented private parks in North America, dating from the period of British colonization, was the park that surrounded the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia, begun in 1699 [Fig. 1]. Hugh Jones, when describing the grounds of the College of William and Mary (1722), distinguished between the gardens immediately surrounding the building and those located in the larger 150-acre park. 19th-century treatise writers maintained this distinction between gardens that were situated near the house and parks that encompassed the outlying area.  
  
One of the earliest documented private parks in North America, dating from the period of British colonization, was the park that surrounded the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Va., begun in 1699 [Fig. 1]. Hugh Jones, when describing the grounds of the College of William and Mary (1722), distinguished between the gardens immediately surrounding the building and those located in the larger 150-acre park. Nineteenth-century treatise writers maintained this distinction between gardens that were situated near the house and parks that encompassed the outlying area.  
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[[File:1731.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 2, [[Benjamin Henry Latrobe]], ''Horsdumonde, the House of Colonel Henry Skipwith, Cumberland County, Virginia'', June 14, 1796.]]
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[[File:0947.jpg|thumb|Fig. 3, Anonymous, ''Study of trees in Park Scenery'', in [[Andrew Jackson Downing]], “Study of Park Trees,” ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 9 (September 1851): pl. opp. 394.]]
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Writers of garden treatises, including [[A. J. Downing|Downing]], specified how to arrange the key components of a park—grassy areas, [[wood]]s, rolling hills, and water and how to establish desirable [[view]]s. As styles in gardening changed, so did the arrangement of parks. [[J. C. Loudon|Loudon]] in 1826 contrasted parks executed in the [[Ancient_style|ancient]] or [[geometric style]], which were “subdivided into fields. . . enclosed in [[wall]]s or [[hedge]]s,” with parks done in the [[Modern_style|modern]] or [[natural style]] “to resemble” the landscape of a “scattered forest.” One key aspect of parks executed in the latter style was the introduction of [[plantation]]s or belts of trees to unify the landscape visually with patterns of lines of light and shadow formed by groupings of trees. Practitioners of the [[modern style]], such as [[A. J. Downing|Downing]], were concerned with creating discrete boundaries for parks: they often relied upon plantings either to define or to occlude [[view]]s.  
  
Writers of garden treatises, including Downing, specified how to arrange the key components of a park—grassy areas, woods, rolling hills, and water and how to establish desirable views. As styles in gardening changed, so did the arrangement of parks. Loudon in 1826 contrasted parks executed in the ancient (or geometric) style, which were “subdivided into fields . . . enclosed in walls or hedges,” with parks done in the modern (or natural) style “to resemble” the landscape of a “scattered forest.” One key aspect of parks executed in the latter style was the introduction of plantations or belts of trees to unify the landscape visually with patterns of lines of light and shadow formed by groupings of trees. Practitioners of the modern style, such as Downing, were concerned with creating discrete boundaries for parks: they often relied upon plantings either to define or to occlude views (see Ancient style and Modern style).  
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Landowners, such as [[William Hamilton]], took the existing topography of their estates and manipulated it to fit the prevailing aesthetic. [[View]]s of late 18th-century estates often featured smooth lawns punctuated with [[clump]]s of trees and [[wood]]s [Fig. 2]. In country house portraits, trees were often important elements—framing the house or drawing the viewer’s attention to the background. This emphasis paralleled treatise writers’ concern with trees as key components in park designs [Fig. 3]. [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] argued that artfully sited large trees added nobility, dignity, and a sense of age to a park, and he believed that such trees allowed American landscapes to rival those of the English.  
  
Landowners, such as William Hamilton, took the existing topography of their estates and manipulated it to fit the prevailing aesthetic. Views of late eighteenth-century estates often featured smooth lawns punctuated with clumps of trees and woods [Fig. 2]. In country house portraits, trees were often important elements—framing the house or drawing the viewer’s attention to the background. This emphasis paralleled treatise writers’ concern with trees as key components in park designs [Fig. 3]. Downing argued that artfully sited large trees added nobility, dignity, and a sense of age to a park, and he believed that such trees allowed American landscapes to rival those of the English.  
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Public parks, open landscaped spaces under government control, accommodated a wide variety of functions. Generally located in urban settings, many 18th- and 19th-century parks evolved from land originally set aside for [[common]]s, city [[square]]s, [[bowling green]]s, or other forms of [[pleasure ground]]s. [[Pierre-Charles L’Enfant]] described his plan for the [[national Mall]] in Washington, DC, as a “place of general resort.”<ref>For a history of the development of American parks and civic ideology, see David Schuyler, ''The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/CFGQ8QT3 view on Zotero]. Also see George F. Chadwick, ''The Park and the Town: Public Landscape in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1966), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RT78E8W5 view on Zotero], and Galen Cranz, ''The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America'' (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/AFIR853J view on Zotero].</ref> With the growth of towns and cities in the first half of the 19th century and attendant fears of crowding and disease, civic improvement campaigners repeatedly expressed a desire to designate green spaces or parks that could act as “lungs” to bring in fresh air and mitigate toxic urban ills. Moreover, with the marked popularity of rural [[cemetery|cemeteries]] in the 1840s, it became evident that urban populations were interested in open spaces. Public spaces were called parks early in America, but were also described as [[public ground|public grounds]], [[public garden|public gardens]], [[pleasure ground|pleasure grounds]], or [[Pleasure_garden|pleasure gardens]], to underscore either their accessibility to citizens or their leisure function.  
  
Public parks, open landscaped spaces under government control, accommodated a wide variety of functions. Generally located in urban settings, many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century parks evolved from land originally set aside for commons, city squares, bowling greens, or other forms of pleasure grounds (see Common). Pierre-Charles L’Enfant described his plan for the national Mall in Washington, D.C., as a “place of general resort.<ref>For a history of the development of American parks and civic ideology, see David Schuyler, ''The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/CFGQ8QT3 view on Zotero]. Also see George F. Chadwick, ''The Park and the Town: Public Landscape in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1966), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RT78E8W5 view on Zotero], and Galen Cranz, ''The Politics of Park Design: A History of
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A desire for sites of public commemoration also stimulated the development of public parks. The designation of the [[national Mall]] in Washington, DC, as a park was linked intimately with the mission of public education envisioned by its founders. For example, in 1851 [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] described the [[national Mall|Mall]] as a “sylvan museum”—an institution that would shape public taste in landscaping and in the selection of trees and plants.<ref>For more about the history of the Mall, see Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, DC, 1791–1852” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero], and Richard Longstreth, ed., ''The Mall in Washington, 1791–1991'' (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/9ACAMFXP view on Zotero].</ref>
Urban Parks in Americ''a (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/AFIR853J view on Zotero].</ref> With the growth of towns and cities in the first half of the nineteenth century and attendant fears of crowding and disease, civic improvement campaigners repeatedly expressed a desire to designate green spaces or parks that could act as “lungs” to bring in fresh air and mitigate toxic urban ills. Moreover, with the marked popularity of rural cemeteries in the 1840s, it became evident that urban populations were interested in open spaces. Public spaces were called parks early in America, but were also described as public grounds, public gardens, pleasure grounds, or pleasure gardens, to underscore either their accessibility to citizens or their leisure function (see Pleasure ground and Public garden).
 
  
A desire for sites of public commemoration also stimulated the development of public parks. The designation of the national Mall in Washington, D.C., as a park was linked intimately with the mission of public education envisioned by its founders. For example, in 1851 Downing described the Mall as a “sylvan museum”—an institution that would shape public taste in landscaping and in the selection of trees and plants. <ref>For more about thehistory of the Mall, see Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, D.C., 1791–1852” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TQVME883 view on Zotero], and Richard Longstreth, ed., ''The Mall in Washington, 1791–1991'' (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1991), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/9ACAMFXP view on Zotero].</ref>
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[[File:0484.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 4, John Bachmann, ''New York City Hall, Park and Environs'', c. 1849.]]
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[[File:1808.jpg|thumb|Fig. 5, Sarah Fairchild, ''Union Park, New York'', c. 1845.]]
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As was the case with many city parks, the land for present-day City Hall Park in New York originally was set aside as a [[common]] early in the city’s history. In 1803, when City Hall was erected on a site next to it, this land was designated as a park. Ornamented with [[gate]]s, [[fountain]]s, and plantings, it provided an elegant setting for the public building, according to the descriptions of William Dickinson Martin (1809) and John Lambert (1816), and a printed view of the park area (c. 1849) [Fig. 4]. Similarly, the oval Union Park in New York, often illustrated, had a large central [[fountain]] [Fig. 5]. Both parks featured broad [[walk]]s and trees and [[shrub]]s. In these parks and others, significant goals of civic improvement—clean water, fresh air, green spaces—were united.<ref>Likewise, in Philadelphia, the construction of the Fairmount Waterworks was accompanied by the construction of a designed landscape, which rarely was referred to as a park in this period. For a history of Fairmount Park, see Jane Mork Gibson, “The Fairmount Waterworks,” ''Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin'' 84 (Summer 1988): 5–40, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RZEZDDEN view on Zotero], and Theo B. White, ''Fairmount, Philadelphia’s Park'' (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1975), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8U8AZ5RJ view on Zotero]. H. M. Pierce Gallagher, in his monograph of Robert Mills, noted that the architect never referred to the site as Fairmount Park, but rather as the Philadelphia Water Works. H. M. Pierce Gallagher, ''Robert Mills, Architect of the Washington Monument, 1781–1855'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 128, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GC3NPRZJ view on Zotero]. Michael J. Lewis, “The First Design for Fairmount Park,” ''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'' 130, no. 3 (July 2006): 283–97, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/R3V3TEUA view on Zotero].</ref> Bowling Green [Fig. 6] and Battery Park [Fig. 7] are two more New York public parks that date from the early 18th century.
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[[File:0052.jpg|thumb|Fig. 6, W. J. Bennett, ''Broad Way from the Bowling Green'', c.1826.]]
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[[File:0477.jpg|thumb|Fig. 7, John Scoles, ''Government House'', 1795.]]
  
As was the case with many city parks, the land for present-day City Hall Park in New York originally was set aside as a common early in the city’s history. In 1803, when City Hall was erected on a site next to it, this land was designated as a park. Ornamented with gates, fountains, and plantings, it provided an elegant setting for the public building, according to the descriptions of William Dickinson Martin (1809) and John Lambert (1816), and a printed view of the park area (c. 1849) [Fig. 4]. Similarly, the oval Union Park in New York, often illustrated, had a large central fountain [Fig. 5]. Both parks featured broad walks and trees and shrubs. In these parks and others, significant goals of civic improvement—clean water, fresh air, green spaces—were united. <ref>Likewise, in Philadelphia, the construction of the Fairmount Waterworks was accompanied by the construction of a
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Although New York City’s most important park, Central Park, was not designed until 1856, the idea for large-scale open space for the city dates much earlier. In 1811, the Streets Commission of New York produced a survey of the city, plotted by John Randel Jr., to serve as a template for future development, and it put into place the grid that today still distinguishes the city. This grid also included open spaces, most significantly a “Grand Parade,” 240 acres bounded by Third and Seventh Avenues, and 23rd and 34th Streets, and this area was intended for military exercise, assembly, and, if necessary, “the force destined to defend the City.<ref>Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, ''Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 421, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Z8Q56GGX view on Zotero].</ref> The concept of open space in the city was taken up again in the late 1840s and early 1850s, perhaps most notably by [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] in ''The Horticulturist''. Claiming that the city’s existing parks were inadequate for the task of providing “exercise and refreshment of her jaded citizens,” [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] pushed for the creation of a large park, more than 500 acres, to be located between 39th Street and the Harlem River. He proposed that it contain, among other attractions, carriage rides, monumental sculpture, water works, and [[walk|walks]] set within green fields. Although [[A. J. Downing|Downing]] did not live to see this vision realized, his proposal anticipated Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s Central Park, and, more generally, the American park movement.<ref>For an overview of the history of the park, see Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, ''The Park and the People: A History of Central Park'' (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GFRVMGF9/ view on Zotero].</ref>
designed landscape, which rarely was referred to as a park in this period. For a history of Fairmount Park, see Jane Mork Gibson, “The Fairmount Waterworks,” ''Bulletin, Philadelphia Museum of Art'' 84 (summer 1988): 5–40, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RZEZDDEN view on Zotero], and Theo B. White, ''Fairmount, Philadelphia’s Park'' (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1975), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/8U8AZ5RJ view on Zotero]. H. M. Pierce Gallagher, in his monograph of Robert Mills, noted that the architect never referred to the site as Fairmount Park, but rather as the Philadelphia Water Works. H. M. Pierce Gallagher, ''Robert Mills, Architect of the Washington Monument, 1781–1855'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 128, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GC3NPRZJ view on Zotero]. Michael J. Lewis, “The First Design for Fairmount Park,''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'' 130, no. 3 (July 2006): 283–97, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/R3V3TEUA view on Zotero].</ref> Bowling Green [Fig. 6] and Battery Park [Fig. 7] are two more New York public parks that date from the early eighteenth century.
 
  
Although New York City’s most important park, Central Park, was not designed until 1856, the idea for large-scale open space for the city dates much earlier. In 1811, the Streets Commission of New York produced a survey of the city, plotted by John Randel, Jr., to serve as a template for future development, and it put into place the grid that today still distinguishes the city. This grid also included open spaces, most significantly a “Grand Parade,” 240 acres bounded by Third and Seventh Avenues, and 23rd and 34th Streets, and this area was intended for military exercise, assembly, and, if necessary, “the force destined to defend the City.” <ref>Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, ''Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 421, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/Z8Q56GGX view on Zotero].</ref> The concept of open space in the city was taken up again in the late 1840s and early 1850s, perhaps most notably by Downing in the ''Horticulturist''. Claiming that the city’s existing parks were inadequate for the task of providing “exercise and refreshment of her jaded citizens,” Downing pushed for the creation of a large park, more than five hundred acres, to be located between 39th Street and the Harlem River. He proposed that it contain, among other attractions, carriage rides, monumental sculpture, water works, and walks set within green fields. Although Downing did not live to see this vision realized, his proposal anticipated Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s Central Park, and more generally, the American park movement. <ref>For an overview of the history of the park, see Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, ''The Park and the People: A History of Central Park'' (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GFRVMGF9/ view on Zotero].</ref>
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''Anne L. Helmreich''
  
-- ''Anne L. Helmreich''
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<hr>
  
 
==Texts==
 
==Texts==
 
 
===Usage===
 
===Usage===
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*Penn, William, April 9, 1687, describing Pennsbury Manor, country estate of William Penn, near Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Thomforde 1986: 47)<ref>Charles Thomforde, “William Penn’s Estate at Pennsbury and the Plants of Its Kitchen Garden" (MS thesis, University of Delaware, 1986), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/MSV2MR5T view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“. . . tis pitty a pale did not cross ye neck half way towards ye south point, for the beginning of a '''Park'''.”
  
* Penn, William, 9 April 1687, describing Pennsbury Manor, country estate of William Penn, near Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in Thomforde 1986: 47)
 
  
: “tis pitty a pale did not cross ye neck half way towards ye south point, for the beginning of a Park.”  
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*Jones, Hugh, 1722, describing the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA (1956: 67)<ref>Hugh Jones, ''The Present State of Virginia, From Whence Is Inferred a Short View of Maryland and North Carolina'', ed. Richard L. Morton (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KE293JVS view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“It is approached by a good [[walk]], and a grand entrance by steps, with good courts and gardens about it, with a good house and apartments for the Indian Master and his scholars, and outhouses; and a large pasture enclosed like a '''park''' with about 150 acres of land adjoining, for occasional uses.”
  
  
* Jones, Hugh, 1722, describing the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. (1956: 67)  
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*Hamilton, Alexander, June 26, 1744, describing a garden near Albany, NY (1948: 63)<ref>Alexander Hamilton, ''Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744'', ed. Carl Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/EWWJNEUN view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“Mr. M——s [Milne] and I dined att his house and were handsomly entertained with good viands and wine. After dinner he showed us his garden and '''parks''', and M——s [Milne] got into one of his long harangues of farming and improvement of ground.”
  
: “It is approached by a good walk, and a grand entrance by steps, with good courts and gardens about it, with a good house and apartments for the Indian Master and his scholars, and outhouses; and a large pasture enclosed like a park with about 150 acres of land adjoining, for occasional uses.”
 
  
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*Fisher, Daniel, May 25, 1755, describing the Proprietor’s Garden, Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Pecquet du Bellet 1907: 2:802)<ref>Louise Pecquet du Bellet, ed., ''Some Prominent Virginia Families'', 4 vols. (Lynchburg, VA: J. P. Bell, 1907), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/GMXR2ZUU view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“. . . descending from the House is a neat little '''Park''' tho’ I am told there are no Deer in it.”
  
* Hamilton, Alexander, 26 June 1744, describing a garden near Albany, N.Y. (1948: 63)
 
  
: “Mr. M——s [Milne] and I dined att his house and were handsomly entertained with good viands and wine. After dinner he showed us his garden and parks, and M——s [Milne] got into one of his long harangues of farming and improvement of ground.”  
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*Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 1760, describing a park and garden near the Passaic River, NJ (1775: 57)<ref>Andrew Burnaby, ''Travels through the Middle Settlements in North-America, in the Years 1759 and 1760'', 2nd ed. (London: Printed for T. Payne, 1775), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/R59XPKD2 view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“I went down two miles farther to the '''park''' and gardens of. . . colonel Peter Schuyler. In the gardens is a very large collection of citrons, oranges, limes, lemons, balsams of Peru, aloes, pomegranates, and other tropical plants; and in the '''park''' I saw several American and English deer, and three or four elks or moose-deer.”  
  
  
* Fisher, Daniel, 25 May 1755, describing the Proprietor’s Garden, Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in Pecquet du Bellet 1907: 2:802)  
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*Fithian, Philip Vickers, December 31, 1773, describing Nomini Hall, Westmoreland County, VA (1943: 59)<ref>Philip Vickers Fithian, ''Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion,'' ed. Hunter D. Farish (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg, 1943), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/XJX4WV8F view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“Mrs. Carter told the Colonel that he must not think her setled (for they have been for a long time from this place in the City ''Williamsburg'', and only left it about a year and a half ago) till he made her a '''park''' and stock’d it.”
  
: “descending from the House is a neat little Park tho’ I am told there are no Deer in it.”
 
  
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[[File:0051.jpg|thumb|Fig. 8, William Strickland, “The Woodlands,” 1809, in ''Casket'' 5, no. 10 (October 1830): pl. opp. 432.]]
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*[[William Hamilton|Hamilton, William]], April 1779, describing [[The Woodlands]], seat of [[William Hamilton]], near Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Madsen 1988: A2)<ref>Karen Madsen, Karen Madsen, “William Hamilton’s Woodlands,” (paper presented for seminar in American Landscape, 1790–1900, instructed by E. McPeck, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 1988), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/XN8NN9QN view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“I have just been making some considerable Improvements at [[The Woodlands]]. . . You may recollect the Ground is Hill ’n Dale [[wood|Woodland]] and plain and therefore well enough calculated to make a small '''parke''', and I am endeavoring to give it as much as possible a '''park'''ish Look.” [Fig. 8]
  
* Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 1760, describing a park and garden near the Passaic River, N.J. (1775: 57)
 
  
: “I went down two miles farther to the park and gardens of . . . colonel Peter Schuyler. In the gardens is a very large collection of citrons, oranges, limes, lemons, balsams of Peru, aloes, pomegranates, and other tropical plants; and in the park I saw several American and English deer, and three or four elks or moose-deer.”  
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*Chastellux, François Jean, Marquis de, 1780–82, describing a garden on the Pamunkey River, VA (1787: 2:12)<ref>François Jean Marquis de Chastellux, ''Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782'', 2 vols. (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/ITD6E8FB view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“. . . embellished with a garden, laid out in the [[English style]]. It is even pretended, that this kind of '''park''', through which the river flows, yields not in beauty to those, the model of which the French have received from England, and are now imitating with such success.”
  
  
* Fithian, Philip Vickers, 31 December 1773, describing Nomini Hall, Westmoreland County, Va. (1943: 59)  
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*Washington, George, August 18, 1785, describing [[Mount Vernon]], [[plantation]] of George Washington, Fairfax County, VA (Jackson and Twohig, eds., 1978: 4:184)<ref>George Washington, ''The Diaries of George Washington'', ed. Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, 6 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/9ZIIR3FT view on Zotero].</ref>
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:“Began with James and Tom to work on my '''Park''' fencing.”
  
: “Mrs. Carter told the Colonel that he must not think her setled (for they have been for a long time from this place in the City Williamsburg, and only left it about a year and a half ago) till he made her a park and stock’d it.”
 
  
 +
*Morse, Jedidiah, 1789, describing [[Mount Vernon]], [[plantation]] of George Washington, Fairfax County, VA (1789: 381)<ref>Jedidiah Morse, ''The American Geography; Or, A View of the Present Situation of the United States of America'' (Elizabeth Town, NJ: Shepard Kollock, 1789), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/93EGD8Q5 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“A small '''park''' on the margin of the river, where the English fallow-deer, and the American wild-deer are seen through the thickets, alternately with the vessels as they are sailing along, add a romantic and [[picturesque]] appearance to the whole scenery.”
  
* Hamilton, William, April 1779, describing the Woodlands, seat of William Hamilton, near Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in Madsen 1988: A2)
 
  
: “I have just been making some considerable Improvements at the Woodlands. . . . You may recollect the Ground is Hill ’n Dale Woodland and plain and therefore well enough calculated to make a small parke, and I am endeavoring to give it as much as possible a parkish Look.” [Fig. 8]
+
*[[Pierre-Charles L’Enfant|L’Enfant, Pierre-Charles]], June 22, 1791, describing Washington, DC (quoted in Reps 1967: 17)<ref>John W. Reps, ''Monumental Washington, The Planning and Development of the Capital Center'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/DQCIQTFZ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“I placed the three grand Department of States contiguous to the principle Palace and on the way leading to the Congressional House the gardens of the one together with the '''park''' and other improvement on the dependency are connected with the publique [[walk]] and [[avenue]] to the Congress house in a manner as most [must] form a whole as grand as it will be agreeable and convenient to the whole city which form [from] The distribution of the local [locale] will have an early access to this place of general resort and all along side of which may be placed play houses, room of assembly, academies and all such sort of places as may be attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle.”
  
