USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 80
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The lawn on the south of the house is magnificent, containing about twenty acres, on and around which are some of the finest purple beeches in the land. On these premises are several gnarled old oaks and a deciduous cypress of great age, and also a park well stocked with deer.
Opposite Mr. Payson's is the handsome old place of William Pratt, which has for a long course of years been kept in fine condition by his heirs, under the supervision of his son, George W. Pratt, one of the early vice-presidents of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and since his death Miss Mary Pratt, who still lives, at an advanced age, preserves its former reputation with good taste and enterprise. The conservatory of choice plants, the graperies, peach-house, the orchard and garden, are per- petuated from year to year in excellent order.
Near by is the elegant villa and estate of the late Alvin Adams, the founder of the great Adams Express Company. Extensive lawns and
1 This estate some sixty years ago was the residence of Eben Preble, an old merchant of Boston, and brother of Commodore Preble. He built the brick walls still enclosing the grounds in which the present conservatories and other glass structures are located. Mr. Preble in 1805 imported into Boston one hundred and fifty varieties of fruit-trees ; and so great has
been the improvement in our fruits that only two of the varieties are now considered valuable. This estate passed to Nathaniel Amory, who married the daughter of Mr. Preble, in 1808; thence to R. D. Shephard about 1830; in a few years to Mr. Cushing ; and after his death, about 1860, to Mr. Payson, by whose personal attention everything is kept with fine taste.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ornamental grounds, together with a valuable picture-gallery, have made this place one of the most attractive in the vicinity of Boston, where the generous hospitality of its proprietor was abundantly dispensed, as it is now by his heirs.
The orchards and gardens on this side of our city were noted a long time ago for their extent and the excellence of their fruit. Here was the home of Josiah Stickney, ex-President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, where his heirs still reside. Although a merchant in active busi- ness, he found time to plant an extensive pear orchard and a garden, from which, under his personal care, he brought forth some of the finest fruits which have been on exhibition. Before his removal from Boston, his love of flowers led him to establish a small garden on Tremont Street, north of the Masonic Temple, where, forty years ago, he cultivated the dahlia exten- sively, frequently carrying off prizes for the excellence of his specimens.1
In Waltham was the splendid estate of Governor Christopher Gore, which was considered in former times as among the most elegant in our vicinity. The Governor while residing in England, as commissioner for the adjustment of claims under the Jay Treaty, evidently imbibed a taste for the life of a country gentleman, and acquired a knowledge of the then accepted style of building and landscape gardening. His house and grounds were arranged strictly on the English model. The estate comprised several hundred acres, in the middle of which was what was called the " Home Field," where stood the mansion. The drawing-room was furnished in the gay and graceful fashion of Louis XVI .; the other rooms, with substantial rich mahogany, much of it of the old ante-Revolutionary type. A straight avenue, shaded by double rows of trees, conducted the visitor to this stately abode. 'Shady walks radiated from the house to the east and west, secluding it upon all sides, except that one opening permitted a view of the river a half- mile across the lawn, and of the fields beyond it. The trees which bordered the avenues and walks and ornamented the grounds were tastefully grouped, occasionally converting the walks into Gothic aisles, one of which formed a vista opposite the east window of the library.2
This place on the death of Governor Gore passed into the hands of William Payne, then to General Theodore Lyman, and on the latter's re- moval to Brookline, to Copley Greene. Now it is distinguished for numer-
1 Desirous of promoting the cause of horticul- ture, he made a bequest of his estate at Water- town to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for an experimental garden ; but afterward he revoked this gift, and gave the sum of twelve thousand dollars to the society, the income of which was to be devoted for thirty years for the purchase of books for its library, then to be transferred to the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge.
2 The tradition is that the Governor and Mrs. Gore planted many of these trees with
their own hands. The Governor was fond of agricultural pursuits, and was an ardent amateur farmer, having, in addition to his fruit, flower, and vegetable garden, extensive fields, under cul- tivation, and a large group of barns and farm buildings. From this elegant mansion might be seen the Governor taking an airing in his orange- colored coach, with coachman, footman, and out- riders all in livery, and with a stateliness quite in keeping with his fine place. - Letter of Colonel Henry Lee. Of this place Fisher Ames wrote : " I do not expect to build a smarter."