  
* Chastellux, François Jean, Marquis de, 1780–82, describing a garden on the Pamunkey River, Va. (1787: 2:12)
+
*[[Pierre-Charles L’Enfant|L’Enfant, Pierre-Charles]], January 4, 1792, describing Washington, DC (quoted in Caemmerer 1950: 164)<ref>H. Paul Caemmerer, ''The Life of Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington'' (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PHWTAERT view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“H. Grand [[Avenue]], 400 feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens, ending in a [[slope]] from the houses on each side. This [[Avenue]] leads to Monument A and connects the Congress Garden with the
 +
:“I. President’s '''park''' and the
 +
:“K. well-improved field.”
  
: “embellished with a garden, laid out in the English style. It is even pretended, that this kind of park, through which the river flows, yields not in beauty to those, the model of which the French have received from England, and are now imitating with such success.”
 
  
 +
*[[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas]], c. 1804, describing [[Monticello]], [[plantation]] of [[Thomas Jefferson]], Charlottesville, VA (Massachusetts Historical Society, Coolidge Collection)
 +
:“The north side of [[Monticello]] below the Thoroughfare roundabout quite down to the river, and all Montalto above the thoroughfare to be converted into '''park''' & riding grounds, connected at the Thoroughfare by a [[bridge]], open, under which the public road may be made to pass so as not to cut off the communication between the lower & upper '''park''' grounds.”
  
* Washington, George, 18 August 1785, describing Mount Vernon, plantation of George Washington, Fairfax County, Va. (Jackson and Twohig, eds., 1978: 4:184)
 
  
: “Began with James and Tom to work on my Park fencing.”  
+
*Drayton, Charles, November 2, 1806, describing [[The Woodlands]], [[seat]] of [[William Hamilton]], near Philadelphia, PA (1806: 54—58)<ref>Charles Drayton, “The Diary of Charles Drayton I, 1806,” Drayton Hall: A National Historic Trust Site, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HAARCGXN view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The <u>Approach</u>, its road, [[wood]]s, [[lawn]] & [[clump]]s, are laid out with much taste & ingenuity. Also the location of the Stables; with a [[Yard]] between the house, stables, [[lawn]] of approach or '''park''', & the [[pleasure ground]] or [[pleasure garden|garden]].
 +
: "The [[Fence|<u>Fences</u>]] separating the '''Park'''-[[lawn]] from the Garden on one hand, & the office [[yard]] on the other, are 4 ft. 6 high. . . The '''park''' [[lawn]] is not in good order, for lack of being fed upon. Its [[fence]]s where it is not visible from the house, is of common posts & rails.
 +
: ". . . One is led into the garden from the [[portico]], to the east or lefthand. or from the '''park''', by a small [[gate]] contiguous to the house, traversing this [[walk]], one sees many beauties of the landscape—also a fine [[statue]], symbol of Winter, & age,—& a spacious [[conservatory|Conservatory]] about 200 yards to the West of the Mansion. . .
 +
: "The <u>Stable [[yard|Yard]]</u>, tho contiguous to the house, is perfectly concealed from it, the [[Lawn]], & the Garden. . . From the Cellar one enters under the bow window & into this Screen, which is about 6 or 7 feet square. Through these, we enter a narrow area, & ascend some few Steps [close to this side of the house,] into the garden—& thro the other opening we ascend a paved winding [[slope]], which spreads as it ascends, into the [[yard]]. This sloping passage being a segment of a circle, & its two outer walls <u>concealed</u> by loose [[hedge]]s, & by the projection of the flat roofed Screen of masonry, keeps the [[yard]], & I believe the whole passage <u>out of sight</u> from the house—but certainly from the garden & '''park''' [[lawn]].”
  
  
* Morse, Jedidiah, 1789, describing Mount Vernon, plantation of George Washington, Fairfax County, Va. ([1789] 1970: 381)
+
*Foster, Sir Augustus John, c. 1807, describing Montpelier, plantation of James Madison, Montpelier Station, VA (1954: 142)<ref>Sir Augustus John Foster, ''Jeffersonian America: Notes on the United States of America Collected in the Years 1805–1806–1807 and 1811–1812'', ed. Richard Beale Davis (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1954), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/7FU8NDF4/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“There are some very fine [[wood]]s about Montpellier, but no [[pleasure ground]]s, though Mr. Madison talks of some day laying out space for an English '''park''', which he might render very beautiful from the easy graceful descent of his hills into the plains below.”
  
: “A small park on the margin of the river, where the English fallow-deer, and the American wild-deer are seen through the thickets, alternately with the vessels as they are sailing along, add a romantic and picturesque appearance to the whole scenery.”
 
  
 +
*[[Benjamin Henry Latrobe|Latrobe, Benjamin Henry]], March 17, 1807, describing the White House, Washington, DC (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
 +
:“My idea is to carry the road below the hill under a [[Wall]] about 8 feet high opposite to the center of the president’s house. At this point, I should propose, at a future day to thrown an [[Arch]], or [[Arch]]es over the road in order to procure a private communication between the [[pleasure ground]] of the president’s house and the '''park''' which reaches to the river, and which will probably be also planted, and perhaps be open to the public.”
  
* L’Enfant, Pierre-Charles, 22 June 1791, describing Washington, D.C. (quoted in Reps 1967: 17)
 
  
: “I placed the three grand Department of States contiguous to the principle Palace and on the way leading to the Congressional House the gardens of the one together with the park and other improvement on the dependency are connected with the publique walk and avenue to the Congress house in a manner as most [must] form a whole as grand as it will be agreeable and convenient to the whole city which form [from] The distribution of the local [locale] will have an early access to this place of general resort and all along side of which may be placed play houses, room of assembly, academies and all such sort of places as may be attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle.”  
+
*Martin, William Dickinson, May 21, 1809, describing City Hall Park, New York, NY (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
 +
:“St. Paul’s is on the same street, a little North of Trinity on the West side also, with an elegant steeple, tho’ too large for the rest of the building. It stands on a large triangular area, called the '''Park''', rail’d in, & ornamented with trees & [[walk]]s. Bridewell, the Alms House & County Jail, stand on the North Side of the '''Park''', on the East is the New Theatre.”
  
  
* L’Enfant, Pierre-Charles, 4 January 1792, describing Washington, D.C. (quoted in Caemmerer 1950: 164)
+
*Lambert, John, 1816, describing City Hall Park, New York, NY (1816: 2:58)<ref name="Lambert">John Lambert, ''Travels through Canada, and the United States of North America in the Years 1806, 1807, and 1808'', 2 vols. (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T9KUEDWH view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“A Court-house on a larger scale, and more worthy of the improved state of the city, is now building at the end of the '''Park''', between the Broadway and Chatham-street, in a style of magnificence unequalled in many of the larger cities of Europe. . . The '''Park''', though not remarkable for its size, is, however, of service, by displaying the surrounding buildings to greater advantage; and is also a relief to the confined appearance of the streets in general. It consists of about four acres planted with elms, planes, willows, and catalpas; and the surrounding foot-[[walk]] is encompassed by rows of poplars: the whole is enclosed by a wooden paling. Neither the '''Park''' nor the Battery is very much resorted to by the fashionable citizens of New York, as they have become too common.”
  
: “H. Grand Avenue, 400 feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens, ending in a slope from the houses on each side. This Avenue leads to Monument A and connects the Congress Garden with the
 
: “I. President’s park and the
 
: “K. well-improved field.”
 
  
 +
*Lambert, John, 1816, describing the State House, Boston, MA (1816: 2:330)<ref name="Lambert"></ref>
 +
:“The new state-house is, perhaps, more indebted to its situation for the handsome appearance which it exhibits, than to any merit of the building itself. It is built upon part of the rising ground upon which Beacon Hill is situated, and fronts the '''park''', an extensive common planted with a double row of trees along the [[border]]s. . .
 +
:“The '''Park''' was formerly a large [[common]], but has recently been enclosed, and the [[border]]s planted with trees. On the east side there has been for many years a [[mall]], or [[walk]], planted with a double row of large trees, somewhat resembling that in St. James’s '''Park''', but scarcely half its length. It affords the inhabitants an excellent [[promenade]] in fine weather. At the bottom of the '''park''' is a branch of the harbour; and along the shore, to the westward, are several extensive rope-[[walk]]s built upon piers.”
  
* Jefferson, Thomas, c. 1804, describing Monticello, plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, Va. (Massachusetts Historical Society, Coolidge Collection)
 
  
: “The north side of Monticello below the Thoroughfare roundabout quite down to the river, and all Montalto above the thoroughfare to be converted into park & riding grounds, connected at the Thoroughfare by a bridge, open, under which the public road may be made to pass so as not to cut off the communication between the lower & upper park grounds.”  
+
*Hodgeson, Adam, 1819, describing Natchez, MS (quoted in Lockwood 1934: 2:389)<ref>Alice B. Lockwood, ed., ''Gardens of Colony and State: Gardens and Gardeners of the American Colonies and of the Republic before 1840'', 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s for the Garden Club of America, 1931), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/JNB7BI9T view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“Their houses are spacious and handsome and their grounds laid out like a forest '''park'''.”
  
  
* Foster, Sir Augustus John, c. 1807, describing Montpelier, plantation of James Madison, Montpelier Station, Va. (1954: 142)  
+
[[File:0716.jpg|thumb|Fig. 9, Alvan Fisher, ''The Vale'', 1820–25.]]
 +
*Bryant, William Cullen, August 25, 1821, describing the Vale, estate of Theodore Lyman, Waltham, MA (1975: 108–9)<ref name="Bryant">William Cullen Bryant, ''The Letters of William Cullen Bryant'', ed. William Cullen II Bryant and Thomas G. Voss (New York: Fordham University Press, 1975), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3X5XUJ6A view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“He took me to the [[seat]] of Mr. Lyman. . . It is a perfect paradise. . . North of the house was a '''park''', with a few American deer in it and a large herd of spotted deer—a beautiful animal imported from Bengal.” [Fig. 9]
  
: “There are some very fine woods about Montpellier, but no pleasure grounds, though Mr. Madison talks of some day laying out space for an English park, which he might render very beautiful from the easy graceful descent of his hills into the plains below.”
 
  
 +
*[[Charles Willson Peale|Peale, Charles Willson]], c. 1825, describing [[Wye House]], estate of Col. Edward Lloyd, Talbot County, MD (Miller et al., eds., 2000: 5:147)<ref>Lillian B. Miller et al., eds., ''The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family'', vol. 5, ''The Autobiography of Charles Willson Peale'' (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983–2000), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/IZAKPCBG view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The Coll. is possessed of immence property, he had 400 Ars. of land in a '''park''' to keep Deer, round which was a [[fence]] of 20 rails high, Maise were planted within for sustenance of his deer.”
  
* Latrobe, Benjamin Henry, 17 March 1807, describing the White House, Washington, D.C. (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; hereafter CWF)
 
  
: “My idea is to carry the road below the hill under a Wall about 8 feet high opposite to the center of the president’s house. At this point, I should propose, at a future day to thrown an Arch, or Arches over the road in order to procure a private communication between the pleasure ground of the president’s house and the park which reaches to the river, and which will probably be also planted, and perhaps be open to the public.”  
+
[[File:0038.jpg|thumb|Fig. 10, Arthur J. Stansbury, ''City Hall Park From the Northwest Corner of Broadway and Chambers Street'', c. 1825.]]
 +
*Anonymous, June 1829, describing City Hall Park, New York, NY (''Casket'' 4: 241)<ref>“City Hall, New York,” ''Casket, or Flowers of Literature, Wit & Sentiment'' 4, no. 6 (June 1829): 241, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/XVBZVBJS view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The City Hall of New York, is situated at the northern extremity, or base, of a triangular enclosure of four acres, called the ‘'''''Park'''''.’ The eastern and western sides are respectively bounded by Chatham street and Broadway, which here meet in a point near St. Paul’s church.
 +
:“The approach from the south along Broadway, is peculiarly striking. The front and west end of the building present an angular [[view]] between the luxuriant foliage of trees surrounding the '''Park'''; while the brilliant whiteness of the facade, in contrast with the placid verdure of the [[lawn]], in front, produces a luminous and aerial effect that fascinates every spectator.” [Fig. 10]
  
  
* Martin, William Dickinson, 21 May 1809, describing City Hall Park, New York, N.Y. (CWF)  
+
[[File:1830.jpg|thumb|Fig. 11, Joshua Rowley Watson, ''Sedgley--J. Fishers Esqr. opposite Eaglesfield 28th. October'', 1816.]]
 +
*Anonymous, June 1829, describing Sedgeley, seat of James C. Fisher and William Crammond, near Philadelphia, PA (''Casket'' 4: 265)<ref>“Sedgely Park, the Seat of James C. Fisher, Esq.,” ''Casket, or the Flowers of Literature, Wit & Sentiment'' 4, no. 6 (June 1829): 265, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/8Q67BD4S view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The natural advantages of Sedgeley '''Park''' are not frequently equalled even upon the banks of the romantic [[Schuylkill River|Schuylkill]]. From the height upon which the mansion is erected, it commands an interesting and extensive [[view]]. . .
 +
:“In the arrangement of the grounds the proprietor has been peculiarly happy. The '''park''' exhibits the marks of cultivation and taste, and the mansion is beautifully shaded with the native and luxuriant forest trees of the country.” [Fig. 11]
  
: “St. Paul’s is on the same street, a little North of Trinity on the West side also, with an elegant steeple, tho’ too large for the rest of the building. It stands on a large triangular area, called the Park, rail’d in, & ornamented with trees & walks. Bridewell, the Alms House & County Jail, stand on the North Side of the Park, on the East is the New Theatre.”
 
  
 +
*Dearborn, H. A. S., 1832, describing [[Mount Auburn Cemetery]], Cambridge, MA (quoted in Harris 1832: 84)<ref>Thaddeus William Harris, ''A Discourse Delivered before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society on the Celebration of Its Fourth Anniversary, October 3, 1832'' (Cambridge, MA: E. W. Metcalf, 1832), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/3A3UDHF3 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The general appearance of the whole grounds, should be that of a well-managed '''park''', and the lots only so far ornamented with [[shrub]]s and flowers, as to constitute rich [[border]]s to the [[avenue]]s and pathways, without giving to them the aspect of a dense and wild [[coppice]], or a neglected garden, whose trees and plants have so multiplied and interlaced their roots and branches, as to completely destroy all that airiness, grace, and luxuriance of growth, which good taste demands.”
  
* Lambert, John, 1816, describing City Hall Park, New York, N.Y. (2:58)
 
  
: “A Court-house on a larger scale, and more worthy of the improved state of the city, is now building at the end of the Park, between the Broadway and Chatham-street, in a style of magnificence unequalled in many of the larger cities of Europe. . . . The Park, though not remarkable for its size, is, however, of service, by displaying the surrounding buildings to greater advantage; and is also a relief to the confined appearance of the streets in general. It consists of about four acres planted with elms, planes, willows, and catalpas; and the surrounding foot-walk is encompassed by rows of poplars: the whole is enclosed by a wooden paling. Neither the Park nor the Battery is very much resorted to by the fashionable citizens of New York, as they have become too common.”  
+
*Bryant, William Cullen, June 29, 1832, describing the Jefferson Barracks, Jacksonville, IL (1975: 353)<ref name="Bryant"></ref>
 +
:“. . . the Jefferson Barracks, a military station of the United States. . . It is situated in a fine natural '''park''' of noble trees principally black oak which extends I am told for some miles back from the shore. The trees are at considerable distances from each other and the tops are spreading and full of foliage.”
  
  
* Lambert, John, 1816, describing the State House, Boston, Mass. (2:330)  
+
*Martineau, Harriet, 1835, describing Cincinnati, OH (1838: 2:51)<ref>Harriet Martineau, ''Retrospect of Western Travel'', 2 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/H2BW5FRU view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The proprietor has a passion for gardening, and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to the city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in his grounds with his own hands. His garden is on a [[terrace]] which overlooks the [[canal]], and the most '''park''' like [[eminence]]s form the background of the [[view]]. Between the garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce of which he has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some of which are highly praised by good judges.”
  
: “The new state-house is, perhaps, more indebted to its situation for the handsome appearance which it exhibits, than to any merit of the building itself. It is built upon part of the rising ground upon which Beacon Hill is situated, and fronts the park, an extensive common planted with a double row of trees along the borders. . . .
 
: “The Park was formerly a large common, but has recently been enclosed, and the borders planted with trees. On the east side there has been for many years a mall, or walk, planted with a double row of large trees, somewhat resembling that in St. James’s Park, but scarcely half its length. It affords the inhabitants an excellent promenade in fine weather. At the bottom of the park is a branch of the harbour; and along the shore, to the westward, are several extensive rope-walks built upon piers.”
 
  
 +
*[[Andrew Jackson Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], January 1837, “Notices on the State and Progress of Horticulture in the United States,” describing [[Hyde Park]], [[seat]] of [[David Hosack]], on the Hudson River, NY (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 3: 5)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “Notices on the State and Progress of Horticulture in the United States,” ''Magazine of Horticulture'' 3, no. 1 (January 1837): 1–10, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/HPNHTESI view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The most distinguished amateur and patron of gardening, in every sense of the word, in this state, was the late [[Dr. Hosack]]. [[Hyde Park|Hyde '''Park''']], on the Hudson, the [[seat]] of this gentleman, has been probably the best specimen of a highly improved residence in the United States. . . the '''park''' large, well wooded, and intersected by a fine stream.”
  
* Hodgeson, Adam, 1819, describing Natchez, Miss. (quoted in Lockwood 1934: 2:389)
 
  
: “Their houses are spacious and handsome and their grounds laid out like a forest park.”  
+
*Adams, Nehemiah, 1838, describing [[Boston Common]], Boston, MA (1838: 22)<ref>Nehemiah Adams, ''Boston Common'' (Boston: William D. Ticknor and H. B. Williams, 1842), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VXTWGJ58 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“Much as public [[square]]s, and '''parks''', and [[avenue]]s, and [[fountain]]s contribute to the beauty of a city, they are no less necessary to its salubrity. It was not intended by the Creator that the habitations of men should be piled upon each other, as they are in some cities, almost like boxes of merchandize in a warehouse; and he has made no provision for the security of life and health, under the circumstances which preclude the supply of an abundance of fresh and pure air.”
  
  
* Bryant, William Cullen, 25 August 1821, describing the Vale, estate of Theodore Lyman, Waltham, Mass. (1975: 108–9)  
+
*Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1840, describing New York, NY (1840: 1:151)<ref>Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''American Scenery; Or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature'', 2 vols. (London: G. Virtue, 1840), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/T5CMW67U view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The present City Hall was erected in 1803, at an expense of half a million of dollars. . . When the trees of the '''park''' are in full leaf, it is difficult to get an entire [[view]] of it.
 +
:“The '''park''' is the centre of New York, and its two most thronged and finest [[avenue]]s from the two sides of it. Broadway, the much crowded and much praised Broadway, the Corso, the Toledo, the Regent Street, of New York, pours its tide of population past the western side of the verdant triangle, and, just at the '''park''', its crowd and its bustle are thickest.”
  
: “He took me to the seat of Mr. Lyman. . . . It is a perfect paradise. . . . North of the house was a park, with a few American deer in it and a large herd of spotted deer—a beautiful animal imported from Bengal.” [Fig. 9]
 
  
 +
*Buckingham, James Silk, 1841, describing New York, NY (1841: 1:38–39)<ref>James Silk Buckingham, ''America, Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive'', 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1841), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PIANFMVK/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“Of the public places for air and exercise with which the Continental cities of Europe are so abundantly and agreeably furnished, and which London, Bath, and some other of the larger cities of England contain, there is a marked deficiency in New-York. Except the Battery, which is agreeable only in summer—the [[Bowling Green]] is a confined space of 200 feet long by 150 broad; the '''Park''', which is a comparatively small spot of land (about ten acres only) in the heart of the city, and quite a public thoroughfare; Hudson Square, the prettiest of the whole, but small, being only about four acres; and the open space within Washington Square, about nine acres, which is not yet furnished with gravel-[[walk]]s or shady trees—there is no large place in the nature of a '''park''', or [[public garden]], or public [[walk]], where persons of all classes may take air and exercise. This is a defect which, it is hoped, will ere long be remedied, as there is no country, perhaps, in which it would be more advantageous to the health and pleasure of the community than this to encourage, by every possible means, the use of air and exercise to a much greater extent than either is at present enjoyed.”
  
* Peale, Charles Willson, c. 1825, describing Wye House, estate of Col. Edward Lloyd, Talbot County, Md. (Miller, Hart, and Ward, eds., 2000: 5:147)
 
  
: “The Coll. is possessed of immence property, he had 400 Ars. of land in a park to keep Deer, round which was a fence of 20 rails high, Maise were planted within for sustenance of his deer.”  
+
[[File:0982.jpg|thumb|Fig. 12, L. S. Punderson, ''Public [[Square]], New Haven'', 1862.]]
 +
*Dickens, Charles, 1842, describing Yale College, New Haven, CT (1842: 94)<ref>Charles Dickens, ''American Notes'' (Paris: Baudry’s European Library, 1842), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TTQMJ9AD view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“New Haven, known as the City of Elms, is a fine town. Many of its streets (as its alias sufficiently imports) are planted with rows of grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable [[eminence]] and reputation. The various departments of this Institution are erected in a kind of '''park''' or [[common]] in the middle of the town, where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect is very like that of an old cathedral [[yard]] in England; and when their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely [[picturesque]].” [Fig. 12]
  
  
* Anonymous, June 1829, describing City Hall Park, New York, N.Y. (The Casket 4: 241)  
+
[[File:0992.jpg|thumb|Fig. 13, Charles B. Lawrence, attr., ''[[Point Breeze]], the Estate of Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte at Bordentown, New Jersey'', 1817–20]]
 +
*Barber, John Warner, and Henry Howe, 1844, describing [[Point Breeze]], the estate of Joseph Bonaparte (Count de Survilliers), Bordentown, NJ (1844: 102–3)<ref>John Warner Barber and Henry Howe, ''Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey; Containing a General Collection of the Most Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, &c. Relating to History and Antiquities, with Geographical Descriptions of Every Township in the State'' (Newark, NJ: Benjamin Olds, 1844), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KBBHZ5NT/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The '''park''' and grounds of the Count comprise about fourteen hundred acres, which, from a wild and impoverished tract, he has converted into a place of beauty, blending the charms of [[wood|woodland]] and [[plantation]] scenery with a delightful water-[[prospect]]. . . While here, his time was occupied in planning and executing improvements upon his grounds. He did not mingle in society; but was frequently seen walking through his '''park''', attending to his workmen, or, with hatchet in hand, lopping branches from the trees.” [Fig. 13]
  
: “The City Hall of New York, is situated at the northern extremity, or base, of a triangular enclosure of four acres, called the ‘Park.’ The eastern and western sides are respectively bounded by Chatham street and Broadway, which here meet in a point near St. Paul’s church.
 
: “The approach from the south along Broadway, is peculiarly striking. The front and west end
 
of the building present an angular view between the luxuriant foliage of trees surrounding the Park; while the brilliant whiteness of the facade, in contrast with the placid verdure of the lawn, in front, produces a luminous and aerial effect that fascinates every spectator.”
 
  
 +
*Kirkbride, Thomas S., April 1848, describing the [[pleasure ground]]s and farm of the [[Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane]], Philadelphia, PA (''American Journal of Insanity'' 4: 348)<ref>Thomas S. Kirkbride, “Description of the Pleasure Grounds and Farm of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, with Remarks,” ''American Journal of Insanity'' 4, no. 4 (April 1848): 347–54, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/9RWM2FH8/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The [[pleasure ground]]s of the two sexes are very effectually separated on the eastern side, by the deer-'''park''', surrounded by a high palisade [[fence]], but the '''Park''' itself is so low that it is completely overlooked from both sides; and the different animals in it are in full [[view]]from the adjoining grounds used by the patients of both sexes.”
  
* Anonymous, June 1829, describing Sedgeley, seat of James C. Fisher and William Crammond, near Philadelphia, Pa. (The Casket 4: 265)
 
  
: “The natural advantages of Sedgeley Park are not frequently equalled even upon the banks of the romantic Schuylkill. From the height upon which the mansion is erected, it commands an interesting and extensive view. . . .  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], October 1848, describing Geneseo, [[seat]] of James S. Wadsworth, Genesee River Valley, NY (''Horticulturist'' 3: 164–65)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “The Meadow Park at Geneseo,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 3, no. 4 (October 1848): 163–66, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/G6VXPK69 view on Zotero].</ref>
: “In the arrangement of the grounds the proprietor has been peculiarly happy. The park exhibits the marks ofcultivation and taste, and the mansion is beautifully shaded with the native and luxuriant forest trees of the country.” [Fig. 10]
+
:“And what a [[prospect]]! The whole of that part of the valley embraced by the eye—say a thousand acres—is a '''''park''''', full of the finest oaks,—and such oaks as you may have dreamed of, (if you love trees,) or, perhaps, have seen in pictures by CLAUDE LORRAINE, or our own DURAND; but not in the least like those which you meet every day in your woodland [[walk]]s through the country at large. Or rather, there are thousands of such as you may have seen half a dozen examples of in your own country. . .
 +
:“No underwood, no bushes, no [[thicket]]s; nothing but single specimens or groups of giant old oaks, (mingled with, here and there, an elm) with level glades of broad [[meadow]] beneath them! An Englishman will hardly be convinced that it is not a '''park''', planted by the skilful hand of man hundreds of years ago.  
 +
:“This great [[meadow]] '''park''' is filled with herds of the finest cattle—the pride of the home-farm.”
  
  
* Dearborn, H.A.S., 1832, describing Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. (quoted in Harris 1832: 84)  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], 1849, describing Livingston Manor, seat of Mary Livingston, on the Hudson River, NY (1849; repr., 1991: 46)<ref name="Downing Treatise">A. J. [Andrew Jackson] Downing, ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America'', 4th ed. (1849; repr., Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1991), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/K7BRCDC5 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The mansion stands in the midst of a fine '''park''', rising gradually from the level of a rich inland country, and commanding [[prospect]]s for sixty miles around. The '''park''' is, perhaps, the most remarkable in America, for the noble simplicity of its character, and the perfect order in which it is kept. The turf is, everywhere, short and velvet-like, the gravel-roads scrupulously firm and smooth, and near the house are the largest and most superb evergreens.”
  
: “The general appearance of the whole grounds, should be that of a well-managed park, and the lots only so far ornamented with shrubs and flowers, as to constitute rich borders to the avenues and pathways, without giving to them the aspect of a dense and wild coppice, or a neglected garden, whose trees and plants have so multiplied and interlaced their roots and branches, as to completely destroy all that airiness, grace, and luxuriance of growth, which good taste demands.”
 
  
 +
*[[J. C. Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1850, describing St. John’s Park, New York, NY (1850: 332)<ref name="Loudon 1850">J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening'', new ed. (London: Longman et al., 1850), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/W8EQFZUG view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“856. ''[[Public Garden]]s''. . .
 +
:“''At New York''. . . St. John’s '''Park''' is of considerable extent, and has lately been thrown open to the inhabitants: it is tastefully and very judiciously planted, with the ornamental trees and [[shrub]]s indigenous to the country. (''Gard. Mag''., vol. iii. p. 347.)”
  
* Bryant, William Cullen, 29 June 1832, describing the Jefferson Barracks, Jacksonville, Ill. (1975: 353)
 
  
: “the Jefferson Barracks, a military station of the United States. . . . It is situated in a fine natural park of noble trees principally black oak which extends I am told for some miles back from the shore. The trees are at considerable distances from each other and the tops are spreading and full of foliage.”  
+
*Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason), September 1850, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” describing Bellmont Place, residence of John Perkins Cushing, Watertown, MA (''Magazine of Horticulture'' 16: 412)<ref>C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” ''Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs'' 16, no. 9 (September 1850): 406–17, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/XHZHRHEU view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The new and elegant mansion, so long vacant, is now occupied by the proprietor, and an air of liveliness, which they did not before possess, is now communicated to the '''park''', the [[pleasure-ground]] and the garden. . . The vast expanse of '''park''', which adds so much to the character of the old English residence, would possess only half the attraction it now does, but for the herds of deer which traverse its bounds, giving life and animation to the scene.”
  
Martineau, Harriet, 1835, describing Cincinnati,
 
Ohio (1838: 2:51)
 
  
“The proprietor has a passion for gardening,  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], 1851, describing plans for improving the [[public ground]]s of Washington, DC (quoted in Washburn 1967: 54–55)<ref>Wilcomb E. Washburn, “Vision of Life for the Mall,” ''AIA Journal'' 47 (1967): 52–59, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/TA59MHC7 view on Zotero].</ref>
and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to  
+
:“My object in this Plan has been three-fold:
the city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in  
+
:“1st: To form a national '''Park''', which should be an ornament to the Capital of the United States; 2nd: To give an example of the [[natural style]] of [[Landscape Gardening]] which may have an influence on the general taste of the Country. . .
his grounds with his own hands. His garden is on
+
:“'''1st: The President’s Park or Parade''' “This comprises the open Ground directly south of the President’s House. Adopting suggestions made me at Washington I propose to keep the large area of this ground open, as a place for parade or military reviews, as well as public festivities or celebrations. A circular carriage [[drive]] 40 feet wide and nearly a mile long shaded by an [[avenue]] of Elms, surrounds the Parade, while a series of foot-paths, 10 feet wide, winding through thickets of trees and [[shrub]]s, forms the boundary to this '''park''', and would make an agreeable shaded [[promenade]] for pedestrians. . .
a terrace which overlooks the canal, and the most
+
:“'''2nd: Monument Park'''
parklike eminences form the background of the  
+
:“This comprises the fine [[plot]] of ground surrounding the [[Washington_Monument_(Washington,_D.C.)|Washington monument]] and bordered by the Potomac. To reach it from the President’s '''Park''' I propose to cross the canal by a wire suspension [[bridge]], sufficiently strong for carriages, which would permit vessels of moderate size to pass under it, and would be an ornamental feature in the grounds. I propose to plant Monument '''Park''' wholly with ''American'' trees, of large growth, disposed in open groups, so as to al[l]ow of fine [[vista]]s of the Potomac river. . .
view. Between the garden and the hills extend his
+
:“'''4th: Smithsonian Park or [[Pleasure Ground]]s'''
vineyards, from the produce of which he has succeeded
+
:“An arrangement of choice trees in the [[natural style]], the [[plot]]s near the Institution would be thickly planted with the rarest trees and [[shrub]]s, to give greater seclusion and beauty to its immediate precincts. . .
in making twelve kinds of wine, some of  
+
:“'''6th: The [[Botanic Garden]]. . .'''
which are highly praised by good judges.”  
+
:“The pleasing natural undulations of surface, where they occur, I propose to retain, instead of expending money in reducing them to a level. The surface of the '''Parks''', generally, should be kept in grass or [[lawn]], and mown by the mowing machine used in England, by which, with a man and horse, the labor of six men can be done in one day. . .
 +
[[File:0023.jpg|thumb|Fig. 14, [[Andrew Jackson Downing]], ''Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the [[Public_ground|Public Grounds]] at Washington'', 1851.]]
 +
:“A national '''Park''' like this, laid out and planted in a thorough manner, would exercise as much influence on the public taste as [[Mount Auburn Cemetery]] near Boston, has done. Though only twenty years have elapsed since that spot was laid out, the lesson there taught has been so largely influential that at the present moment the United States, while they have no public '''parks''', are acknowledged to possess the finest rural [[cemetery|cemeteries]] in the world. The [[Public Ground]]s at Washington treated in the manner I have here suggested, would undoubtedly become a Public School of Instruction in every thing that relates to the tasteful arrangement of '''parks''' and grounds, and the growth and culture of trees, while they would serve, more than anything else that could be devised, to embellish and give interest to the Capital. The straight lines and broad [[Avenue]]s of the streets of Washington would be pleasantly relieved and contrasted by the beauty of curved lines and natural groups of trees in the various '''parks'''. By its numerous public buildings and broad [[Avenue]]s, Washington will one day command the attention of every stranger, and if its un-improved [[public ground]]s are tastefully improved they will form the most perfect background or setting to the City, concealing many of its defects and heightening all its beauties.” [Fig. 14]
  
Downing, A. J., January 1837, “Notices on the
 
State and Progress of Horticulture in the United
 
States,” describing Hyde Park, seat of Dr. David
 
Hosack, on the Hudson River, N.Y. (Magazine of
 
Horticulture 3: 5)
 
  
“The most distinguished amateur and patron
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], August 1851, “The New-York Park” (''Horticulturist'' 6: 345–49)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “The New-York Park,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 6, no. 8 (August 1851): 345–49, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/2XEW44DT view on Zotero].</ref>
of gardening, in every sense of the word, in this
+
:“THE leading topic of town gossip and newspaper paragraphs just now, in New-York, is the new '''park''' proposed by MAYOR KINGSLAND. Deluded New-York has, until lately, contented itself with the little door-[[yard]]s of space—mere grass [[plat]]s of verdure, which form the [[square]]s of the city, in the mistaken idea that they are parks. . .
state, was the late Dr. Hosack. Hyde Park, on the  
+
:“Thanking MAYOR KINGSLAND most heartily for his proposed new '''park''', the only objection we make to it is that it is ''too small''. One hundred and sixty acres of '''park''' for a city that will soon contain three-quarters of a million of people? It is only a child’s play-ground. . .
Hudson, the seat of this gentleman, has been
+
:“Looking at the present government of the city as about to provide, in the Peoples’ '''Park''', a breathing zone, and healthful place for exercise for a city of half a million of souls, we trust they will not be content with the limited number of acres already proposed. Five hundred acres is the smallest area that should be reserved for the future wants of such a city, now, while it may be obtained. ''Five hundred acres'' may be selected between 39th-street and the Harlem river, including a varied surface of land, a good deal of which is yet waste area, so that the whole may be purchased at something like a million of dollars. In that area there would be space enough to have broad reaches of '''park''' and [[pleasure-ground]]s, with a real feeling of the breadth and beauty of green fields, the perfume and freshness of nature. In its midst would be located the great distributing reservoirs of the Croton aqueduct, formed into lovely [[lake]]s of limpid water, covering many acres, and heightening the charm of the sylvan accessories by the finest natural contrast. In such a '''park''', the citizens who would take excursions in carriages, or on horseback, could have the substantial delights of country roads and country scenery, and forget for a time the rattle of the pavements and the glare of brick [[wall]]s. Pedestrians would find quiet and secluded [[walk]]s when they wished to be solitary, and broad [[alley]]s filled with thousands of happy faces, when they would be gay. The thoughtful denizen of the town would go out there in the morning to hold converse with the whispering trees, and the wearied tradesmen in the evening, to enjoy an hour of happiness by mingling in the open space with ‘all the world.’
probably the best specimen of a highly improved
+
:“The many beauties and utilities which would gradually grow out of a great '''park''' like this, in a great city like New-York, suggest themselves immediately and forcibly. Where would be found so fitting a position for noble works of art, the [[statue]]s, monuments, and buildings commemorative at once of the great men of the nation, of the history of the age and country, and the genius of our highest artists?
residence in the United States ...the park large,  
+
:“We have said nothing of the social influence of such a great '''park''' in New-York. But this is really the most interesting phase of the whole matter. . .
well wooded, and intersected by a fine stream.”  
+
:“Even upon the lower platform of liberty and education that the masses stand in Europe, we see the elevating influences of a wide popular enjoyment of galleries of art, public libraries, '''parks''' and gardens, which have raised the people in ''social'' civilization and social culture to a far higher level than we have yet attained in republican America. And yet this broad ground of popular refinement must be taken in republican America, for it belongs of right more truly here, than elsewhere. It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It takes up popular education where the common school and ballot-box leave it, and raises up the working-man to the same level of enjoyment with the man of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social and artistic elements of every man’s nature lie dormant within him, and every laborer is a possible gentleman, not by the possession of money or fine clothes—but through the refining influence of intellectual and moral culture.”  
  
Adams, Rev. Nehemiah, 1838, describing Boston
 
Common, Boston, Mass. ([Adams] 1838: 22)
 
  
“Much as public squares, and parks, and  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], December 1851, “State and Prosperity of Horticulture” (''Horticulturist'' 6: 540)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “The State and Prospects of Horticulture,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 6, no. 12 (December 1851): 537–41, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/XR68IJEG view on Zotero].</ref>
avenues, and fountains contribute to the beauty of  
+
:“From [[cemetery|cemeteries]] we naturally rise to public '''parks''' and gardens. As yet our countrymen have almost entirely over-looked the sanitary value and importance of these breathing places for large cities, or the powerful part which they may be made to play in refining, elevating, and affording enjoyment to the people at large. . . The plan [for a [[public ground]] in Washington] embraces four or five miles of carriage-[[drive]]—[[walk]]s for pedestrians—[[pond]]s of water, [[fountain]]s and [[statue]]s—[[picturesque]] groupings of trees and [[shrub]]s, and a complete collection of all the trees that belong to North America. It will, if carried out as it has been undertaken, undoubtedly give a great impetus to the popular taste in [[landscape-gardening]] and the culture of ornamental trees; and as the climate of Washington is one peculiarly adapted to this purpose—this national '''park''' may be made a sylvan museum such as it would be difficult to equal in beauty and variety in any part of the world.”  
a city, they are no less necessary to its salubrity. It
 
was not intended by the Creator that the habitations
 
of men should be piled upon each other, as
 
they are in some cities, almost like boxes of merchandize
 
in a warehouse; and he has made no provision
 
for the security of life and health, under the  
 
circumstances which preclude the supply of an
 
abundance of fresh and pure air.”  
 
  
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1840, describing
 
New York, N.Y. ([1840] 1971: 151)
 
  
“The present City Hall was erected in 1803, at
+
[[File:0459.jpg|thumb|Fig. 15, Jenny Emily Snow, attr., ''Fairmount Park Waterworks'', c. 1850.]]
an expense of half a million of dollars. . . . When
+
*Twain, Mark, October 26, 1853, describing Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Gibson 1988: 2)<ref>Jane Mork Gibson, The Fairmount Waterworks,” ''Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin'' 84 (1988): 5–40, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/RZEZDDEN view on Zotero].</ref>
the trees of the park are in full leaf, it is difficult to
+
:“Seeing a '''park''' at the foot of the hill, I entered—and found it one of the nicest little places about.” [Fig. 15]
get an entire view of it.  
 
  
“The park is the centre of New York, and its
 
two most thronged and finest avenues from the
 
two sides of it. Broadway, the much crowded and
 
much praised Broadway, the Corso, the Toledo,
 
the Regent Street, of New York, pours its tide of
 
population past the western side of the verdant
 
triangle, and, just at the park, its crowd and its
 
bustle are thickest.”
 
  
Buckingham, James Silk, 1841, describing New
 
York, N.Y. (1:38–39)
 
  
“Of the public places for air and exercise with
+
===Citations===
which the Continental cities of Europe are so
+
*[[Ephraim Chambers|Chambers, Ephraim]], 1743, ''Cyclopaedia'' (1743: 2:n.p.)<ref>Ephraim Chambers, ''Cyclopaedia, or An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . . . ,'' 5th ed., 2 vols. (London: D. Midwinter et al., 1741–43), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/PTXK378N view on Zotero].</ref>
abundantly and agreeably furnished, and which
+
:“'''PARK''', *PARCUS, a large inclosure, privileged for wild beasts of chase, either by the king’s grant, or by prescription.
London, Bath, and some other of the larger cities
+
:“*The word is originally ''Celtic'', it signifies an inclosure, or place shut up with [[wall]]s.
of England contain, there is a marked deficiency in
+
:“Manwood defines a '''''park''''' a place of privilege for beasts of venery, and other wild beasts of the forest, and of chase, ''tam sylvestres quam campestres''.—A '''''park''''' differs from a forest in that, as Crompton observes, a subject may hold a '''''park''''' by prescription, or the king’s grant, which he cannot do by a forest. See FOREST.
New-York. Except the Battery, which is agreeable
+
:“A '''''park''''' differs from a chase also; for that a '''''park''''' must be enclosed; if it lie open, it is a good cause of seizing it into the king’s hand; as a free chase may be, if it be enclosed. Nor can the owner have any action against such as hunt in his '''''park''''', if it lie open. See CHASE.
only in summer—the Bowling Green is a confined
+
:“Du Cange refers the invention of '''''parks''''' to king Henry I. of England; but Spelman shews, it is much more ancient; and was in use among the Anglo-Saxons. Zosimus assures us, the ancient kings of Persia had '''''parks'''''.
space of 200 feet long by 150 broad; the Park,  
+
:“'''PARK''' is also used for a moveable pallisade set up in the fields to inclose sheep in to feed, and rest in during the night. See HURDLES.
which is a comparatively small spot of land (about
+
:“The shepherds shift their '''''park''''', from time to time, to dung the ground, one part after another.”
ten acres only) in the heart of the city, and quite a
 
public thoroughfare; Hudson Square, the prettiest
 
of the whole, but small, being only about four
 
acres; and the open space within Washington
 
Square, about nine acres, which is not yet furnished
 
with gravel-walks or shady trees—there is
 
no large place in the nature of a park, or public
 
garden, or public walk, where persons of all classes
 
may take air and exercise. This is a defect which, it  
 
is hoped, will ere long be remedied, as there is no
 
country, perhaps, in which it would be more  
 
advantageous to the health and pleasure of the  
 
community than this to encourage, by every possible
 
means, the use of air and exercise to a much
 
greater extent than either is at present enjoyed.”  
 
  
Dickens, Charles, 1842, describing Yale College,
 
New Haven, Conn. (p. 94)
 
  
“New Haven, known as the City of Elms, is a
+
*Whately, Thomas, 1770, ''Observations on Modern Gardening'' (1770; repr., 1982: 157, 182–83)<ref>Thomas Whately, ''Observations on Modern Gardening'', 3rd ed. (1770; repr., London: Garland, 1982), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/QKRK8DCD view on Zotero].</ref>
fine town. Many of its streets (as its alias sufficiently
+
:“A garden is intended to walk or to sit in, which are circumstances not considered in riding; a '''park''' comprehends all the uses of the other two; and these uses determine the ''proportional extent'' of each; a large garden would be but a small '''park'''; and the circumference of a considerable '''park''' but a short riding.
imports) are planted with rows of grand
+
:“A '''''park''''' and a garden are more nearly allied, and can therefore be accommodated to each other, without any disparagement to either. . .
old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments
+
:“The affinity of the two subjects is so close, that it would be difficult to draw the exact line of separation between them: gardens have lately encroached very much both in extent and in style on the character of a '''park'''; but still there are scenes in the one, which are out of the reach of the other; the small sequestered spots which are agreable in a garden, would be trivial in a '''park'''; and the spacious [[lawn]]s which are among the noblest features of the latter, would in the former fatigue by their want of variety; even such as being of a moderate extent may be admitted into either, will seem bare and naked, if not broken in the one; and lose much of their greatness, if broken in the other. The proportion of a part to the whole, is a measure of its dimensions: it often determines the proper size for an object, as well as the space fit to be allotted to a scene; and regulates the style which ought to be assigned to either.
surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable  
+
:“But whatever distinctions the extent may occasion between '''park''' and garden, a state of highly cultivated nature is consistent with each of their characters; and may in both be of the same kind, though in different degrees. The same species of preservation, of ornament, and of scenery, may be introduced; and though a large portion of a '''park''' may be rude; and the most romantic scenes are not incompatible with its character.”
eminence and reputation. The various
 
departments of this Institution are erected in a  
 
kind of park or common in the middle of the  
 
town, where they are dimly visible among the  
 
shadowing trees. The effect is very like that of an  
 
old cathedral yard in England; and when their
 
branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque.”  
 