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THE HORTICULTURE OF BOSTON AND VICINITY.
ous glass structures for the growth of fruits, flowers, and vegetables, and for the excellent condition in which its grounds and their appurtenances are kept by its present owner, Mr. T. W. Walker. Waltham was much developed by the enterprise of Messrs. Lowell and Patrick Jackson. There also Dr. James Jackson had a lovely place, and Judge Jackson for a few years held the Gore place by lease.
Another place is especially worthy of notice in Waltham. “Lyman Place," the home of Theodore Lyman, one of Boston's best known mer- chants, where he and his eldest son, George W. Lyman, lived from 1795 until their deaths, - the latter having died Sept. 24, 1880, aged ninety-three years, ten months, - was bought in 1793, and the mansion-house erected in 1795. The first greenhouse was built about 1800 and divided into two parts, in which were raised pineapples, bananas, and other tropical fruits, and among the ornamental plants the Yellow Mimosa (acacia), which was then considered very elegant. Mr. Lyman brought over a celebrated Eng- lish gardener by the name of Bell. He began by laying out and grading the grounds, which took several seasons to finish, but when completed they were in their time the finest illustration in the country of modern landscape gardening; "bearing witness," says Mr. Henry W. Sargent, "to a refined and elegant taste in rural improvement. Its fine level park, a mile in length, was enriched with groups of English limes, elms, and oaks; and masses of native wood, watered by a fine stream and stocked with deer, were the lead- ing features of the place at that time. The oldest of these trees were set out early in this century, and are still in a healthful condition." " The peculiar thing," says Colonel Theodore Lyman, his grandson, " is that my grandfather, son of a poor country clergyman in Old York, and compelled to work hard from boyhood, should have had the tastes of a refined man of leisure in a matter of landscape gardening. Considering the immense difficulty of doing such a thing in those days, there is nobody near Boston now who is doing as much as he did." 1
Charlestown in the early part of this century was distinguished for its good gardens and fine fruits. Here was the fine fruit garden belonging to the estate of Nathan Tufts, now occupied by the Rev. Dr. Lambert, rector of St. John's Church. Another fine residence was that of Eben Breed, now the site of Mount Vernon Street, with garden, greenhouse, and a small orchard. Among the finest places on the peninsula about the year 1800 was that of the Hon. Samuel Dexter, which afterward passed to Matthew Bridge and H. Davidson, and is now owned by Rhodes Lockwood, who occupies a part of it; it had a fine garden of fruit and ornamental trees, grape-vines, and a greenhouse. On this estate are now the handsome grounds of the Hon. T. T. Sawyer and the Hon. Edward Lawrence. The father of the Hon. George Washington Warren had a large garden of fruit- trees and plants. John Hurd and William Hurd had good gardens. Mr.
1 Letters of George W. Lyman and Colonel Theodore Lyman.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
James Hunnewell had a fine estate, now occupied by his son, our esteemed citizen James F. Hunnewell. This estate still retains its former size, with many of the original trees and plants.1
Among other gardens was that of the Hon. Charles Thompson, whose father was an experienced cultivator of fruits. It is still among the largest and best in the town. The Navy Yard has a large garden for fruits and flowers. The grounds of the Ursuline Convent on Mount Benedict were once extensive in their orchards and shade-trees. In Charlestown, also, was the " Vineyard," under the care of David Haggerston, one of the pioneers of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and afterward the gardener of John P. Cushing at Watertown. This garden was an experimental one, and devoted almost exclusively to the testing of foreign varieties of the grape in open ground, and other small fruits; and here was first introduced from Europe the famous Keen's Seedling strawberry. Here was a green- house containing a fine collection of the camellia, where the writer saw this elegant plant in bloom for the first time in his life. Another garden devoted to the cultivation of fruits and flowers was that of Samuel R. Johnson, who forty years ago was one of the most successful cultivators and exhibitors of fruits and flowers.
There have been many other fine gardens in Charlestown, but most of those of which we have spoken have been built upon. Outside of the peninsula was the estate of Joseph Barrell, on the present site of the Mc- Lean Asylum, which was one of the most distinguished in our region.2 It had large gardens and greenhouses, which cost about fifty thousand dollars, and in those days was called a " show-place." It was named Pleasant Hill, and is probably identical with Poplar Grove.