[Fig. 11]
 
  
Barber, John Warner, and Henry Howe, 1844,
 
  
describing Point Breeze, the estate of Joseph
+
*Sheridan, Thomas, 1789, ''A Complete Dictionary of the English Language'' (1789: n.p.)<ref>Thomas A. Sheridan, ''A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Carefully Revised and Corrected by John Andrews. . . '', 5th ed. (Philadelphia: William Young, 1789), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/T5GU4CBQ view on Zotero].</ref>
Bonaparte (Count de Survilliers), Bordentown,  
+
:“'''PARK''', pa’rk. s. A piece of ground inclosed and stored with deer and other beasts of chase.”
  
N.J. (pp. 102–3)
 
“The park and grounds of the Count comprise
 
about fourteen hundred acres, which, from a wild
 
and impoverished tract, he has converted into a
 
place of beauty, blending the charms of woodland
 
and plantation scenery with a delightful water-
 
prospect. . . . While here, his time was occupied in
 
planning and executing improvements upon his
 
grounds. He did not mingle in society; but was
 
frequently seen walking through his park, attending
 
to his workmen, or, with hatchet in hand, lopping
 
branches from the trees.” [Fig. 12]
 
  
Kirkbride, Thomas S., April 1848, describing the  
+
*Repton, Humphry, 1803, ''Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1803: 13, 93–94)<ref>Humphry Repton, ''Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (London: Printed by T. Bensley for J. Taylor, 1803), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VVQPC3BI view on Zotero].</ref>
pleasure grounds and farm of the Pennsylvania
+
:“There is no error more prevalent in modern gardening, or more frequently carried to excess, than taking away [[hedge]]s to unite many small fields into one extensive and naked [[lawn]], before [[plantation]]s are made to give it the appearance of a '''park'''; and where ground is subdivided by [[sunk fence]]s, imaginary freedom is dearly purchased at the expence of actual confinement. . .
Hospital for the Insane, Philadelphia, Pa. (Journal
+
:“The chief beauty of a '''park''' consists in uniform verdure; ''undulating'' lines contrasting with each other in variety of forms; trees so grouped as to produce light and shade to display the varied surface of the ground; and an undivided range of pasture. . .
of Insanity 4: 348)
+
:“The ''farm'', on the contrary, is for ever changing the colour of its surface in motley and discordant hues; it is subdivided by straight lines of [[fence]]s. The trees can only be ranged in formal rows along the [[hedge]]s; and these the farmer claims a right to cut, prune, and disfigure.
  
“The pleasure grounds of the two sexes are
 
very effectually separated on the eastern side, by the deer-park, surrounded by a high palisade
 
fence, but the Park itself is so low that it is completely
 
overlooked from both sides; and the different
 
animals in it are in full view from the
 
adjoining grounds used by the patients of both
 
sexes.”
 
  
Downing, A. J., October 1848, describing Geneseo,  
+
*Nicol, Walter, 1812, ''The Planter’s Kalendar'' (1812:  378)<ref>Walter Nicol, ''The Planter’s Kalendar'' (Edinburgh: D. Willison for A. Constable, 1812), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/NEMUHDCC view on Zotero].</ref>
seat of James S. Wadsworth, Genesee River
+
:“It may, however, be humbly suggested, that the '''Park''', or the [[Lawn]], should never be daubed too full of groups, or of single plants. When there are too many put in, the whole '''park''' acquires a confined air and appearance; and, whatever be the intrinsic worth of the plants individually considered, the eye turns from the appearance with dislike.
Valley, N.Y. (Horticulturist 3: 164–65)
 
  
“And what a prospect! The whole of that part
 
of the valley embraced by the eye—say a thousand
 
acres—is a park, full of the finest oaks,—and such
 
oaks as you may have dreamed of, (if you love
 
trees,) or, perhaps, have seen in pictures by
 
CLAUDE LORRAINE, or our own DURAND; but
 
not in the least like those which you meet every
 
day in your woodland walks through the country
 
at large. Or rather, there are thousands of such as
 
you may have seen half a dozen examples of in
 
your own country. . . .
 
  
“No underwood, no bushes, no thickets; nothing
+
*[[J. C. Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1826, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening'' (1826: 1021, 1028)<ref>J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, ''An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening'', 4th ed. (London: Longman et al., 1826), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/KNKTCA4W view on Zotero].</ref>
but single specimens or groups of giant old
+
:“7265. ''The '''park''''' is a space devoted to the growth of timber, pasturage for deer, cattle, and sheep, and for adding grandeur and dignity to the mansion. On its extent and beauty, and on the magnitude and architectural design of the house, chiefly depend the reputation and character of the residence. In the [[geometric style]], the more distant or concealed parts were subdivided into fields, surrounded by broad stripes or double rows, enclosed in [[wall]]s or [[hedge]]s, and the nearer parts were chiefly covered with wood, enclosing regular surfaces of pasturage. In the [[modern style]], the scenery of a '''park''' is intended to resemble that of a scattered forest, the more polished glades and regular shapes of [[lawn]] being near the house, and the rougher parts towards the extremities. The paddocks or small enclosures are generally placed between the family stables and the farm, and form a sort of intermediate character. . . .
oaks, (mingled with, here a nd there, an elm) with
+
:“7313. ''Public '''parks''', or equestrian promenades'', are valuable appendages to large cities. Extent and a free air are the principle requisites, and the roads should be arranged so as to produce few intersections; but at the same time so as carriages may make either the tour of the whole scene, or adopt a shorter tour at pleasure. In the course of long roads, there ought to be occasional bays or side expansions to admit of carriages separating from the course, halting or turning. Where such [[promenade]]s are very extensive, they are furnished with places of accommodation and refreshment, both for men and horses; this is a valued part of their arrangement for occasional visitors from a distance, or in hired vehicles.
level glades of broad meadow beneath them! An
 
Englishman will hardly be convinced that it is not
 
a park, planted by the skilful hand of man hundreds
 
of years ago.  
 
  
“This great meadow park is filled with herds of
 
the finest cattle—the pride of the home-farm.”
 
  
Downing, A. J., 1849, describing Livingston
+
*[[Noah Webster|Webster, Noah]], 1828, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'' (1828: 2:n.p.)<ref>Noah Webster, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'', 2 vols. (New York: S. Converse, 1828), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/N7BSU467 view on Zotero].</ref>
Manor, seat of Mary Livingston, on the Hudson
+
:“'''PARK''', ''n''. [Sax. ''parruc'', ''pearruc''; Scot. ''parrok''; W. ''parc''; Fr. id.; It. ''parco''; Sp. ''parque''; Ir. ''pairc''; G. Sw. ''park''; D. ''perk''. . .]
River, N.Y. (p. 46)
+
:“A large piece of ground inclosed and privileged for wild beasts of chase, in England, by the king’s grant or by prescription. To constitute a '''park''', three things are required; a royal grant or license; inclosure by pales, a [[wall]] or [[hedge]]; and beasts of chase, as deer, &c.
 +
:“'''''Park''' of artillery, or artillery '''park''''', a place in the rear of both lines of an army for encamping the artillery, which is formed in lines, the guns in front, the ammunition-wagons behind the guns. . . ''Encyc''.
 +
:“'''''Park''' of provisions'', the place where the sutlers pitch their tents and sell provisions, and that where the bread wagons are stationed.”
  
“The mansion stands in the midst of a fine
 
park, rising gradually from the level of a rich
 
inland country, and commanding prospects for
 
sixty miles around. The park is, perhaps, the most
 
remarkable in America, for the noble simplicity of
 
its character, and the perfect order in which it is
 
kept. The turf is, everywhere, short and velvet-like,
 
the gravel-roads scrupulously firm and smooth,
 
and near the house are the largest and most
 
superb evergreens.”
 
  
Loudon, J. C., 1850, describing St. John’s Park,  
+
*Holley, O. L., 1843, ''The New York Register for 1843'' (1843: 240)<ref>O. L. Holley, ''The New York Register for 1843 containing an Almanac with political, statistical, and other information relating to the State of New York and the United States'', (Albany: J. Disturnell, 1843): 240, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/KCVFBZZ8 view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:BLOOMINGDALE LUNATIC ASYLUM
 +
:(Connected with the New-York Hospital.)
 +
:The Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum is pleasantly situated near the banks of the Hudson River, distant seven miles from the city of New-York, and has attached to it forty acres of land, laid out in gardens, [[pleasure ground]]s, gravel [[walk]]s and farm lots, well adapted to the unfortunate inmates.
 +
:The building is erected on one of the most elevated and healthy sites on the Island, and sufficiently retired for the comfort and convenience of the patients.
  
New York, N.Y. (p. 332)
 
  
“856. Public Gardens....  
+
*Johnson, George William, 1847, ''A Dictionary of Modern Gardening'' (1847: 418)<ref>George William Johnson, ''A Dictionary of Modern Gardening'', ed. David Landreth (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1847), [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/D6PQSNAN view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“'''PARK''', in the modern acceptation of the word, is an extensive adorned inclosure surrounding the house and gardens, and affording pasturage either to deer or cattle.
  
“At New York. . . . St. John’s Park is of considerable
 
extent, and has lately been thrown open to
 
the inhabitants: it is tastefully and very judiciously
 
planted, with the ornamental trees and shrubs
 
indigenous to the country. (Gard. Mag., vol. iii.
 
  
p. 347.)”  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], October 1848, “A Talk About Public Parks and Gardens” (''Horticulturist'' 3: 156–57)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “A Talk About Public Parks and Gardens,''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 3, no. 4 (October 1848): 153–58, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/VZD8Q6ZN view on Zotero].</ref>
Hovey, C. M., September 1850, “Notes on Gardens
+
:“Make the public '''parks''' or [[pleasure ground]]s attractive by their [[lawn]]s, fine trees, shady [[walk]]s and beautiful [[shrub]]s and flowers, by fine music, and the certainty of ‘meeting everybody,’ and you draw the whole moving population of the town there daily. . .
and Gardening in the neighborhood of  
+
:“you must remember that there is no forced intercourse in the daily reunions in a [[public garden]] or '''park'''. There is room and space enough for pleasant little groups or circles of all tastes and sizes, and no one is necessarily brought into contact with uncongenial spirits; while the daily meeting of families, who ''ought'' to sympathise, from natural congeniality, will be more likely to bring them together than any other social gatherings. Then the advantage to our fair country-women— health and spirits, of exercise in the pure open air, amid the groups of fresh foliage and flowers, with a chat with friends, and pleasures shared with them, as compared with a listless lounge upon a sofa at home, over the last new novel or pattern of embroidery! . . .
Boston,” describing Bellmont Place, residence of  
+
:“Judging from the crowds of people in carriages, and on foot, which I find constantly thronging Green-wood and [[Mount Auburn Cemetery|Mount Auburn]], I think it is plain enough how much our citizens, of all classes, would enjoy public '''parks''' on a similar scale. Indeed, the only drawback to these beautiful and highly kept [[cemetery|cemeteries]], to my taste, is the gala-day air of recreation they present. People seem to go there to enjoy themselves, and not to indulge in any serious recollections or regrets.”
John Perkins Cushing, Watertown, Mass. (Magazine
 
of Horticulture 16: 412)
 
  
“The new and elegant mansion, so long vacant,
 
is now occupied by the proprietor, and an air of
 
liveliness, which they did not before possess, is
 
now communicated to the park, the pleasure-
 
ground and the garden. . . . The vast expanse of park, which adds so much to the character of the
 
old English residence, would possess only half the
 
attraction it now does, but for the herds of deer
 
which traverse its bounds, giving life and animation
 
to the scene.”
 
  
Downing, A. J., 1851, describing plans for improving
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], 1849, ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'' (1849: 31, 95, 109–11, 115–16, 169, 173, 219, 333)<ref name="Downing Treatise"></ref>
the public grounds of Washington, D.C.  
+
:“It must not be forgotten that, during all this period, or nearly six centuries, '''''parks''''' were common in England. . .
(quoted in Washburn 1967: 54–55)
+
:“Although these '''parks''' were more devoted to the preservation of game and the pleasures of the chase than to any other purpose, their existence was, we conceive, not wholly owing to this cause—but we look upon them as indicating that love of nature and that desire to retain beautiful portions of it as part of a residence, which form the ground-work of the taste for the [[Modern_style|modern]] or [[landscape gardening]], since the latter is only an epitome of nature with the charms judiciously heightened by art.
 +
:“And as the ''[[Avenue]]'', or the straight line, is the leading form in the [[geometric style|geometric]] arrangement of [[plantation]]s, so let us enforce it upon our readers, the GROUP is equally the key-note of the [[Modern style]]. The smallest place, having only three trees, may have these pleasingly connected in a group; and the largest and finest '''park'''—the Blenheim or Chatsworth, of seven miles square, is only composed of a succession of groups, becoming masses, [[thicket]]s, [[wood]]s. . .
 +
:“One of the loveliest charms of a fine '''park''' is, undoubtedly, variation or undulation of surface. Everything, accordingly, which tends to preserve and strengthen this pleasing character, should be kept constantly in [[view]]. . .
 +
:“Where the grounds of the residence to be planted are level, or nearly so, and it is desirable to confine the [[view]], on any or all sides, to the [[lawn]] or '''park''' itself, the boundary groups and masses must be so connected together as, from the most striking part or parts of the [[prospect]] (near the house for example) to answer this end. . .
 +
:“But where the house is so elevated as to command a more extensive [[view]] than is comprised in the demesne itself, another course should be adopted. The grounds planted must be made to connect themselves with the surrounding scenery. . . Where the '''park''' joins natural [[wood]]s, connexion is still easier, and where it bounds upon one of our noble rivers, [[lake]]s, or other large sheets of water, of course connexion is not expected; for sudden contrast and transition is there both natural and beautiful. . .
 +
:“Were it not that of late it [the linden tree] is so liable to insects, we could hardly say too much in its praise as a fine ornament for streets and public '''parks'''. There, its regular form corresponds well with the formality of the architecture; its shade affords cool and pleasant [[walk]]s, and the delightful odor of its blossoms is doubly grateful in the confined air of the city. . .
 +
:“The beech is quite handsome and graceful when young, and when large it forms one of the heaviest and grandest of ''beautiful'' '''park''' trees. . .
 +
:“When the Black walnut stands alone on a deep fertile soil it becomes a truly majestic tree; and its lower branches often sweep the ground in a graceful curve, which gives additional beauty to its whole expression. It is admirably adapted to extensive [[lawn]]s, '''parks''', or [[plantation]]s, where there is no want of room for the attainment of its full size and fair proportions. . .
 +
:“In places of large extent there may be scenes in different portions of the '''park''' of totally different character; one simply beautiful, abounding with graceful and flowing lines, and another highly [[picturesque]], and full of spirited breaks and variations.”
  
“My object in this Plan has been three-fold:
 
  
“1st: To form a national Park, which should be
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], January 1849, “On the Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life” (''Horticulturist'' 3: 309)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “On the Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 3, no. 7 (January 1849): 305–9, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/4J7CTS94 view on Zotero].</ref>
an ornament to the Capital of the United States;
+
:“If you wish for rural beauty, at a cheap rate, either on the grand or the moderate scale, choose a spot where the two features of home scenery are trees and grass. You may have five hundred acres of natural '''park'''—that is to say, fine old [[wood]]s, tastefully opened, and threaded with [[walk]]s and [[drive]]s, for less cost, in preparation and annual outlay, than it will require to maintain five acres of artificial [[pleasure-ground]]s. A pretty little natural glen, filled with old trees, and made alive by a clear perennial stream, is often a cheaper and more unwearying source of enjoyment than the gayest [[flower garden]]. Not that we mean to disparage beautiful '''parks''', [[pleasure-ground]]s, or [[flower garden]]s; we only wish our readers, about settling in the country, to understand that they do not constitute the highest and most expressive kind of rural beauty,—as they certainly do the most ''expensive''.
2nd: To give an example of the natural style of  
 
Landscape Gardening which may have an influence
 
on the general taste of the Country. . . .  
 
  
“1st: The President’s Park or Parade “This comprises the open Ground directly
 
south of the President’s House. Adopting suggestions
 
made me at Washington I propose to keep
 
the large area of this ground open, as a place for
 
parade or military reviews, as well as public festivities
 
or celebrations. A circular carriage drive 40
 
feet wide and nearly a mile long shaded by an
 
avenue of Elms, surrounds the Parade, while a
 
series of foot-paths, 10 feet wide, winding through
 
thickets of trees and shrubs, forms the boundary
 
to this park, and would make an agreeable shaded
 
promenade for pedestrians. ...
 
  
“2nd: Monument Park
+
*[[J. C. Loudon|Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius)]], 1850, ''Encyclopaedia of Gardening'' (1850: 329)<ref name="Loudon 1850"></ref>
 +
:“841. ''[[landscape gardening|Landscape-Gardening]]'' is practised in the United States on a comparatively limited scale; because, in a country where all men have equal rights, and where every man, however humble, has a house and garden of his own, it is not likely that there should be many large '''parks'''. The only splendid examples of '''park''' and [[hothouse]] gardening that, we trust, will ever be found in the United States, and ultimately in every other country, are such as will be formed by towns and villages, or other communities, for the joint use and enjoyment of all the inhabitants or members.”
  
“This comprises the fine plot of ground surrounding
 
the Washington monument and bordered by the Potomac. To reach it from the President’s
 
Park I propose to cross the canal by a wire suspension
 
bridge, sufficiently strong for carriages,
 
which would permit vessels of moderate size to
 
pass under it, and would be an ornamental feature
 
in the grounds. I propose to plant Monument
 
Park wholly with American trees, of large growth,
 
disposed in open groups, so as to al[l]ow of fine
 
vistas of the Potomac river. . . .
 
  
“4th: Smithsonian Park or Pleasure Grounds
+
*Jeffreys [pseud.], January 1850, “Critique on November Horticulturist” (''Horticulturist'' 4: 311–12)<ref>Jeffreys [pseud.], “Critique on the October Horticulturist,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 4, no. 6 (January 1849): 268–71, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/5RHC96CX/ view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“A ''true'' country house should also have some appearance of [[Rustic_style|rusticity]]—not vulgarity—but a keeping with all which surround it. Not castellated, nor magnificent; neither ostentatious nor pretending, but plain, dignified, quiet and unobtrusive; yet of ample dimensions, and exceeding convenience. Then, in '''park''' or [[lawn]], on hill or plain, flanked with mossy foliage, and well kept grounds, it becomes a perfect picture in a finished landscape.”
  
“An arrangement of choice trees in the natural
 
style, the plots near the Institution would be
 
thickly planted with the rarest trees and shrubs, to
 
give greater seclusion and beauty to its immediate
 
precincts. . . .
 
  
“6th: The Botanic Garden ...  
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], June 1850, “Our Country Villages” (''Horticulturist'' 4: 540)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “Our Country Villages,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 4, no. 12 (June 1850): 537–41, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/items/itemKey/2DJ27X4W view on Zotero].</ref>
 +
:“The indispensable desiderata in rural villages of this kind [newly planned in the suburbs of a great city], are the following: 1st, a large open space, [[common]], or '''park''', situated in the middle of the village—not less than 20 acres; and better, if 50 or more in extent. This should be well planted with groups of trees, and kept as a [[lawn]]. The expense of mowing it would be paid by the grass in some cases; and in others a considerable part of the space might be enclosed with a wire [[fence]], and fed by sheep or cows, like many of the public '''parks''' in England.
 +
:“This '''park''' would be the nucleus or ''heart of the village'', and would give it an essentially rural character. Around it should be grouped all the best cottages and residences of the place; and this would be secured by selling no lots fronting upon it of less than one-fourth of an acre in extent. . .
 +
:“After such a village was built, and the central '''park''' planted a few years, the inhabitants would not be contented with the mere [[meadow]] and trees, usually called a '''park''' in this country. By submitting to a small annual tax per family, they could turn the whole '''park''', if small, or considerable portions, here and there, if large, into [[pleasure-ground]]s. In the latter, there would be collected, by the combined means of the village, all the rare, hardy [[shrub]]s, trees and plants usually found in the private grounds of any amateur in America.
  
“The pleasing natural undulations of surface,
 
where they occur, I propose to retain, instead of
 
expending money in reducing them to a level. The
 
surface of the Parks, generally, should be kept in
 
grass or lawn, and mown by the mowing machine
 
used in England, by which, with a man and horse,
 
the labor of six men can be done in one day. . . .
 
  
“A national Park like this, laid out and planted
+
*[[A. J. Downing|Downing, Andrew Jackson]], March 1851, “The Management of Large Country Places” (''Horticulturist'' 6: 106–7)<ref>Andrew Jackson Downing, “The Management of Large Country Places,” ''Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste'' 6, no. 3 (March 1851): 105–8, [https://www.zotero.org/groups/54737/keywords_in_early_american_landscape_design/items/itemKey/HKQH76RW view on Zotero].</ref>
in a thorough manner, would exercise as much
+
:“The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one knows, is its '''parks'''. And yet the English '''parks''' are only very large [[meadow]]s, studded with great oaks and elms—and grazed—''profitably grazed'', by deer, cattle and sheep. We believe it is a commonly received idea in this country, with those who have not travelled abroad, that English '''parks''' are portions of highly dressed scenery—at least that they are kept short by frequent mowing, etc. It is an entire mistake. The mown [[lawn]] with its polished garden scenery, is confined to the [[pleasure ground]]s proper—a spot of greater or less size, immediately surrounding the house, and wholly separated from the '''park''' by a [[terrace]] [[wall]], or an iron [[fence]], or some handsome architectural barrier. The '''park''', which generally comes quite up to the house on one side, receives no other attention than such as belongs to the care of the animals that graze in it. As most of these '''parks''' afford excellent pasturage, and though apparently one wide, unbroken surface, they are really subdivided into large fields, by wire or other invisible [[fence]]s, they actually pay a very fair income to the proprietor, in the shape of good beef, mutton and venison. . .
influence on the public taste as Mount Auburn
+
:“Of course, any thing like English '''parks''', so far as regards ''extent'', is almost out of the question here; simply because land and fortunes are wisely divided here, instead of being kept in large bodies, intact, as in England. Still, as the first class country-[[seat]]s of the Hudson now command from $50,000 to $75,000, it is evident that there is a growing taste for space and beauty in the private domains of republicans. What we wish to suggest now, is, simply, that the greatest beauty and satisfaction may be had here, as in England—(for the plan really suits our limited means better,) by treating the bulk of the ornamental portion as open '''park''' pasture—and thus getting the greatest space and beauty at the least original expenditure, and with the largest annual profit. . .
Cemetery near Boston, has done. Though only
+
:“All that is to be borne in mind is, that the '''park''' may be as large as you can afford to purchase—for it may be kept up at a profit—while the [[pleasure-ground]]s and garden scenery, may, with this management, be compressed into the smallest space actually deemed necessary to the place—thereby lessening labor, and bestowing that labor, in a concentrated space, where it will tell.
twenty years have elapsed since that spot was laid
 
out, the lesson there taught has been so largely
 
influential that at the present moment the United
 
States, while they have no public parks, are  
 
acknowledged to possess the finest rural cemeteries
 
in the world. The Public Grounds at Washington
 
treated in the manner I have here suggested,  
 
would undoubtedly become a Public School of  
 
Instruction in every thing that relates to the tasteful
 
arrangement of parks and grounds, and the  
 
growth and culture of trees, while they would
 
serve, more than anything else that could be  
 
devised, to embellish and give interest to the Capital.  
 
The straight lines and broad Avenues of the
 
  
streets of Washington would be pleasantly relieved
 
and contrasted by the beauty of curved lines and
 
natural groups of trees in the various parks. By its
 
numerous public buildings and broad Avenues,
 
Washington will one day command the attention
 
of every stranger, and if its un-improved public
 
grounds are tastefully improved they will form the
 
most perfect background or setting to the City,
 
concealing many of its defects and heightening all
 
its beauties.” [Fig. 13]
 
  
Downing, A. J., August 1851, “The New-York
+
<hr>
Park” (Horticulturist 6: 345–49)
 
  
“THE leading topic of town gossip and newspaper
+
==Images==
paragraphs just now, in New-York, is the
+
===Inscribed===
new park proposed by MAYOR KINGSLAND.
+
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
Deluded New-York has, until lately, contented
 
itself with the little door-yards of space—mere
 
grass plats of verdure, which form the squares of
 
the city, in the mistaken idea that they are
 
parks....
 
  
“Thanking MAYOR KINGSLAND most
+
File:1385.jpg|Batty Langley, “Design of a Small Garden Situated in a '''Park''',” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XII.
heartily for his proposed new park, the only
 
objection we make to it is that it is too small. One
 
hundred and sixty acres of park for a city that will
 
soon contain three-quarters of a million of people?
 
It is only a child’s play-ground. . . .  
 
  
“Looking at the present government of the city
+
File:1386.jpg|Batty Langley, “Part of a '''Park''' Exhibiting their manner of Planting, after a more Grand manner than has been done before,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XIII.
as about to provide, in the Peoples’ Park,a
 
breathing zone, and healthful place for exercise for
 
a city of half a million of souls, we trust they will
 
not be content with the limited number of acres
 
already proposed. Five hundred acres is the smallest
 
area that should be reserved for the future
 
wants of such a city, now, while it may be
 
obtained. Five hundred acres may be selected
 
between 39th-street and the Harlem river, including
 
a varied surface of land, a good deal of which
 
is yet waste area, so that the whole may be purchased
 
at something like a million of dollars. In
 
that area there would be space enough to have
 
broad reaches of park and pleasure-grounds, with
 
a real feeling of the breadth and beauty of green
 
  
fields, the perfume and freshness of nature. In its
+
File:1387.jpg|Batty Langley, “Part of a '''Park''' Exhibiting their manner of planting, after a more grand manner than has been done before,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XIV.
midst would be located the great distributing
 
reservoirs of the Croton aqueduct, formed into
 
lovely lakes of limpid water, covering many acres,
 
and heightening the charm of the sylvan accessories
 
by the finest natural contrast. In such a  
 
park, the citizens who would take excursions in
 
carriages, or on horseback, could have the substantial
 
delights of country roads and country
 
scenery, and forget for a time the rattle of the
 
pavements and the glare of brick walls. Pedestrians
 
would find quiet and secluded walks when
 
they wished to be solitary, and broad alleys filled
 
with thousands of happy faces, when they would
 
be gay. The thoughtful denizen of the town would
 
go out there in the morning to hold converse with
 
the whispering trees, and the wearied tradesmen
 
in the evening, to enjoy an hour of happiness by
 
mingling in the open space with ‘all the world.
 
  
“The many beauties and utilities which would
+
File:0994.jpg|Anonymous, “Williamsburgh & the slip of land between York & James rivers from thence to Hampton,” c. 1781. According to Hugh Jones, a "large pasture enclosed like a '''park'''" surrounded the governor’s residence and was encircled and marked on the plan as "Governor’s Park.”
gradually grow out of a great park like this, in a  
 
great city like New-York, suggest themselves
 
immediately and forcibly. Where would be found
 
so fitting a position for noble works of art, the
 
statues, monuments, and buildings commemorative
 
at once of the great men of the nation, of the
 
history of the age and country, and the genius of
 
our highest artists?
 
  
“We have said nothing of the social influence
+
File:0994_detail.jpg|Anonymous, "Williamsburgh & the slip of land between York & James rivers from thence to Hampton" [detail], c. 1781.
of such a great park in New-York. But this is really
 
the most interesting phase of the whole
 
matter. . . .  
 
  
“Even upon the lower platform of liberty and
+
File:2296.jpg|A. P. Folie, “Plan of the town of Baltimore and it’s environs,” 1792. "Howard's '''Park'''" inscribed at top left.
education that the masses stand in Europe, we see
 
the elevating influences of a wide popular enjoyment
 
of galleries of art, public libraries, parks and
 
gardens, which have raised the people in social civilization
 
and social culture to a far higher level
 
than we have yet attained in republican America.  
 
And yet this broad ground of popular refinement
 
must be taken in republican America, for it
 
belongs of right more truly here, than elsewhere.  
 
It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It
 
takes up popular education where the common
 
school and ballot-box leave it, and raises up the
 
working-man to the same level of enjoyment with
 
the man of leisure and accomplishment. The
 
higher social and artistic elements of every man’s
 
nature lie dormant within him, and every laborer
 
is a possible gentleman, not by the possession of
 
money or fine clothes—but through the refining
 
influence of intellectual and moral culture.
 
  
Downing, A. J., December 1851, “State and Prosperity
+
File:2253.jpg|Benjamin Taylor, John Roberts (engraver), “A New & Accurate Plan of the City of New York in the State of New York in North America,” 1797.
of Horticulture” (Horticulturist 6: 540)
 
  
“From cemeteries we naturally rise to public
+
File:0039.jpg|Charles Bulfinch, ''Plan of [[Public garden/Public ground|Grounds]] adjacent to the Capitol'', 1822.  
parks and gardens. As yet our countrymen have
 
almost entirely over-looked the sanitary value and
 
importance of these breathing places for large
 
cities, or the powerful part which they may be
 
made to play in refining, elevating, and affording
 
enjoyment to the people at large. . . . The plan [for
 
a public ground in Washington] embraces four or
 
five miles of carriage-drive—walks for pedestrians—
 
ponds of water, fountains and statues—picturesque groupings of trees and shrubs, and a
 
complete collection of all the trees that belong to
 
North America. It will, if carried out as it has been
 
undertaken, undoubtedly give a great impetus to
 
the popular taste in landscape-gardening and the
 
culture of ornamental trees; and as the climate of
 
Washington is one peculiarly adapted to this purpose—
 
this national park may be made a sylvan
 
museum such as it would be difficult to equal in
 
beauty and variety in any part of the world.
 
  
Mark Twain, 26 October 1853, describing Fair-
+
File:2000.jpg|Robert Cary Long Jr., Washington Monument and Howard's '''Park''', c. 1829.
mount Waterworks, Philadelphia, Pa. (quoted in
 
Gibson 1988: 2)
 
  
“Seeing a park at the foot of the hill, I
+
File:0811.jpg|William Smith after [[Alexander Jackson Davis]], ''[[View]] of St. John’s Chapel, From the '''Park''''', 1829.
entered—and found it one of the nicest little
 
places about.
 
  
===Citations===
+
File:1116.jpg|W. H. Bartlett, ''The '''Park''' and City Hall, New York'', in Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''American Scenery'' (1840), vol 1, pl. 49.
  
Chambers, Ephraim, 1741–43, Cyclopaedia
+
File:1808.jpg|Sarah Fairchild, ''Union '''Park''', New York'', c. 1845.
  
(2:n.p.)
+
File:0363.jpg|Anonymous, “[[View]] in the [[Meadow]] '''Park''' at Geneseo,” in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'', 3, no. 4 (October 1848): pl. opp. 153.  
  
“PARK,* PARCUS, a large inclosure, privileged
+
File:0355.jpg|Anonymous, “[[View]] in the Grounds at Hyde '''Park''',” in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'', 4th ed. (1849), pl. opp. 45, fig. 1.
for wild beasts of chase, either by the king’s
 
grant, or by prescription.  
 
  
“*The word is originally Celtic, it signifies an
+
File:0484.jpg|John Bachmann, ''New York City Hall, '''Park''' and Environs'', c. 1849.
inclosure, or place shut up with walls.  
 
  
“Manwood defines a park a place of privilege
+
File:0476.jpg|James Smillie (artist), Sarony & Major (printers), ''[[View]] of Union '''Park''', New York, from the head of Broadway'', 1849.
for beasts of venery, and other wild beasts of the
 
forest, and of chase, tam sylvestres quam
 
campestres.—A park differs from a forest in that,
 
as Crompton observes, a subject may hold a park
 
by prescription, or the king’s grant, which he cannot
 
do by a forest. See FOREST.  
 
  
“A park differs from a chase also; for that a
+
File:1967.jpg|[[A. J. Downing]], ''Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the [[Public_ground|Public Grounds]] at Washington'', 1851.
park must be enclosed; if it lie open, it is a good
 
cause of seizing it into the king’s hand; as a free
 
chase may be, if it be enclosed. Nor can the owner
 
have any action against such as hunt in his park, if
 
it lie open. See CHASE.  
 
  
“Du Cange refers the invention of parks to
+
File:0947.jpg|Anonymous, ''Study of trees in '''Park''' Scenery'', in [[A. J. Downing]], “Study of Park Trees,” ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 9 (September 1851): pl. opp. 394.
king Henry I. of England; but Spelman shews, it is
 
much more ancient; and was in use among the
 
Anglo-Saxons. Zosimus assures us, the ancient
 
kings of Persia had parks.  
 
  
“PARK is also used for a moveable pallisade
+
File:1038.jpg|Frederick Graff, ''Plan of [[Lemon Hill]] and Sedgley '''Park''', Fairmount and Adjoining Property'', October 15, 1851.
set up in the fields to inclose sheep in to feed, and  
 
rest in during the night. See HURDLES.  
 
  
“The shepherds shift their park, from time to
+
File:2297.jpg|Matthew Vassar, ''Plan of Springside'', 1851. "Ever-green '''Parks''' (19-20)."
time, to dung the ground, one part after another.
 
  
Whately, Thomas, 1770, Observations on Modern
+
File:0023.jpg|[[A. J. Downing]], ''Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the [[Public_ground|Public Grounds]] at Washington'', 1851.
Gardening ([1770] 1982: 157, 182–83)
 
  
“A garden is intended to walk or to sit in,  
+
File: 0023_detail4.jpg|[[A. J. Downing]], ''Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the [[Public_ground|Public Grounds]] at Washington'' [detail], 1851. Manuscript copy by Nathaniel Michler, 1867.
which are circumstances not considered in riding;
 
a park comprehends all the uses of the other two;
 
and these uses determine the proportional extent of
 
each; a large garden would be but a small park;
 
and the circumference of a considerable park but
 
a short riding.  
 
  
“A park and a garden are more nearly allied,  
+
File:0584.jpg|Lewis Miller, Title page, ''Sketchbook of Landscapes in the State of Virginia'' (1853).
and can therefore be accommodated to each
+
</gallery>
other, without any disparagement to either. . . .  
 
  
“The affinity of the two subjects is so close,
+
===Associated===
that it would be difficult to draw the exact line of
+
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
separation between them: gardens have lately
 
encroached very much both in extent and in style
 
on the character of a park; but still there are
 
scenes in the one, which are out of the reach of the
 
other; the small sequestered spots which are agreable
 
in a garden, would be trivial in a park; and
 
the spacious lawns which are among the noblest
 
features of the latter, would in the former fatigue
 
by their want of variety; even such as being of a
 
moderate extent may be admitted into either, will
 
seem bare and naked, if not broken in the one;
 
and lose much of their greatness, if broken in the
 
other. The proportion of a part to the whole, is a
 
measure of its dimensions: it often determines the
 
proper size for an object, as well as the space fit to
 
be allotted to a scene; and regulates the style which
 
ought to be assigned to either.
 
  
“But whatever distinctions the extent may
+
File:0108.jpg|Andrew Ellicott (creator), Samuel Hill (engraver), ''Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia'', 1792. The park is the shaded open area in the center of the plan.
occasion between park and garden, a state of  
 
highly cultivated nature is consistent with each of  
 
their characters; and may in both be of the same
 
kind, though in different degrees. The same
 
species of preservation, of ornament, and of  
 
scenery, may be introduced; and though a large
 
portion of a park may be rude; and the most
 
romantic scenes are not incompatible with its
 
character.
 
  
Sheridan, Thomas, 1789, A Complete Dictionary
+
File:0826.jpg|James Peller Malcolm, ''[[The Woodlands|Woodlands]], the [[Seat]] of W. Hamilton Esquire, from the [[Bridge]] at Gray’s Ferry, Philadelphia'', c. 1792—94.
of the English Language (n.p.)
 
  
“PARK, pa’rk. s. A piece of ground inclosed
+
File:2254.jpg|William Groombridge, ''[[The Woodlands]], the [[Seat]] of William Hamilton, Esq.'', 1793.  
and stored with deer and other beasts of chase.
 
  
Repton, Humphry, 1803, Observations on the  
+
File:0031.jpg|Andrew Ellicott, ''Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia'', 1795.
Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening
 
  
(pp. 13, 93–94)
+
File:1731.jpg|[[Benjamin Henry Latrobe]], ''Horsdumonde, the House of Colonel Henry Skipwith, Cumberland County, Virginia'', June 14, 1796.
  
“There is no error more prevalent in modern
+
File:0051.jpg|William Strickland, “[[The Woodlands]],” 1809, in ''Casket'' 5, no. 10 (October 1830): pl. opp. 432.
gardening, or more frequently carried to excess,  
 
than taking away hedges to unite many small
 
fields into one extensive and naked lawn, before
 
plantations are made to give it the appearance of a
 
park; and where ground is subdivided by sunk
 
fences, imaginary freedom is dearly purchased at
 
the expence of actual confinement. . . .  
 
  
“The chief beauty of a park consists in uniform
+
File:1830.jpg|Joshua Rowley Watson, ''Sedgley--J. Fishers Esqr. opposite Eaglesfield 28th. October'', 1816.
verdure; undulating lines contrasting with
 
each other in variety of forms; trees so grouped as
 
to produce light and shade to display the varied
 
surface of the ground; and an undivided range of
 
pasture. . . .  
 
  
“The farm, on the contrary, is for ever changing
+
File:0992.jpg|Charles B. Lawrence, attr., ''[[Point Breeze]], the Estate of Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte at Bordentown, New Jersey'', 1817—20.
the colour of its surface in motley and discordant
 
hues; it is subdivided by straight lines of
 
fences. The trees can only be ranged in formal
 
rows along the hedges; and these the farmer
 
claims a right to cut, prune, and disfigure.
 
  
Nicol, Walter, 1812, The Planter’s Kalendar
+
File:0716.jpg|Alvan Fisher, ''The Vale'', 1820—25.
  
(p. 378)
+
File:0300.jpg|Thomas Birch, ''Fairmount Water Works'', 1821.
“It may, however, be humbly suggested, that
 
the Park, or the Lawn, should never be daubed
 
too full of groups, or of single plants. When there
 
are too many put in, the whole park acquires a
 
confined air and appearance; and, whatever be the
 
intrinsic worth of the plants individually consid
 
  
 +
File:1994.jpg|Thomas Doughty, ''[[View]] of the Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia, from the Opposite Side of the [[Schuylkill_River|Schuylkill River]]'', c. 1824—26.
  
ered, the eye turns from the appearance with
+
File:0038.jpg|Arthur J. Stansbury, ''City Hall '''Park''' From the Northwest Corner of Broadway and Chambers Street'', c. 1825.
dislike.
 
  
Loudon, J. C., 1826, An Encyclopaedia of Gardening
+
File:0052.jpg|W. J. Bennett, ''Broad Way from the Bowling Green'', c. 1826.
(pp. 1021, 1028)
 
  
“7265. The park is a space devoted to the
+
File:0665.jpg|Anonymous, Bonaparte’s residence and the surrounding '''park''', c. 1830.
growth of timber, pasturage for deer, cattle, and
 
sheep, and for adding grandeur and dignity to the
 
mansion. On its extent and beauty, and on the
 
magnitude and architectural design of the house,  
 
chiefly depend the reputation and character of the
 
residence. In the geometric style, the more distant
 
or concealed parts were subdivided into fields,
 
surrounded by broad stripes or double rows,
 
enclosed in walls or hedges, and the nearer parts
 
were chiefly covered with wood, enclosing regular
 
surfaces of pasturage. In the modern style, the
 
scenery of a park is intended to resemble that of a
 
scattered forest, the more polished glades and regular
 
shapes of lawn being near the house, and the
 
rougher parts towards the extremities. The paddocks
 
or small enclosures are generally placed
 
between the family stables and the farm, and form
 
a sort of intermediate character. . . .  
 
  
“7313. Public parks, or equestrian promenades,  
+
File:1100.jpg|Robert Walter Weir, “Lunatic Asylum, New York,” Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, in ''New York Mirror'' (February 1, 1834): opp. 241.
are valuable appendages to large cities. Extent and
 
a free air are the principle requisites, and the roads
 
should be arranged so as to produce few intersections;
 
but at the same time so as carriages may
 
make either the tour of the whole scene, or adopt
 
a shorter tour at pleasure. In the course of long
 
roads, there ought to be occasional bays or side
 
expansions to admit of carriages separating from
 
the course, halting or turning. Where such promenades
 
are very extensive, they are furnished with
 
places of accommodation and refreshment, both
 
for men and horses; this is a valued part of their
 
arrangement for occasional visitors from a distance,
 
or in hired vehicles.
 
  
Webster, Noah, 1828, An American Dictionary of
+
File:2256.jpg|John Henry Bufford. ''Fairmount from the first Landing'', cover illustration for sheet music for ''The Fairmount Quadrilles'', 1836.
the English Language (n.p.)
 
  
“PARK, n. [Sax. parruc, pearruc; Scot. parrok;
+
File:0540.jpg|John Caspar Wild, ''Fairmount Waterworks'', 1838.
  
W. parc; Fr. id.; It. parco; Sp. parque; Ir. pairc; G.
+
File:0541.jpg|John T. Bowen, ''A [[View]] of the Fairmount Water-Works with Schuylkill in the distance, taken from the [[Mount]]'', 1838.  
Sw. park; D. perk. . . .]  
 
“A large piece of ground inclosed and privileged
 
for wild beasts of chase, in England, by the  
 
king’s grant or by prescription. To constitute a
 
park, three things are required; a royal grant or
 
license; inclosure by pales, a wall or hedge; and
 
beasts of chase, as deer, &c.  
 
  
“Park of artillery, or artillery park, a place in
+
File:0040.jpg|W. H. Bartlett, “Washington from the President’s House,in Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''American Scenery'' (1840), vol. 2, pl. 26.
the rear of both lines of an army for encamping
 
the artillery, which is formed in lines, the guns in
 
front, the ammunition-wagons behind the
 
guns. . . . Encyc.  
 
  
“Park of provisions, the place where the sutlers
+
File:0766.jpg|Anonymous, “The Battery, New York, By Moonlight,” in ''Illustrated London News'' (October 27, 1849): 277.  
pitch their tents and sell provisions, and that
 
where the bread wagons are stationed.
 
  
Johnson, George William, 1847, A Dictionary of  
+
File:0377.jpg|Anonymous, ''Plan of a Mansion Residence, laid out in the [[Natural_style|natural style]]'', in [[A. J. Downing]], ''A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening'', 4th ed. (1849), 115, fig. 25.
Modern Gardening (p. 418)
 
  
“PARK, in the modern acceptation of the word,  
+
File:0497.jpg|Anonymous, “Bowling Green [[Fountain]],” in E. Porter Belden, ''New-York: Past, Present, and Future'' (1850), opp. 30.
is an extensive adorned inclosure surrounding thehouse and gardens, and affording pasturage either
 
to deer or cattle.
 
  
Downing, A. J., October 1848, “A Talk About
+
File:0459.jpg|Jenny Emily Snow, attr., ''Fairmount Park Waterworks'', c. 1850.
Public Parks and Gardens” (Horticulturist 3:
 
156–57)
 
  
“Make the public parks or pleasure grounds
+
File:0351.jpg|[[A. J. Downing]], “Presidents [[Arch]] at the end of Penna [[Avenue]],” 1851.
attractive by their lawns, fine trees, shady walks
 
and beautiful shrubs and flowers, by fine music,
 
and the certainty of ‘meeting everybody,’ and you
 
draw the whole moving population of the town
 
there daily. . . .  
 
  
“you must remember that there is no forced
+
File:1001.jpg|Anonymous, “[[Mount]] Fordham—the Country [[Seat]] of Lewis G. Morris, Esq.,in [[A. J. Downing]], ed., ''Horticulturist'' 6, no. 8 (August 1851): pl. opp. 345.
intercourse in the daily reunions in a public garden
 
or park. There is room and space enough for
 
pleasant little groups or circles of all tastes and
 
sizes, and no one is necessarily brought into contact
 
with uncongenial spirits; while the daily meeting
 
of families, who ought to sympathise, from
 
natural congeniality, will be more likely to bring
 
them together than any other social gatherings.  
 