Horticulture had a cordial reception in the early days of Medford, even back as far as the building of the house of Matthew Cradock. The Royall house, once occupied by Colonel Isaac Royall, though not so old, stood in the midst of grounds laid out in elegant taste, and embellished with fruit trees and shrubbery, walks bordered with box, and a summer-house surmounted by a cupola and a statue of Mercury.3 This estate was pur- chased in 1810 by Jacob Tidd, who afterward removed to West Roxbury, and exhibited at the rooms of the Horticultural Society the Horatio (or Nice) grape, weighing over six pounds to the bunch. Mr. Royall died in 1739, leaving the property to his son Isaac; and by the name of Royall it is still known. There were many fine estates in Medford in our own day. Such were those of Timothy Bigelow, Peter C. Brooks, Thatcher Magoun,
1 Mr. James Hunnewell was an enterprising and intelligent merchant; he visited the Sand- wich Islands three times during his life, spend- ing several years there, and established there in 1826 the mercantile house which still exists ; and which, though it has passed through several hands since, has still a good standing, and is,
we believe, one of the oldest American houses, if not the senior, existing on the Islands. Mr. J. F. Hunnewell's Letter.
2 Drake's History of Middlesex County, p. 177.
3 Ibid., ii. 165. See further on this estate in Vol. III. of the present work, p. 105.
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THE HORTICULTURE OF BOSTON AND VICINITY.
and others, who were interested in horticultural pursuits and had good gardens and greenhouses.
West Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, Concord, Wilmington, Winches- ter, Woburn, Reading, Revere, and other towns in our vicinity have been prominent in promoting the science of horticulture during the present cen- tury ; and from them we have derived not only fine fruits and flowers, but the choicest vegetables which are to be seen in any market of the world. From Wilmington came the world-renowned Baldwin apple, which consti- tutes the largest portion of the apples exported from our market, filling more than three fourths of the six hundred thousand barrels that are sent annually abroad.1
From Concord come some of the finest roses, strawberries, grapes, and vegetables which grace our exhibitions; but if it had produced nothing else but the Concord grape, its name, and that of Mr. Ephraim W. Bull, would have been remembered with gratitude.
One of the most conspicuous and extensive places as regards horticultu- ral improvement and landscape gardening, and interesting also for its his- toric associations, is that at Lexington, of the Hon. Francis B. Hayes, President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; and did our space permit us to describe the more distant tributaries of the metropolis, we could tell the story of his fine estate with its conservatories, fruits, and flowers, and how his acres have expanded, during these last nineteen years, from the thirteen acres of the original purchase till it now includes between four and five hundred, covering the rights conveyed by forty-nine deeds.
If our space again permitted us to extend our observation we should not neglect Salem, where the tomato was first introduced; where Robert Manning's Pomological Garden did much for the pomology of New Eng- land as early as 1823;2 where John Fisk Allen, in 1854, produced the earl-
1 The history of this apple is as follows : * - WOBURN, Sept. 28, 1880.
DEAR SIR, - Your note of the 26th inst. was received, asking me to give you the account which my grand- father, Samuel Thompson, Esq., gave me of the Baldwin apple. In reply I will say he was a surveyor of land, and while he was on duty one fall day in a pasture in the town of Wilmington, near a road called Butters Row Road, he came across a tree with fine looking apples thereon. The tree was hollow with decay, and a woodpecker found a place for her nest therein. He said he carried home some of the fruit and gave his brother Abijah some of it, and they were so highly pleased with it that they procured a lot of scions from the tree and set them in the trees around their homes, and they soon began to yield fruit ; and they gave somne to Colonel Baldwin, their neighbor, and he valued them so highly he went into them deeply and spread them around among his friends broadcast, and they had no name for theni, and of course they gave them his name. While
* Letter of Colonel Leonard Thompson to the Hon. Charles Woodman. [See note to Mr. Adams's chapter in this volume. Brooks's Medford, p. 19, places the tree in that town, near the Woburn line. See also Ellis's Count Rumford, pp. 375-77. - ED.]
they were in the Thompsons' hands they were called Pecker apples, after the old bird. The tree stood in Wilmington, near Butters Row Road.
LEONARD THOMPSON, 92 years, 4 months.