Then the advantage to our fair country-women—
 
health and spirits, of exercise in the pure open air,  
 
amid the groups of fresh foliage and flowers, with
 
a chat with friends, and pleasures shared with
 
them, as compared with a listless lounge upon a
 
sofa at home, over the last new novel or pattern of
 
embroidery! . . .  
 
  
“Judging from the crowds of people in carriages,
+
File:1264.jpg|Henry Gritten, ''Springside: Center Circle'', 1852.
and on foot, which I find constantly
 
thronging Green-wood and Mount Auburn, I
 
think it is plain enough how much our citizens, of
 
all classes, would enjoy public parks on a similar
 
scale. Indeed, the only drawback to these beautiful
 
and highly kept cemeteries, to my taste, is the
 
gala-day air of recreation they present. People
 
seem to go there to enjoy themselves, and not to
 
indulge in any serious recollections or regrets.
 
  
Downing, A. J., 1849, A Treatise on the Theory and
+
File:0982.jpg|L. S. Punderson, ''Public [[Square]], New Haven'', 1862.
Practice of Landscape Gardening (pp. 31, 95, 109–11,  
+
</gallery>
115–16, 169, 173, 219, 333)
 
  
“It must not be forgotten that, during all this
+
===Attributed===
period, or nearly six centuries, parks were common
+
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="7">
in England. . . .
 
  
“Although these parks were more devoted to
+
File:1383.jpg|Batty Langley, One of two "Designs for Gardens that lye irregularly to the grand House. . . ,” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. X.
the preservation of game and the pleasures of the
 
chase than to any other purpose, their existence
 
was, we conceive, not wholly owing to this
 
cause—but we look upon them as indicating that
 
love of nature and that desire to retain beautiful
 
portions of it as part of a residence, which form
 
the ground-work of the taste for the modern or
 
landscape gardening, since the latter is only an
 
epitome of nature with the charms judiciously
 
heightened by art.  
 
  
“And as the Avenue, or the straight line, is the
+
File:1384.jpg|Batty Langley, One of two "Designs for Gardens that lye irregularly to the ground House. . . ,in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XI.
leading form in the geometric arrangement of  
 
plantations, so let us enforce it upon our readers,
 
the GROUP is equally the key-note of the Modern
 
style. The smallest place, having only three trees,
 
may have these pleasingly connected in a group;
 
and the largest and finest park—the Blenheim or
 
Chatsworth, of seven miles square, is only com
 
  
 +
File:1389.jpg|Batty Langley, “Variety of Lawns, or Openings, before a grand Front of a Building, into a '''Park''', Forest, Common, &c.” in ''New Principles of Gardening'' (1728), pl. XVI.
  
posed of a succession of groups, becoming masses,  
+
File:0153.jpg|John Drayton, ''A [[View]] of the Battery and Harbour of New York, and the Ambuscade Frigate'', 1794.
thickets, woods. . . .  
 
  
“One of the loveliest charms of a fine park is,
+
File:0477.jpg|John Scoles, ''Government House'', 1795.
undoubtedly, variation or undulation of surface.  
 
Everything, accordingly, which tends to preserve
 
and strengthen this pleasing character, should be
 
kept constantly in view. . . .  
 
  
“Where the grounds of the residence to be
+
File:0755.jpg|George Beck, ''[[View]] of Baltimore from Howard Park'', c. 1796
planted are level, or nearly so, and it is desirable to
 
confine the view, on any or all sides, to the lawn or
 
park itself, the boundary groups and masses must
 
be so connected together as, from the most striking
 
part or parts of the prospect (near the house
 
for example) to answer this end. . . .  
 
  
“But where the house is so elevated as to command
+
File:0203.jpg|Francis Guy, ''Perry Hall from the northwest'', c. 1805.
a more extensive view than is comprised in
 
the demesne itself, another course should be
 
adopted. The grounds planted must be made to
 
connect themselves with the surrounding
 
scenery. . . . Where the park joins natural woods,
 
connexion is still easier, and where it bounds
 
upon one of our noble rivers, lakes, or other large
 
sheets of water, of course connexion is not
 
expected; for sudden contrast and transition is
 
there both natural and beautiful. . . .  
 
  
“Were it not that of late it [the linden tree] is
+
File:0103.jpg|Lewis and Goodwin (lithographers), after a drawing by Joseph Jacques Ramée, ''Union College. Schenectady, N.Y.'', 1815.
so liable to insects, we could hardly say too much
 
in its praise as a fine ornament for streets and
 
public parks. There, its regular form corresponds
 
well with the formality of the architecture; its
 
shade affords cool and pleasant walks, and the
 
delightful odor of its blossoms is doubly grateful
 
in the confined air of the city. . . .  
 
  
“The beech is quite handsome and graceful
+
File:2082.jpg|Joshua Rowley Watson, ''Eaglesfield from the northeast, May 11th, 1817'', 1817.
when young, and when large it forms one of the  
 
heaviest and grandest of beautiful park trees. ...  
 
  
“When the Black walnut stands alone on a
+
File:2119.jpg|Robert Campbell, after Thomas Birch, ''[[View]] of the Dam and Water Works at Fairmount, Philadelphia'', 1824.
deep fertile soil it becomes a truly majestic tree;
 
and its lower branches often sweep the ground in
 
a graceful curve, which gives additional beauty to
 
its whole expression. It is admirably adapted to
 
extensive lawns, parks, or plantations, where there
 
is no want of room for the attainment of its full
 
size and fair proportions. . . .  
 
  
“In places of large extent there may be scenes
+
File:0053.jpg|[[Alexander Jackson Davis]], Castle Garden, N. York, c. 1825—28.
in different portions of the park of totally different
 
character; one simply beautiful, abounding
 
with graceful and flowing lines, and another
 
highly picturesque, and full of spirited breaks and
 
variations.
 
  
Downing, A. J., January 1849, “On the Mistakes
+
File:1987_1.jpg|Tucker Factory, Vase with view of Sedgeley Park, 1828&ndash;1836.
of Citizens in Country Life” (Horticulturist 3: 309)
 
  
“If you wish for rural beauty, at a cheap rate,
+
File:1987_2.jpg|Tucker Factory, Vase with view of Sedgeley Park, 1828&ndash;1836.
either on the grand or the moderate scale, choose
 
a spot where the two features of home scenery are
 
trees and grass. You may have five hundred acres
 
of natural park—that is to say, fine old woods,
 
tastefully opened, and threaded with walks and
 
drives, for less cost, in preparation and annual
 
outlay, than it will require to maintain five acres of
 
artificial pleasure-grounds. A pretty little natural
 
glen, filled with old trees, and made alive by a
 
clear perennial stream, is often a cheaper and
 
more unwearying source of enjoyment than the
 
  
gayest flower garden. Not that we mean to disparage
+
File:2014.jpg|[[Anthony St. John Baker]], “Front [[View]] of [[Mount]] Airy, Virginia,” 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, 520A.
beautiful parks, pleasure-grounds, or flower
 
gardens; we only wish our readers, about settling
 
in the country, to understand that they do not
 
constitute the highest and most expressive kind of
 
rural beauty,—as they certainly do the most
 
expensive.
 
  
Loudon, J. C., 1850, Encyclopaedia of Gardening
+
File:1216.jpg|[[Anthony St. John Baker]], [[Mount]] Airy, Virginia; northeast front, 1827, in ''Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose'' (1850), part IV, 520A.
  
(p. 329)
+
File:0727.jpg|Thomas Cole, ''Gardens of the Van Rensselaer Manor House'', 1840.
“841. Landscape-Gardening is practised in the
 
United States on a comparatively limited scale;
 
because, in a country where all men have equal
 
rights, and where every man, however humble,
 
has a house and garden of his own, it is not likely
 
that there should be many large parks. The only
 
splendid examples of park and hothouse gardening
 
that, we trust, will ever be found in the United
 
States, and ultimately in every other country, are
 
such as will be formed by towns and villages, or
 
other communities, for the joint use and enjoyment
 
of all the inhabitants or members.
 
  
Jeffreys [pseud.], January 1850, “Critique on
+
File:0726.jpg|Thomas Cole, ''The Van Rensselaer Manor House'', 1841.
November Horticulturist” (Horticulturist 4:
 
311–12)
 
  
“A true country house should also have some
+
File:0483.jpg|Anonymous, ''Croton Water Celebration 1842'', 1842.
appearance of rusticity—not vulgarity—but a
 
keeping with all which surround it. Not castellated,  
 
nor magnificent; neither ostentatious nor
 
pretending, but plain, dignified, quiet and unobtrusive;
 
yet of ample dimensions, and exceeding
 
convenience. Then, in park or lawn, on hill or
 
plain, flanked with mossy foliage, and well kept
 
grounds, it becomes a perfect picture in a finished
 
landscape.
 
  
Downing, A. J., June 1850, “Our Country Villages”
+
File:2283.jpg|Anonymous (artist), Nathaniel Currier (lithographer), ''[[View]] of the Great Conflagration at New York July 19th 1845'', 1845.
(Horticulturist 4: 540)  
 
  
“The indispensable desiderata in rural villages
+
File:0523.jpg|[[Frances Palmer]] (artist), Nathaniel Currier (lithographer), ''Union Place Hotel, Union Square New-York'', c. 1845.
of this kind [newly planned in the suburbs of a
 
great city], are the following: 1st, a large open
 
space, common, or park, situated in the middle of
 
the village—not less than 20 acres; and better, if 50
 
or more in extent. This should be well planted
 
with groups of trees, and kept as a lawn. The
 
expense of mowing it would be paid by the grass
 
in some cases; and in others a considerable part of
 
the space might be enclosed with a wire fence, and
 
fed by sheep or cows, like many of the public
 
parks in England.  
 
  
“This park would be the nucleus or heart of the
+
File:1437.jpg|C. Bachman, ''New York'', c. 1848.
village, and would give it an essentially rural character.
 
Around it should be grouped all the best
 
cottages and residences of the place; and this
 
would be secured by selling no lots fronting upon
 
it of less than one-fourth of an acre in extent. . . .  
 
  
“After such a village was built, and the central
+
File:1441.jpg|David William Moody, ''Springfield'', c. 1850.
park planted a few years, the inhabitants would
 
not be contented with the mere meadow and
 
trees, usually called a park in this country. By submitting
 
to a small annual tax per family, they
 
could turn the whole park, if small, or considerable portions, here and there, if large, into
 
pleasure-grounds. In the latter, there would be
 
collected, by the combined means of the village,
 
all the rare, hardy shrubs, trees and plants usually
 
found in the private grounds of any amateur in
 
America.
 
  
Downing, A. J., March 1851, “The Management
+
File: 1239_detail1.jpg|George Washington Sully, ''View of the New Orleans River Front from Canal Street to the Place d’Armes'' [detail], 1836.
of large Country Places” (Horticulturist 6: 106–7)
 
  
“The great and distinguishing beauty of England,
+
File: 1239.jpg|George Washington Sully, ''View of the New Orleans River Front from Canal Street to the Place d’Armes'', 1836.
as every one knows, is its parks. And yet the
+
</gallery>
English parks are only very large meadows, studded
 
with great oaks and elms—and grazed—profitably
 
grazed, by deer, cattle and sheep. We believe
 
it is a commonly received idea in this country,
 
with those who have not travelled abroad, that
 
English parks are portions of highly dressed
 
scenery—at least that they are kept short by frequent
 
mowing, etc. It is an entire mistake. The
 
mown lawn with its polished garden scenery, is
 
confined to the pleasure grounds proper—a spot
 
of greater or less size, immediately surrounding
 
the house, and wholly separated from the park by
 
a terrace wall, or an iron fence, or some handsome
 
architectural barrier. The park, which generally
 
comes quite up to the house on one side, receives
 
no other attention than such as belongs to the care
 
of the animals that graze in it. As most of these
 
parks afford excellent pasturage, and though
 
apparently one wide, unbroken surface, they are
 
really subdivided into large fields, by wire or other
 
invisible fences, they actually pay a very fair
 
income to the proprietor, in the shape of good
 
beef, mutton and venison. ...
 
  
“Of course, any thing like English parks, so far
+
<hr>
as regards extent, is almost out of the question
 
here; simply because land and fortunes are wisely
 
divided here, instead of being kept in large bodies,
 
intact, as in England. Still, as the first class country-
 
seats of the Hudson now command from $50,000
 
to $75,000, it is evident that there is a growing
 
taste for space and beauty in the private domains
 
of republicans. What we wish to suggest now, is,
 
simply, that the greatest beauty and satisfaction
 
may be had here, as in England—(for the plan
 
really suits our limited means better,) by treating
 
the bulk of the ornamental portion as open park
 
pasture—and thus getting the greatest space and
 
beauty at the least original expenditure, and with
 
the largest annual profit. . . .
 
 
 
“All that is to be borne in mind is, that the park
 
may be as large as you can afford to purchase—for
 
it may be kept up at a profit—while the pleasure-
 
grounds and garden scenery, may, with this management,
 
be compressed into the smallest space
 
actually deemed necessary to the place—thereby
 
lessening labor, and bestowing that labor, in a concentrated
 
space, where it will tell.”
 
 
 
==Images==
 
 
 
<gallery></gallery>
 
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==
  
 
<references></references>
 
<references></references>
 
+
<hr>
 
[[Category: Keywords]]
 
[[Category: Keywords]]
 +
[[Category: Garden Types]]
 +
[[Category: Public Spaces]]

Latest revision as of 13:27, April 12, 2021

(Parke)
See also: Deer park, Public garden

History

The term park denotes both private and public expanses of ground. 18th-century writers used park to refer exclusively to private grounds often enclosed by fences, walls, or ha-has; if devoted to keeping deer, it was sometimes called a deer park. Early 19th-century lexicographers continued to stress the definition of park as an expanse of private property, although Noah Webster in 1828 noted that parks also designated army encampments, perhaps anticipating the term’s increasing association with public grounds. Writers also focused upon the material advantages of parks, which included the production of timber in addition to grazing land. It is clear from treatises that parks also fulfilled aesthetic and symbolic functions.

Fig. 1, Anonymous, “Williamsburgh & the slip of land between York & James rivers from thence to Hampton,” c. 1781. According to Hugh Jones, a “large pasture enclosed like a park” surrounded the governor’s residence and was encircled and marked on the plan as "Governor’s Park.”

J. C. Loudon, for example, stated in 1826 that a park added “grandeur and dignity to the mansion.” The notion of park as part of a large estate was closely connected to 18th-century British land practices, and, in particular, to the idea that land ownership provided both prestige and economic security.[1] The concept translated to America despite differences in landholding practices and in the legal system. As landscape gardener A. J. Downing noted in 1851, Americans generally would have much smaller parks than their British counterparts because inheritable land and money typically were divided among descendants instead of passing only to the first son, as was the case in Great Britain.

One of the earliest documented private parks in North America, dating from the period of British colonization, was the park that surrounded the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia, begun in 1699 [Fig. 1]. Hugh Jones, when describing the grounds of the College of William and Mary (1722), distinguished between the gardens immediately surrounding the building and those located in the larger 150-acre park. 19th-century treatise writers maintained this distinction between gardens that were situated near the house and parks that encompassed the outlying area.

Fig. 2, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Horsdumonde, the House of Colonel Henry Skipwith, Cumberland County, Virginia, June 14, 1796.
Fig. 3, Anonymous, Study of trees in Park Scenery, in Andrew Jackson Downing, “Study of Park Trees,” Horticulturist 6, no. 9 (September 1851): pl. opp. 394.

Writers of garden treatises, including Downing, specified how to arrange the key components of a park—grassy areas, woods, rolling hills, and water and how to establish desirable views. As styles in gardening changed, so did the arrangement of parks. Loudon in 1826 contrasted parks executed in the ancient or geometric style, which were “subdivided into fields. . . enclosed in walls or hedges,” with parks done in the modern or natural style “to resemble” the landscape of a “scattered forest.” One key aspect of parks executed in the latter style was the introduction of plantations or belts of trees to unify the landscape visually with patterns of lines of light and shadow formed by groupings of trees. Practitioners of the modern style, such as Downing, were concerned with creating discrete boundaries for parks: they often relied upon plantings either to define or to occlude views.

Landowners, such as William Hamilton, took the existing topography of their estates and manipulated it to fit the prevailing aesthetic. Views of late 18th-century estates often featured smooth lawns punctuated with clumps of trees and woods [Fig. 2]. In country house portraits, trees were often important elements—framing the house or drawing the viewer’s attention to the background. This emphasis paralleled treatise writers’ concern with trees as key components in park designs [Fig. 3]. Downing argued that artfully sited large trees added nobility, dignity, and a sense of age to a park, and he believed that such trees allowed American landscapes to rival those of the English.

Public parks, open landscaped spaces under government control, accommodated a wide variety of functions. Generally located in urban settings, many 18th- and 19th-century parks evolved from land originally set aside for commons, city squares, bowling greens, or other forms of pleasure grounds. Pierre-Charles L’Enfant described his plan for the national Mall in Washington, DC, as a “place of general resort.”[2] With the growth of towns and cities in the first half of the 19th century and attendant fears of crowding and disease, civic improvement campaigners repeatedly expressed a desire to designate green spaces or parks that could act as “lungs” to bring in fresh air and mitigate toxic urban ills. Moreover, with the marked popularity of rural cemeteries in the 1840s, it became evident that urban populations were interested in open spaces. Public spaces were called parks early in America, but were also described as public grounds, public gardens, pleasure grounds, or pleasure gardens, to underscore either their accessibility to citizens or their leisure function.

A desire for sites of public commemoration also stimulated the development of public parks. The designation of the national Mall in Washington, DC, as a park was linked intimately with the mission of public education envisioned by its founders. For example, in 1851 Downing described the Mall as a “sylvan museum”—an institution that would shape public taste in landscaping and in the selection of trees and plants.[3]

Fig. 4, John Bachmann, New York City Hall, Park and Environs, c. 1849.
Fig. 5, Sarah Fairchild, Union Park, New York, c. 1845.

As was the case with many city parks, the land for present-day City Hall Park in New York originally was set aside as a common early in the city’s history. In 1803, when City Hall was erected on a site next to it, this land was designated as a park. Ornamented with gates, fountains, and plantings, it provided an elegant setting for the public building, according to the descriptions of William Dickinson Martin (1809) and John Lambert (1816), and a printed view of the park area (c. 1849) [Fig. 4]. Similarly, the oval Union Park in New York, often illustrated, had a large central fountain [Fig. 5]. Both parks featured broad walks and trees and shrubs. In these parks and others, significant goals of civic improvement—clean water, fresh air, green spaces—were united.[4] Bowling Green [Fig. 6] and Battery Park [Fig. 7] are two more New York public parks that date from the early 18th century.

Fig. 6, W. J. Bennett, Broad Way from the Bowling Green, c.1826.
Fig. 7, John Scoles, Government House, 1795.

Although New York City’s most important park, Central Park, was not designed until 1856, the idea for large-scale open space for the city dates much earlier. In 1811, the Streets Commission of New York produced a survey of the city, plotted by John Randel Jr., to serve as a template for future development, and it put into place the grid that today still distinguishes the city. This grid also included open spaces, most significantly a “Grand Parade,” 240 acres bounded by Third and Seventh Avenues, and 23rd and 34th Streets, and this area was intended for military exercise, assembly, and, if necessary, “the force destined to defend the City.”[5] The concept of open space in the city was taken up again in the late 1840s and early 1850s, perhaps most notably by Downing in The Horticulturist. Claiming that the city’s existing parks were inadequate for the task of providing “exercise and refreshment of her jaded citizens,” Downing pushed for the creation of a large park, more than 500 acres, to be located between 39th Street and the Harlem River. He proposed that it contain, among other attractions, carriage rides, monumental sculpture, water works, and walks set within green fields. Although Downing did not live to see this vision realized, his proposal anticipated Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s Central Park, and, more generally, the American park movement.[6]

Anne L. Helmreich


Texts

Usage

  • Penn, William, April 9, 1687, describing Pennsbury Manor, country estate of William Penn, near Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Thomforde 1986: 47)[7]
“. . . tis pitty a pale did not cross ye neck half way towards ye south point, for the beginning of a Park.”


  • Jones, Hugh, 1722, describing the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA (1956: 67)[8]
“It is approached by a good walk, and a grand entrance by steps, with good courts and gardens about it, with a good house and apartments for the Indian Master and his scholars, and outhouses; and a large pasture enclosed like a park with about 150 acres of land adjoining, for occasional uses.”


  • Hamilton, Alexander, June 26, 1744, describing a garden near Albany, NY (1948: 63)[9]
“Mr. M——s [Milne] and I dined att his house and were handsomly entertained with good viands and wine. After dinner he showed us his garden and parks, and M——s [Milne] got into one of his long harangues of farming and improvement of ground.”


  • Fisher, Daniel, May 25, 1755, describing the Proprietor’s Garden, Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Pecquet du Bellet 1907: 2:802)[10]
“. . . descending from the House is a neat little Park tho’ I am told there are no Deer in it.”


  • Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 1760, describing a park and garden near the Passaic River, NJ (1775: 57)[11]
“I went down two miles farther to the park and gardens of. . . colonel Peter Schuyler. In the gardens is a very large collection of citrons, oranges, limes, lemons, balsams of Peru, aloes, pomegranates, and other tropical plants; and in the park I saw several American and English deer, and three or four elks or moose-deer.”


  • Fithian, Philip Vickers, December 31, 1773, describing Nomini Hall, Westmoreland County, VA (1943: 59)[12]
“Mrs. Carter told the Colonel that he must not think her setled (for they have been for a long time from this place in the City Williamsburg, and only left it about a year and a half ago) till he made her a park and stock’d it.”


Fig. 8, William Strickland, “The Woodlands,” 1809, in Casket 5, no. 10 (October 1830): pl. opp. 432.
“I have just been making some considerable Improvements at The Woodlands. . . You may recollect the Ground is Hill ’n Dale Woodland and plain and therefore well enough calculated to make a small parke, and I am endeavoring to give it as much as possible a parkish Look.” [Fig. 8]


  • Chastellux, François Jean, Marquis de, 1780–82, describing a garden on the Pamunkey River, VA (1787: 2:12)[14]
“. . . embellished with a garden, laid out in the English style. It is even pretended, that this kind of park, through which the river flows, yields not in beauty to those, the model of which the French have received from England, and are now imitating with such success.”


  • Washington, George, August 18, 1785, describing Mount Vernon, plantation of George Washington, Fairfax County, VA (Jackson and Twohig, eds., 1978: 4:184)[15]
“Began with James and Tom to work on my Park fencing.”


“A small park on the margin of the river, where the English fallow-deer, and the American wild-deer are seen through the thickets, alternately with the vessels as they are sailing along, add a romantic and picturesque appearance to the whole scenery.”


“I placed the three grand Department of States contiguous to the principle Palace and on the way leading to the Congressional House the gardens of the one together with the park and other improvement on the dependency are connected with the publique walk and avenue to the Congress house in a manner as most [must] form a whole as grand as it will be agreeable and convenient to the whole city which form [from] The distribution of the local [locale] will have an early access to this place of general resort and all along side of which may be placed play houses, room of assembly, academies and all such sort of places as may be attractive to the learned and afford diversion to the idle.”


“H. Grand Avenue, 400 feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens, ending in a slope from the houses on each side. This Avenue leads to Monument A and connects the Congress Garden with the
“I. President’s park and the
“K. well-improved field.”


“The north side of Monticello below the Thoroughfare roundabout quite down to the river, and all Montalto above the thoroughfare to be converted into park & riding grounds, connected at the Thoroughfare by a bridge, open, under which the public road may be made to pass so as not to cut off the communication between the lower & upper park grounds.”


“The Approach, its road, woods, lawn & clumps, are laid out with much taste & ingenuity. Also the location of the Stables; with a Yard between the house, stables, lawn of approach or park, & the pleasure ground or garden.
"The Fences separating the Park-lawn from the Garden on one hand, & the office yard on the other, are 4 ft. 6 high. . . The park lawn is not in good order, for lack of being fed upon. Its fences where it is not visible from the house, is of common posts & rails.
". . . One is led into the garden from the portico, to the east or lefthand. or from the park, by a small gate contiguous to the house, traversing this walk, one sees many beauties of the landscape—also a fine statue, symbol of Winter, & age,—& a spacious Conservatory about 200 yards to the West of the Mansion. . .
"The Stable Yard, tho contiguous to the house, is perfectly concealed from it, the Lawn, & the Garden. . . From the Cellar one enters under the bow window & into this Screen, which is about 6 or 7 feet square. Through these, we enter a narrow area, & ascend some few Steps [close to this side of the house,] into the garden—& thro the other opening we ascend a paved winding slope, which spreads as it ascends, into the yard. This sloping passage being a segment of a circle, & its two outer walls concealed by loose hedges, & by the projection of the flat roofed Screen of masonry, keeps the yard, & I believe the whole passage out of sight from the house—but certainly from the garden & park lawn.”


  • Foster, Sir Augustus John, c. 1807, describing Montpelier, plantation of James Madison, Montpelier Station, VA (1954: 142)[20]
“There are some very fine woods about Montpellier, but no pleasure grounds, though Mr. Madison talks of some day laying out space for an English park, which he might render very beautiful from the easy graceful descent of his hills into the plains below.”


  • Latrobe, Benjamin Henry, March 17, 1807, describing the White House, Washington, DC (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
“My idea is to carry the road below the hill under a Wall about 8 feet high opposite to the center of the president’s house. At this point, I should propose, at a future day to thrown an Arch, or Arches over the road in order to procure a private communication between the pleasure ground of the president’s house and the park which reaches to the river, and which will probably be also planted, and perhaps be open to the public.”


  • Martin, William Dickinson, May 21, 1809, describing City Hall Park, New York, NY (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
“St. Paul’s is on the same street, a little North of Trinity on the West side also, with an elegant steeple, tho’ too large for the rest of the building. It stands on a large triangular area, called the Park, rail’d in, & ornamented with trees & walks. Bridewell, the Alms House & County Jail, stand on the North Side of the Park, on the East is the New Theatre.”


  • Lambert, John, 1816, describing City Hall Park, New York, NY (1816: 2:58)[21]
“A Court-house on a larger scale, and more worthy of the improved state of the city, is now building at the end of the Park, between the Broadway and Chatham-street, in a style of magnificence unequalled in many of the larger cities of Europe. . . The Park, though not remarkable for its size, is, however, of service, by displaying the surrounding buildings to greater advantage; and is also a relief to the confined appearance of the streets in general. It consists of about four acres planted with elms, planes, willows, and catalpas; and the surrounding foot-walk is encompassed by rows of poplars: the whole is enclosed by a wooden paling. Neither the Park nor the Battery is very much resorted to by the fashionable citizens of New York, as they have become too common.”


  • Lambert, John, 1816, describing the State House, Boston, MA (1816: 2:330)[21]
“The new state-house is, perhaps, more indebted to its situation for the handsome appearance which it exhibits, than to any merit of the building itself. It is built upon part of the rising ground upon which Beacon Hill is situated, and fronts the park, an extensive common planted with a double row of trees along the borders. . .
“The Park was formerly a large common, but has recently been enclosed, and the borders planted with trees. On the east side there has been for many years a mall, or walk, planted with a double row of large trees, somewhat resembling that in St. James’s Park, but scarcely half its length. It affords the inhabitants an excellent promenade in fine weather. At the bottom of the park is a branch of the harbour; and along the shore, to the westward, are several extensive rope-walks built upon piers.”


  • Hodgeson, Adam, 1819, describing Natchez, MS (quoted in Lockwood 1934: 2:389)[22]
“Their houses are spacious and handsome and their grounds laid out like a forest park.”


Fig. 9, Alvan Fisher, The Vale, 1820–25.
  • Bryant, William Cullen, August 25, 1821, describing the Vale, estate of Theodore Lyman, Waltham, MA (1975: 108–9)[23]
“He took me to the seat of Mr. Lyman. . . It is a perfect paradise. . . North of the house was a park, with a few American deer in it and a large herd of spotted deer—a beautiful animal imported from Bengal.” [Fig. 9]


“The Coll. is possessed of immence property, he had 400 Ars. of land in a park to keep Deer, round which was a fence of 20 rails high, Maise were planted within for sustenance of his deer.”


Fig. 10, Arthur J. Stansbury, City Hall Park From the Northwest Corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, c. 1825.
  • Anonymous, June 1829, describing City Hall Park, New York, NY (Casket 4: 241)[25]
“The City Hall of New York, is situated at the northern extremity, or base, of a triangular enclosure of four acres, called the ‘Park.’ The eastern and western sides are respectively bounded by Chatham street and Broadway, which here meet in a point near St. Paul’s church.
“The approach from the south along Broadway, is peculiarly striking. The front and west end of the building present an angular view between the luxuriant foliage of trees surrounding the Park; while the brilliant whiteness of the facade, in contrast with the placid verdure of the lawn, in front, produces a luminous and aerial effect that fascinates every spectator.” [Fig. 10]


Fig. 11, Joshua Rowley Watson, Sedgley--J. Fishers Esqr. opposite Eaglesfield 28th. October, 1816.
  • Anonymous, June 1829, describing Sedgeley, seat of James C. Fisher and William Crammond, near Philadelphia, PA (Casket 4: 265)[26]
“The natural advantages of Sedgeley Park are not frequently equalled even upon the banks of the romantic Schuylkill. From the height upon which the mansion is erected, it commands an interesting and extensive view. . .
“In the arrangement of the grounds the proprietor has been peculiarly happy. The park exhibits the marks of cultivation and taste, and the mansion is beautifully shaded with the native and luxuriant forest trees of the country.” [Fig. 11]


“The general appearance of the whole grounds, should be that of a well-managed park, and the lots only so far ornamented with shrubs and flowers, as to constitute rich borders to the avenues and pathways, without giving to them the aspect of a dense and wild coppice, or a neglected garden, whose trees and plants have so multiplied and interlaced their roots and branches, as to completely destroy all that airiness, grace, and luxuriance of growth, which good taste demands.”


  • Bryant, William Cullen, June 29, 1832, describing the Jefferson Barracks, Jacksonville, IL (1975: 353)[23]
“. . . the Jefferson Barracks, a military station of the United States. . . It is situated in a fine natural park of noble trees principally black oak which extends I am told for some miles back from the shore. The trees are at considerable distances from each other and the tops are spreading and full of foliage.”


  • Martineau, Harriet, 1835, describing Cincinnati, OH (1838: 2:51)[28]
“The proprietor has a passion for gardening, and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to the city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in his grounds with his own hands. His garden is on a terrace which overlooks the canal, and the most park like eminences form the background of the view. Between the garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce of which he has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some of which are highly praised by good judges.”


“The most distinguished amateur and patron of gardening, in every sense of the word, in this state, was the late Dr. Hosack. Hyde Park, on the Hudson, the seat of this gentleman, has been probably the best specimen of a highly improved residence in the United States. . . the park large, well wooded, and intersected by a fine stream.”


“Much as public squares, and parks, and avenues, and fountains contribute to the beauty of a city, they are no less necessary to its salubrity. It was not intended by the Creator that the habitations of men should be piled upon each other, as they are in some cities, almost like boxes of merchandize in a warehouse; and he has made no provision for the security of life and health, under the circumstances which preclude the supply of an abundance of fresh and pure air.”


  • Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 1840, describing New York, NY (1840: 1:151)[31]
“The present City Hall was erected in 1803, at an expense of half a million of dollars. . . When the trees of the park are in full leaf, it is difficult to get an entire view of it.
“The park is the centre of New York, and its two most thronged and finest avenues from the two sides of it. Broadway, the much crowded and much praised Broadway, the Corso, the Toledo, the Regent Street, of New York, pours its tide of population past the western side of the verdant triangle, and, just at the park, its crowd and its bustle are thickest.”


  • Buckingham, James Silk, 1841, describing New York, NY (1841: 1:38–39)[32]
“Of the public places for air and exercise with which the Continental cities of Europe are so abundantly and agreeably furnished, and which London, Bath, and some other of the larger cities of England contain, there is a marked deficiency in New-York. Except the Battery, which is agreeable only in summer—the Bowling Green is a confined space of 200 feet long by 150 broad; the Park, which is a comparatively small spot of land (about ten acres only) in the heart of the city, and quite a public thoroughfare; Hudson Square, the prettiest of the whole, but small, being only about four acres; and the open space within Washington Square, about nine acres, which is not yet furnished with gravel-walks or shady trees—there is no large place in the nature of a park, or public garden, or public walk, where persons of all classes may take air and exercise. This is a defect which, it is hoped, will ere long be remedied, as there is no country, perhaps, in which it would be more advantageous to the health and pleasure of the community than this to encourage, by every possible means, the use of air and exercise to a much greater extent than either is at present enjoyed.”


Fig. 12, L. S. Punderson, Public Square, New Haven, 1862.
  • Dickens, Charles, 1842, describing Yale College, New Haven, CT (1842: 94)[33]
“New Haven, known as the City of Elms, is a fine town. Many of its streets (as its alias sufficiently imports) are planted with rows of grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable eminence and reputation. The various departments of this Institution are erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town, where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect is very like that of an old cathedral yard in England; and when their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque.” [Fig. 12]


Fig. 13, Charles B. Lawrence, attr., Point Breeze, the Estate of Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte at Bordentown, New Jersey, 1817–20
  • Barber, John Warner, and Henry Howe, 1844, describing Point Breeze, the estate of Joseph Bonaparte (Count de Survilliers), Bordentown, NJ (1844: 102–3)[34]
“The park and grounds of the Count comprise about fourteen hundred acres, which, from a wild and impoverished tract, he has converted into a place of beauty, blending the charms of woodland and plantation scenery with a delightful water-prospect. . . While here, his time was occupied in planning and executing improvements upon his grounds. He did not mingle in society; but was frequently seen walking through his park, attending to his workmen, or, with hatchet in hand, lopping branches from the trees.” [Fig. 13]


“The pleasure grounds of the two sexes are very effectually separated on the eastern side, by the deer-park, surrounded by a high palisade fence, but the Park itself is so low that it is completely overlooked from both sides; and the different animals in it are in full viewfrom the adjoining grounds used by the patients of both sexes.”


“And what a prospect! The whole of that part of the valley embraced by the eye—say a thousand acres—is a park, full of the finest oaks,—and such oaks as you may have dreamed of, (if you love trees,) or, perhaps, have seen in pictures by CLAUDE LORRAINE, or our own DURAND; but not in the least like those which you meet every day in your woodland walks through the country at large. Or rather, there are thousands of such as you may have seen half a dozen examples of in your own country. . .
“No underwood, no bushes, no thickets; nothing but single specimens or groups of giant old oaks, (mingled with, here and there, an elm) with level glades of broad meadow beneath them! An Englishman will hardly be convinced that it is not a park, planted by the skilful hand of man hundreds of years ago.
“This great meadow park is filled with herds of the finest cattle—the pride of the home-farm.”


  • Downing, Andrew Jackson, 1849, describing Livingston Manor, seat of Mary Livingston, on the Hudson River, NY (1849; repr., 1991: 46)[37]
“The mansion stands in the midst of a fine park, rising gradually from the level of a rich inland country, and commanding prospects for sixty miles around. The park is, perhaps, the most remarkable in America, for the noble simplicity of its character, and the perfect order in which it is kept. The turf is, everywhere, short and velvet-like, the gravel-roads scrupulously firm and smooth, and near the house are the largest and most superb evergreens.”


“856. Public Gardens. . .
At New York. . . St. John’s Park is of considerable extent, and has lately been thrown open to the inhabitants: it is tastefully and very judiciously planted, with the ornamental trees and shrubs indigenous to the country. (Gard. Mag., vol. iii. p. 347.)”


  • Hovey, C. M. (Charles Mason), September 1850, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” describing Bellmont Place, residence of John Perkins Cushing, Watertown, MA (Magazine of Horticulture 16: 412)[39]
“The new and elegant mansion, so long vacant, is now occupied by the proprietor, and an air of liveliness, which they did not before possess, is now communicated to the park, the pleasure-ground and the garden. . . The vast expanse of park, which adds so much to the character of the old English residence, would possess only half the attraction it now does, but for the herds of deer which traverse its bounds, giving life and animation to the scene.”


“My object in this Plan has been three-fold:
“1st: To form a national Park, which should be an ornament to the Capital of the United States; 2nd: To give an example of the natural style of Landscape Gardening which may have an influence on the general taste of the Country. . .
1st: The President’s Park or Parade “This comprises the open Ground directly south of the President’s House. Adopting suggestions made me at Washington I propose to keep the large area of this ground open, as a place for parade or military reviews, as well as public festivities or celebrations. A circular carriage drive 40 feet wide and nearly a mile long shaded by an avenue of Elms, surrounds the Parade, while a series of foot-paths, 10 feet wide, winding through thickets of trees and shrubs, forms the boundary to this park, and would make an agreeable shaded promenade for pedestrians. . .
2nd: Monument Park
“This comprises the fine plot of ground surrounding the Washington monument and bordered by the Potomac. To reach it from the President’s Park I propose to cross the canal by a wire suspension bridge, sufficiently strong for carriages, which would permit vessels of moderate size to pass under it, and would be an ornamental feature in the grounds. I propose to plant Monument Park wholly with American trees, of large growth, disposed in open groups, so as to al[l]ow of fine vistas of the Potomac river. . .
4th: Smithsonian Park or Pleasure Grounds
“An arrangement of choice trees in the natural style, the plots near the Institution would be thickly planted with the rarest trees and shrubs, to give greater seclusion and beauty to its immediate precincts. . .
6th: The Botanic Garden. . .
“The pleasing natural undulations of surface, where they occur, I propose to retain, instead of expending money in reducing them to a level. The surface of the Parks, generally, should be kept in grass or lawn, and mown by the mowing machine used in England, by which, with a man and horse, the labor of six men can be done in one day. . .
Fig. 14, Andrew Jackson Downing, Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the Public Grounds at Washington, 1851.
“A national Park like this, laid out and planted in a thorough manner, would exercise as much influence on the public taste as Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, has done. Though only twenty years have elapsed since that spot was laid out, the lesson there taught has been so largely influential that at the present moment the United States, while they have no public parks, are acknowledged to possess the finest rural cemeteries in the world. The Public Grounds at Washington treated in the manner I have here suggested, would undoubtedly become a Public School of Instruction in every thing that relates to the tasteful arrangement of parks and grounds, and the growth and culture of trees, while they would serve, more than anything else that could be devised, to embellish and give interest to the Capital. The straight lines and broad Avenues of the streets of Washington would be pleasantly relieved and contrasted by the beauty of curved lines and natural groups of trees in the various parks. By its numerous public buildings and broad Avenues, Washington will one day command the attention of every stranger, and if its un-improved public grounds are tastefully improved they will form the most perfect background or setting to the City, concealing many of its defects and heightening all its beauties.” [Fig. 14]


“THE leading topic of town gossip and newspaper paragraphs just now, in New-York, is the new park proposed by MAYOR KINGSLAND. Deluded New-York has, until lately, contented itself with the little door-yards of space—mere grass plats of verdure, which form the squares of the city, in the mistaken idea that they are parks. . .
“Thanking MAYOR KINGSLAND most heartily for his proposed new park, the only objection we make to it is that it is too small. One hundred and sixty acres of park for a city that will soon contain three-quarters of a million of people? It is only a child’s play-ground. . .
“Looking at the present government of the city as about to provide, in the Peoples’ Park, a breathing zone, and healthful place for exercise for a city of half a million of souls, we trust they will not be content with the limited number of acres already proposed. Five hundred acres is the smallest area that should be reserved for the future wants of such a city, now, while it may be obtained. Five hundred acres may be selected between 39th-street and the Harlem river, including a varied surface of land, a good deal of which is yet waste area, so that the whole may be purchased at something like a million of dollars. In that area there would be space enough to have broad reaches of park and pleasure-grounds, with a real feeling of the breadth and beauty of green fields, the perfume and freshness of nature. In its midst would be located the great distributing reservoirs of the Croton aqueduct, formed into lovely lakes of limpid water, covering many acres, and heightening the charm of the sylvan accessories by the finest natural contrast. In such a park, the citizens who would take excursions in carriages, or on horseback, could have the substantial delights of country roads and country scenery, and forget for a time the rattle of the pavements and the glare of brick walls. Pedestrians would find quiet and secluded walks when they wished to be solitary, and broad alleys filled with thousands of happy faces, when they would be gay. The thoughtful denizen of the town would go out there in the morning to hold converse with the whispering trees, and the wearied tradesmen in the evening, to enjoy an hour of happiness by mingling in the open space with ‘all the world.’
“The many beauties and utilities which would gradually grow out of a great park like this, in a great city like New-York, suggest themselves immediately and forcibly. Where would be found so fitting a position for noble works of art, the statues, monuments, and buildings commemorative at once of the great men of the nation, of the history of the age and country, and the genius of our highest artists?
“We have said nothing of the social influence of such a great park in New-York. But this is really the most interesting phase of the whole matter. . .
“Even upon the lower platform of liberty and education that the masses stand in Europe, we see the elevating influences of a wide popular enjoyment of galleries of art, public libraries, parks and gardens, which have raised the people in social civilization and social culture to a far higher level than we have yet attained in republican America. And yet this broad ground of popular refinement must be taken in republican America, for it belongs of right more truly here, than elsewhere. It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It takes up popular education where the common school and ballot-box leave it, and raises up the working-man to the same level of enjoyment with the man of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social and artistic elements of every man’s nature lie dormant within him, and every laborer is a possible gentleman, not by the possession of money or fine clothes—but through the refining influence of intellectual and moral culture.”


“From cemeteries we naturally rise to public parks and gardens. As yet our countrymen have almost entirely over-looked the sanitary value and importance of these breathing places for large cities, or the powerful part which they may be made to play in refining, elevating, and affording enjoyment to the people at large. . . The plan [for a public ground in Washington] embraces four or five miles of carriage-drivewalks for pedestrians—ponds of water, fountains and statuespicturesque groupings of trees and shrubs, and a complete collection of all the trees that belong to North America. It will, if carried out as it has been undertaken, undoubtedly give a great impetus to the popular taste in landscape-gardening and the culture of ornamental trees; and as the climate of Washington is one peculiarly adapted to this purpose—this national park may be made a sylvan museum such as it would be difficult to equal in beauty and variety in any part of the world.”


Fig. 15, Jenny Emily Snow, attr., Fairmount Park Waterworks, c. 1850.
  • Twain, Mark, October 26, 1853, describing Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia, PA (quoted in Gibson 1988: 2)[43]
“Seeing a park at the foot of the hill, I entered—and found it one of the nicest little places about.” [Fig. 15]


Citations

PARK, *PARCUS, a large inclosure, privileged for wild beasts of chase, either by the king’s grant, or by prescription.
“*The word is originally Celtic, it signifies an inclosure, or place shut up with walls.
“Manwood defines a park a place of privilege for beasts of venery, and other wild beasts of the forest, and of chase, tam sylvestres quam campestres.—A park differs from a forest in that, as Crompton observes, a subject may hold a park by prescription, or the king’s grant, which he cannot do by a forest. See FOREST.
“A park differs from a chase also; for that a park must be enclosed; if it lie open, it is a good cause of seizing it into the king’s hand; as a free chase may be, if it be enclosed. Nor can the owner have any action against such as hunt in his park, if it lie open. See CHASE.
“Du Cange refers the invention of parks to king Henry I. of England; but Spelman shews, it is much more ancient; and was in use among the Anglo-Saxons. Zosimus assures us, the ancient kings of Persia had parks.
PARK is also used for a moveable pallisade set up in the fields to inclose sheep in to feed, and rest in during the night. See HURDLES.
“The shepherds shift their park, from time to time, to dung the ground, one part after another.”