Hon. CHARLES WOODMAN.
Of the Baldwin apple, Deacon Thomas Griggs of Brookline, now in his ninety-fourth year, writes: "Seventy years ago I employed a man by the name of Tufts, to graft. He came from Woburn and brought scions called the Pecker apple. He said Mr. Baldwin, when sur- veying for the canal, found a tree on the edge of the wood, which was almost killed by wood- peckers, but had on it a very few nice red apples. From this tree he cut scions, and from it sprang the Baldwin apple."
2 The most important public benefit conferred on the Pomology of New England, if not of our whole country, was the establishment of this Pomological Garden in Salem. It was for test- ing fruits, both native and foreign, and ascer-
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
iest hybridized American grape, an experiment abundantly exemplified later by Edward S. Rogers; and where Joseph Sebastian Cabot possessed six hundred varieties of the tulip. Nor should we forget Lynn, and the Breeds, with their enterprising spirit.
Coming nearer on the North Shore, among the most remarkable instan- ces of success in combating with our northern climate were the efforts of the late Frederic Tudor, at Nahant. Here he began a large garden on a spot without a tree or shrub, and by enclosing it with high double-pale fences to break the wind, he succeeded in producing many fine fruits. In the year 1849 he exhibited a basket of Louis Bonne of Jersey pears, one of which measured over ten inches in circumference, and weighed thirteen and three fourths ounces. The trees and vines of this garden, which the writer visited a few years since, were then in a healthful and productive condition. Mr. Tudor attached to the pears of which we have spoken the following note : " The whole circumference of ten fruits in this basket is eight feet, one and a half inches; weight of the same, - seven pounds, four and three fourths ounces; the tree, a dwarf, bore ninety-five fruits."
Going a little further inland to the west we find Dedham, in former days noted for many fine residences, among which were those of Fisher Ames and Edward Dowse, both of whom were much interested in horticulture, and who planted some of the beautiful elms and other trees which adorn her streets. They had orchards and gardens and ice houses, which were considered rare luxuries in those days. The estate of Mr. Dowse, by the will of his widow, became the property of her nephew, Josiah Quincy ; who gave it to his youngest son, the late Edmund Quincy; who bequeathed it to his second son, Dr. Henry P. Quincy, and to his daughter Mary, who now live there.
Among others who have been engaged in the promotion of horticulture may be named Edward M. Richards, Ebenezer Wight, and Edward S. Rand, Jr., all of whom held the office of recording secretary of the Mas- sachusetts Horticultural Society. Dr. Wight was one of the most eminent cultivators of the apple, proving under his own observation the numerous varieties as they came to notice, and distributing scions of the same to all applicants. Edward S. Rand, Sr., promoted the advancement of horticul- ture by the adornment of his beautiful estate, and by his excellent collec- tion of greenhouse and orchid plants of which we have spoken before.
taining what were adapted to our own climate. Mr. Manning opened a correspondence with the celebrated Dr. Van Mons of Belgium, with Robert Thompson, the head of the Fruit De- partment in the garden of the Horticultural Society of London, and with others in Europe and our own country. From these various sources he received trees and scions to carry on his work. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, prosecut- ing his labors with great enterprise and zeal till the time of his death, in 1842, when the collec-
tion of fruits, of which he had personal observa- tion, amounted to more than eighteen hundred varieties. He also established a nursery, and dispensed trees and scions of such as he could recommend to our own and other lands. He was a most careful observer ; and to him more than to all others in our country in his day we are indebted for the introduction of new and choice fruits, for the identification of the differ- ent varieties, the testing of their qualities, and for their correct nomenclature. His son Robert and two sisters still live on the homestead.
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THE HORTICULTURE OF BOSTON AND VICINITY.
His son Edward possessed grounds and houses for the culture of fruits and flowers, which with his collection of orchids, and his contributions to our exhibitions, were of a notable character. The efforts of Colonel Eliphalet Stone for more than thirty years in promoting the culture of fruits, both by his nurseries and orchards, are still continued, with the love of younger years; and he dispenses now, as ever, the results of his careful experience for the benefit of the public. Dedham was the home of the Norfolk Agri- cultural Society, whose presidency for the first twenty years was vested in the writer, and which greatly promoted by its exhibitions the horticulture of our vicinity.