  • Whately, Thomas, 1770, Observations on Modern Gardening (1770; repr., 1982: 157, 182–83)[45]
“A garden is intended to walk or to sit in, which are circumstances not considered in riding; a park comprehends all the uses of the other two; and these uses determine the proportional extent of each; a large garden would be but a small park; and the circumference of a considerable park but a short riding.
“A park and a garden are more nearly allied, and can therefore be accommodated to each other, without any disparagement to either. . .
“The affinity of the two subjects is so close, that it would be difficult to draw the exact line of separation between them: gardens have lately encroached very much both in extent and in style on the character of a park; but still there are scenes in the one, which are out of the reach of the other; the small sequestered spots which are agreable in a garden, would be trivial in a park; and the spacious lawns which are among the noblest features of the latter, would in the former fatigue by their want of variety; even such as being of a moderate extent may be admitted into either, will seem bare and naked, if not broken in the one; and lose much of their greatness, if broken in the other. The proportion of a part to the whole, is a measure of its dimensions: it often determines the proper size for an object, as well as the space fit to be allotted to a scene; and regulates the style which ought to be assigned to either.
“But whatever distinctions the extent may occasion between park and garden, a state of highly cultivated nature is consistent with each of their characters; and may in both be of the same kind, though in different degrees. The same species of preservation, of ornament, and of scenery, may be introduced; and though a large portion of a park may be rude; and the most romantic scenes are not incompatible with its character.”


  • Sheridan, Thomas, 1789, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1789: n.p.)[46]
PARK, pa’rk. s. A piece of ground inclosed and stored with deer and other beasts of chase.”


  • Repton, Humphry, 1803, Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803: 13, 93–94)[47]
“There is no error more prevalent in modern gardening, or more frequently carried to excess, than taking away hedges to unite many small fields into one extensive and naked lawn, before plantations are made to give it the appearance of a park; and where ground is subdivided by sunk fences, imaginary freedom is dearly purchased at the expence of actual confinement. . .
“The chief beauty of a park consists in uniform verdure; undulating lines contrasting with each other in variety of forms; trees so grouped as to produce light and shade to display the varied surface of the ground; and an undivided range of pasture. . .
“The farm, on the contrary, is for ever changing the colour of its surface in motley and discordant hues; it is subdivided by straight lines of fences. The trees can only be ranged in formal rows along the hedges; and these the farmer claims a right to cut, prune, and disfigure.”


  • Nicol, Walter, 1812, The Planter’s Kalendar (1812: 378)[48]
“It may, however, be humbly suggested, that the Park, or the Lawn, should never be daubed too full of groups, or of single plants. When there are too many put in, the whole park acquires a confined air and appearance; and, whatever be the intrinsic worth of the plants individually considered, the eye turns from the appearance with dislike.”


“7265. The park is a space devoted to the growth of timber, pasturage for deer, cattle, and sheep, and for adding grandeur and dignity to the mansion. On its extent and beauty, and on the magnitude and architectural design of the house, chiefly depend the reputation and character of the residence. In the geometric style, the more distant or concealed parts were subdivided into fields, surrounded by broad stripes or double rows, enclosed in walls or hedges, and the nearer parts were chiefly covered with wood, enclosing regular surfaces of pasturage. In the modern style, the scenery of a park is intended to resemble that of a scattered forest, the more polished glades and regular shapes of lawn being near the house, and the rougher parts towards the extremities. The paddocks or small enclosures are generally placed between the family stables and the farm, and form a sort of intermediate character. . . .
“7313. Public parks, or equestrian promenades, are valuable appendages to large cities. Extent and a free air are the principle requisites, and the roads should be arranged so as to produce few intersections; but at the same time so as carriages may make either the tour of the whole scene, or adopt a shorter tour at pleasure. In the course of long roads, there ought to be occasional bays or side expansions to admit of carriages separating from the course, halting or turning. Where such promenades are very extensive, they are furnished with places of accommodation and refreshment, both for men and horses; this is a valued part of their arrangement for occasional visitors from a distance, or in hired vehicles.”


  • Webster, Noah, 1828, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828: 2:n.p.)[50]
PARK, n. [Sax. parruc, pearruc; Scot. parrok; W. parc; Fr. id.; It. parco; Sp. parque; Ir. pairc; G. Sw. park; D. perk. . .]
“A large piece of ground inclosed and privileged for wild beasts of chase, in England, by the king’s grant or by prescription. To constitute a park, three things are required; a royal grant or license; inclosure by pales, a wall or hedge; and beasts of chase, as deer, &c.
Park of artillery, or artillery park, a place in the rear of both lines of an army for encamping the artillery, which is formed in lines, the guns in front, the ammunition-wagons behind the guns. . . Encyc.
Park of provisions, the place where the sutlers pitch their tents and sell provisions, and that where the bread wagons are stationed.”


  • Holley, O. L., 1843, The New York Register for 1843 (1843: 240)[51]
BLOOMINGDALE LUNATIC ASYLUM
(Connected with the New-York Hospital.)
The Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum is pleasantly situated near the banks of the Hudson River, distant seven miles from the city of New-York, and has attached to it forty acres of land, laid out in gardens, pleasure grounds, gravel walks and farm lots, well adapted to the unfortunate inmates.
The building is erected on one of the most elevated and healthy sites on the Island, and sufficiently retired for the comfort and convenience of the patients.


  • Johnson, George William, 1847, A Dictionary of Modern Gardening (1847: 418)[52]
PARK, in the modern acceptation of the word, is an extensive adorned inclosure surrounding the house and gardens, and affording pasturage either to deer or cattle.”


“Make the public parks or pleasure grounds attractive by their lawns, fine trees, shady walks and beautiful shrubs and flowers, by fine music, and the certainty of ‘meeting everybody,’ and you draw the whole moving population of the town there daily. . .
“you must remember that there is no forced intercourse in the daily reunions in a public garden or park. There is room and space enough for pleasant little groups or circles of all tastes and sizes, and no one is necessarily brought into contact with uncongenial spirits; while the daily meeting of families, who ought to sympathise, from natural congeniality, will be more likely to bring them together than any other social gatherings. Then the advantage to our fair country-women— health and spirits, of exercise in the pure open air, amid the groups of fresh foliage and flowers, with a chat with friends, and pleasures shared with them, as compared with a listless lounge upon a sofa at home, over the last new novel or pattern of embroidery! . . .
“Judging from the crowds of people in carriages, and on foot, which I find constantly thronging Green-wood and Mount Auburn, I think it is plain enough how much our citizens, of all classes, would enjoy public parks on a similar scale. Indeed, the only drawback to these beautiful and highly kept cemeteries, to my taste, is the gala-day air of recreation they present. People seem to go there to enjoy themselves, and not to indulge in any serious recollections or regrets.”


  • Downing, Andrew Jackson, 1849, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1849: 31, 95, 109–11, 115–16, 169, 173, 219, 333)[37]
“It must not be forgotten that, during all this period, or nearly six centuries, parks were common in England. . .
“Although these parks were more devoted to the preservation of game and the pleasures of the chase than to any other purpose, their existence was, we conceive, not wholly owing to this cause—but we look upon them as indicating that love of nature and that desire to retain beautiful portions of it as part of a residence, which form the ground-work of the taste for the modern or landscape gardening, since the latter is only an epitome of nature with the charms judiciously heightened by art.
“And as the Avenue, or the straight line, is the leading form in the geometric arrangement of plantations, so let us enforce it upon our readers, the GROUP is equally the key-note of the Modern style. The smallest place, having only three trees, may have these pleasingly connected in a group; and the largest and finest park—the Blenheim or Chatsworth, of seven miles square, is only composed of a succession of groups, becoming masses, thickets, woods. . .
“One of the loveliest charms of a fine park is, undoubtedly, variation or undulation of surface. Everything, accordingly, which tends to preserve and strengthen this pleasing character, should be kept constantly in view. . .
“Where the grounds of the residence to be planted are level, or nearly so, and it is desirable to confine the view, on any or all sides, to the lawn or park itself, the boundary groups and masses must be so connected together as, from the most striking part or parts of the prospect (near the house for example) to answer this end. . .
“But where the house is so elevated as to command a more extensive view than is comprised in the demesne itself, another course should be adopted. The grounds planted must be made to connect themselves with the surrounding scenery. . . Where the park joins natural woods, connexion is still easier, and where it bounds upon one of our noble rivers, lakes, or other large sheets of water, of course connexion is not expected; for sudden contrast and transition is there both natural and beautiful. . .
“Were it not that of late it [the linden tree] is so liable to insects, we could hardly say too much in its praise as a fine ornament for streets and public parks. There, its regular form corresponds well with the formality of the architecture; its shade affords cool and pleasant walks, and the delightful odor of its blossoms is doubly grateful in the confined air of the city. . .
“The beech is quite handsome and graceful when young, and when large it forms one of the heaviest and grandest of beautiful park trees. . .
“When the Black walnut stands alone on a deep fertile soil it becomes a truly majestic tree; and its lower branches often sweep the ground in a graceful curve, which gives additional beauty to its whole expression. It is admirably adapted to extensive lawns, parks, or plantations, where there is no want of room for the attainment of its full size and fair proportions. . .
“In places of large extent there may be scenes in different portions of the park of totally different character; one simply beautiful, abounding with graceful and flowing lines, and another highly picturesque, and full of spirited breaks and variations.”


“If you wish for rural beauty, at a cheap rate, either on the grand or the moderate scale, choose a spot where the two features of home scenery are trees and grass. You may have five hundred acres of natural park—that is to say, fine old woods, tastefully opened, and threaded with walks and drives, for less cost, in preparation and annual outlay, than it will require to maintain five acres of artificial pleasure-grounds. A pretty little natural glen, filled with old trees, and made alive by a clear perennial stream, is often a cheaper and more unwearying source of enjoyment than the gayest flower garden. Not that we mean to disparage beautiful parks, pleasure-grounds, or flower gardens; we only wish our readers, about settling in the country, to understand that they do not constitute the highest and most expressive kind of rural beauty,—as they certainly do the most expensive.”


“841. Landscape-Gardening is practised in the United States on a comparatively limited scale; because, in a country where all men have equal rights, and where every man, however humble, has a house and garden of his own, it is not likely that there should be many large parks. The only splendid examples of park and hothouse gardening that, we trust, will ever be found in the United States, and ultimately in every other country, are such as will be formed by towns and villages, or other communities, for the joint use and enjoyment of all the inhabitants or members.”


  • Jeffreys [pseud.], January 1850, “Critique on November Horticulturist” (Horticulturist 4: 311–12)[55]
“A true country house should also have some appearance of rusticity—not vulgarity—but a keeping with all which surround it. Not castellated, nor magnificent; neither ostentatious nor pretending, but plain, dignified, quiet and unobtrusive; yet of ample dimensions, and exceeding convenience. Then, in park or lawn, on hill or plain, flanked with mossy foliage, and well kept grounds, it becomes a perfect picture in a finished landscape.”


“The indispensable desiderata in rural villages of this kind [newly planned in the suburbs of a great city], are the following: 1st, a large open space, common, or park, situated in the middle of the village—not less than 20 acres; and better, if 50 or more in extent. This should be well planted with groups of trees, and kept as a lawn. The expense of mowing it would be paid by the grass in some cases; and in others a considerable part of the space might be enclosed with a wire fence, and fed by sheep or cows, like many of the public parks in England.
“This park would be the nucleus or heart of the village, and would give it an essentially rural character. Around it should be grouped all the best cottages and residences of the place; and this would be secured by selling no lots fronting upon it of less than one-fourth of an acre in extent. . .
“After such a village was built, and the central park planted a few years, the inhabitants would not be contented with the mere meadow and trees, usually called a park in this country. By submitting to a small annual tax per family, they could turn the whole park, if small, or considerable portions, here and there, if large, into pleasure-grounds. In the latter, there would be collected, by the combined means of the village, all the rare, hardy shrubs, trees and plants usually found in the private grounds of any amateur in America.”


“The great and distinguishing beauty of England, as every one knows, is its parks. And yet the English parks are only very large meadows, studded with great oaks and elms—and grazed—profitably grazed, by deer, cattle and sheep. We believe it is a commonly received idea in this country, with those who have not travelled abroad, that English parks are portions of highly dressed scenery—at least that they are kept short by frequent mowing, etc. It is an entire mistake. The mown lawn with its polished garden scenery, is confined to the pleasure grounds proper—a spot of greater or less size, immediately surrounding the house, and wholly separated from the park by a terrace wall, or an iron fence, or some handsome architectural barrier. The park, which generally comes quite up to the house on one side, receives no other attention than such as belongs to the care of the animals that graze in it. As most of these parks afford excellent pasturage, and though apparently one wide, unbroken surface, they are really subdivided into large fields, by wire or other invisible fences, they actually pay a very fair income to the proprietor, in the shape of good beef, mutton and venison. . .
“Of course, any thing like English parks, so far as regards extent, is almost out of the question here; simply because land and fortunes are wisely divided here, instead of being kept in large bodies, intact, as in England. Still, as the first class country-seats of the Hudson now command from $50,000 to $75,000, it is evident that there is a growing taste for space and beauty in the private domains of republicans. What we wish to suggest now, is, simply, that the greatest beauty and satisfaction may be had here, as in England—(for the plan really suits our limited means better,) by treating the bulk of the ornamental portion as open park pasture—and thus getting the greatest space and beauty at the least original expenditure, and with the largest annual profit. . .
“All that is to be borne in mind is, that the park may be as large as you can afford to purchase—for it may be kept up at a profit—while the pleasure-grounds and garden scenery, may, with this management, be compressed into the smallest space actually deemed necessary to the place—thereby lessening labor, and bestowing that labor, in a concentrated space, where it will tell.”



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Notes

  1. Joseph S. Wood, The New England Village (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 65, view on Zotero.
  2. For a history of the development of American parks and civic ideology, see David Schuyler, The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), view on Zotero. Also see George F. Chadwick, The Park and the Town: Public Landscape in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1966), view on Zotero, and Galen Cranz, The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), view on Zotero.
  3. For more about the history of the Mall, see Therese O’Malley, “Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: The National Mall, Washington, DC, 1791–1852” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1989), view on Zotero, and Richard Longstreth, ed., The Mall in Washington, 1791–1991 (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), view on Zotero.
  4. Likewise, in Philadelphia, the construction of the Fairmount Waterworks was accompanied by the construction of a designed landscape, which rarely was referred to as a park in this period. For a history of Fairmount Park, see Jane Mork Gibson, “The Fairmount Waterworks,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 84 (Summer 1988): 5–40, view on Zotero, and Theo B. White, Fairmount, Philadelphia’s Park (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1975), view on Zotero. H. M. Pierce Gallagher, in his monograph of Robert Mills, noted that the architect never referred to the site as Fairmount Park, but rather as the Philadelphia Water Works. H. M. Pierce Gallagher, Robert Mills, Architect of the Washington Monument, 1781–1855 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 128, view on Zotero. Michael J. Lewis, “The First Design for Fairmount Park,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 130, no. 3 (July 2006): 283–97, view on Zotero.
  5. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 421, view on Zotero.
  6. For an overview of the history of the park, see Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), view on Zotero.
  7. Charles Thomforde, “William Penn’s Estate at Pennsbury and the Plants of Its Kitchen Garden" (MS thesis, University of Delaware, 1986), view on Zotero.
  8. Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia, From Whence Is Inferred a Short View of Maryland and North Carolina, ed. Richard L. Morton (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), view on Zotero.
  9. Alexander Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744, ed. Carl Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), view on Zotero.
  10. Louise Pecquet du Bellet, ed., Some Prominent Virginia Families, 4 vols. (Lynchburg, VA: J. P. Bell, 1907), view on Zotero.
  11. Andrew Burnaby, Travels through the Middle Settlements in North-America, in the Years 1759 and 1760, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for T. Payne, 1775), view on Zotero.
  12. Philip Vickers Fithian, Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, ed. Hunter D. Farish (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg, 1943), view on Zotero.
  13. Karen Madsen, Karen Madsen, “William Hamilton’s Woodlands,” (paper presented for seminar in American Landscape, 1790–1900, instructed by E. McPeck, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 1988), view on Zotero.
  14. François Jean Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782, 2 vols. (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787), view on Zotero.
  15. George Washington, The Diaries of George Washington, ed. Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, 6 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978), view on Zotero.
  16. Jedidiah Morse, The American Geography; Or, A View of the Present Situation of the United States of America (Elizabeth Town, NJ: Shepard Kollock, 1789), view on Zotero.
  17. John W. Reps, Monumental Washington, The Planning and Development of the Capital Center (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), view on Zotero.
  18. H. Paul Caemmerer, The Life of Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, Planner of the City Beautiful, The City of Washington (Washington, DC: National Republic Publishing Company, 1950), view on Zotero.
  19. Charles Drayton, “The Diary of Charles Drayton I, 1806,” Drayton Hall: A National Historic Trust Site, view on Zotero.
  20. Sir Augustus John Foster, Jeffersonian America: Notes on the United States of America Collected in the Years 1805–1806–1807 and 1811–1812, ed. Richard Beale Davis (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1954), view on Zotero.
  21. 21.0 21.1 John Lambert, Travels through Canada, and the United States of North America in the Years 1806, 1807, and 1808, 2 vols. (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816), view on Zotero.
  22. Alice B. Lockwood, ed., Gardens of Colony and State: Gardens and Gardeners of the American Colonies and of the Republic before 1840, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s for the Garden Club of America, 1931), view on Zotero.
  23. 23.0 23.1 William Cullen Bryant, The Letters of William Cullen Bryant, ed. William Cullen II Bryant and Thomas G. Voss (New York: Fordham University Press, 1975), view on Zotero.
  24. Lillian B. Miller et al., eds., The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, vol. 5, The Autobiography of Charles Willson Peale (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983–2000), view on Zotero.
  25. “City Hall, New York,” Casket, or Flowers of Literature, Wit & Sentiment 4, no. 6 (June 1829): 241, view on Zotero.
  26. “Sedgely Park, the Seat of James C. Fisher, Esq.,” Casket, or the Flowers of Literature, Wit & Sentiment 4, no. 6 (June 1829): 265, view on Zotero.
  27. Thaddeus William Harris, A Discourse Delivered before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society on the Celebration of Its Fourth Anniversary, October 3, 1832 (Cambridge, MA: E. W. Metcalf, 1832), view on Zotero.
  28. Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, 2 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838), view on Zotero.
  29. Andrew Jackson Downing, “Notices on the State and Progress of Horticulture in the United States,” Magazine of Horticulture 3, no. 1 (January 1837): 1–10, view on Zotero.
  30. Nehemiah Adams, Boston Common (Boston: William D. Ticknor and H. B. Williams, 1842), view on Zotero.
  31. Nathaniel Parker Willis, American Scenery; Or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature, 2 vols. (London: G. Virtue, 1840), view on Zotero.
  32. James Silk Buckingham, America, Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive, 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1841), view on Zotero.
  33. Charles Dickens, American Notes (Paris: Baudry’s European Library, 1842), view on Zotero.
  34. John Warner Barber and Henry Howe, Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey; Containing a General Collection of the Most Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, &c. Relating to History and Antiquities, with Geographical Descriptions of Every Township in the State (Newark, NJ: Benjamin Olds, 1844), view on Zotero.
  35. Thomas S. Kirkbride, “Description of the Pleasure Grounds and Farm of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, with Remarks,” American Journal of Insanity 4, no. 4 (April 1848): 347–54, view on Zotero.
  36. Andrew Jackson Downing, “The Meadow Park at Geneseo,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 3, no. 4 (October 1848): 163–66, view on Zotero.
  37. 37.0 37.1 A. J. [Andrew Jackson] Downing, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America, 4th ed. (1849; repr., Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1991), view on Zotero.
  38. 38.0 38.1 J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening, new ed. (London: Longman et al., 1850), view on Zotero.
  39. C. M. (Charles Mason) Hovey, “Notes on Gardens and Nurseries,” Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs 16, no. 9 (September 1850): 406–17, view on Zotero.
  40. Wilcomb E. Washburn, “Vision of Life for the Mall,” AIA Journal 47 (1967): 52–59, view on Zotero.
  41. Andrew Jackson Downing, “The New-York Park,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 6, no. 8 (August 1851): 345–49, view on Zotero.
  42. Andrew Jackson Downing, “The State and Prospects of Horticulture,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 6, no. 12 (December 1851): 537–41, view on Zotero.
  43. Jane Mork Gibson, The Fairmount Waterworks,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 84 (1988): 5–40, view on Zotero.
  44. Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia, or An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . . . , 5th ed., 2 vols. (London: D. Midwinter et al., 1741–43), view on Zotero.
  45. Thomas Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening, 3rd ed. (1770; repr., London: Garland, 1982), view on Zotero.
  46. Thomas A. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Carefully Revised and Corrected by John Andrews. . . , 5th ed. (Philadelphia: William Young, 1789), view on Zotero.
  47. Humphry Repton, Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (London: Printed by T. Bensley for J. Taylor, 1803), view on Zotero.
  48. Walter Nicol, The Planter’s Kalendar (Edinburgh: D. Willison for A. Constable, 1812), view on Zotero.
  49. J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening, 4th ed. (London: Longman et al., 1826), view on Zotero.
  50. Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (New York: S. Converse, 1828), view on Zotero.
  51. O. L. Holley, The New York Register for 1843 containing an Almanac with political, statistical, and other information relating to the State of New York and the United States, (Albany: J. Disturnell, 1843): 240, view on Zotero.
  52. George William Johnson, A Dictionary of Modern Gardening, ed. David Landreth (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1847), view on Zotero.
  53. Andrew Jackson Downing, “A Talk About Public Parks and Gardens,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 3, no. 4 (October 1848): 153–58, view on Zotero.
  54. Andrew Jackson Downing, “On the Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 3, no. 7 (January 1849): 305–9, view on Zotero.
  55. Jeffreys [pseud.], “Critique on the October Horticulturist,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 4, no. 6 (January 1849): 268–71, view on Zotero.
  56. Andrew Jackson Downing, “Our Country Villages,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 4, no. 12 (June 1850): 537–41, view on Zotero.
  57. Andrew Jackson Downing, “The Management of Large Country Places,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste 6, no. 3 (March 1851): 105–8, view on Zotero.

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