Turning to the South Shore for a hasty glance, we find that in Braintree, including what is now Quincy, some of the early occupants introduced orchards and gardens. Among these - besides the Adamses, Hancocks, and William Coddington - was the first comer of the distinguished Quincy family, Edmund Quincy. His estate originally consisted of a thousand acres. He died in 1636, at the age of thirty-three, just after he had built a house on what is now Mount Wollaston. His son of the same name, who died in 1697, inherited the estate, and planted an orchard, of which some apple- trees still remain. Judge Edmund Quincy, its next owner, dying in Lon- don, the property came to his son, Colonel Josiah Quincy, who about the year 1770 had upon it gardens and orchards, with a rich collection of French pears, and a fine lime-tree which has come down to our time. The son of the Colonel, the eminent Patriot known as Josiah Quincy, Jr., dying in early manhood, left an only son, the late honored Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, and President of Harvard University, to whom his grandfather, dying in 1784, bequeathed the estate. The president, who lived to a ven- erable age, devoted intervals during his public life and his retirement from it to the care, adornment, and enrichment of the three hundred and fifty acres which came to his possession. He was. fond of natural beauty and of agricultural improvements, and laid out his grounds with much taste. He planted in 1790 an avenue, a third of a mile in length, of six rows of elms and two of ash-trees, still thriving, besides more than a mile and a half of hedge.1 When President Quincy was in Congress, in 1809, he obtained from an English gardener, Mayn, established at Georgetown, D. C., plants of the American hedge-thorn (Buckthorn), which he set double in his avenue for a third of a mile. After flourishing many years, this hedge was eradicated in 1850. Mr. Quincy also obtained from Mayn the Burgundy, York, and Lancaster roses, the Bignonia Radicans, then rare in this vicinity, and other plants. He found his attempts to introduce here the principles of English agriculture very troublesome and costly. He continued his interest in fruit, and when past his fourscore years, called on the writer to purchase trees of the Winter Nelis pear. On being told that it was a slender and slow grower, he replied : "That is of little consequence to such young fellows as myself." He had a fine herd on his farm, and wrote one
1 Miss Eliza S. Quincy's Letter.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of the best treatises on the Soiling of Cattle, which was published at the re- quest of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. In 1849 and 1852 it was revised by Mr. Quincy, and was republished in the Trans- actions of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, of which he was a member, and it was reported upon again, in 1860, in Flint's State Agricultural Report. Mr. Quincy was fond of every improvement, and had one of the first mow- ing-machines introduced into New England. He died, July 1, 1864, in his ninety-third year, in the house and apartment of his grandfather, Colonel Josiah Quincy, leaving to his daughter, Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, and to two of her sisters, life-estates. in his house and grounds around it, where they now live. To his eldest son, the present Hon. Josiah Quincy, he bequeathed his farm, with a house erected in 1850, who also carried it on for a few years, and where, in 1881, he lives in a green old age, with his children and grand- children around him.
We cannot close this chapter without recognizing with gratitude the efforts of the men who laid the foundations of the Massachusetts Society. for Promoting Agriculture, of the American Pomological Society, and par- ticularly of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
Fifty years ago the supply of fruits in our market, excepting apples, was limited to a few varieties and to a few weeks of use; now our markets abound with fruits for all seasons of the year. Then almost the only straw- berry in our market was the wild strawberry of the field, and that limited to a short season; now we have in variety this delicious fruit, by the facili- ties of transportation, for two or three months, receiving from the South in a single day five thousand bushels, and from our own town of Dighton ten thousand bushels in a year. Then not a single hybridized fruit of the straw- berry had been produced, so far as we know, in our land; now so great has been the increase that my register contains the names of nearly four hun- dred kinds of strawberries which have been under cultivation in my day. Then there were no American grapes cultivated in our gardens except here and there a vine of the Catawba and Isabella; now there are more than a hundred varieties of American grapes in cultivation. Then the cultivation of the pear was limited to a few varieties; now we have in our collection more than eight hundred varieties of this noble fruit. Then no exports of fruit of any note had been made; now Boston itself has shipped over six hundred thousand barrels of apples in a year, and the export of fruits from this country alone has amounted to nearly three millions of dollars in a year.
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