The History of Our Champion Trees

When William Livingston placed an order for pears and plums from Gordon’s Nursery in London, he wrote at the end of the list, “And let the Nurseryman put two quarts of horse Chestnuts at the Bottom of the Box in which he puts the scions [1]." Unrelated to the sweet chestnut, the horse chestnut (Aesculus hipposcastanum) is not native to North America or Europe. It originated in Asia Minor and was brought to England as late as the early seventeenth century. Of little practical use, the horse chestnut became favored for planting along avenues; John Evelyn described their use in this manner at Vaux-le-Vicomte [2]. The horse chestnut arrived in America in 1746 when Peter Collinson sent seeds of the tree to John Bartram [3]. At least one of the horse chestnut seeds ordered by Livingston presumably survived the voyage across the Atlantic, germinated, and grew into the tree that, according to family lore, was planted by one of Livingston’s daughters outside the door of Liberty Hall. That Livingston planted a horse chestnut in his garden suggests that he was both botanically curious and interested in emulatin formal European gardens. The tree is one of the oldest documented trees in New Jersey. Lucy Eddy, who lived in Liberty Hall from 1806 to 1808 wrote in her diary following an 1830 visit to the grounds of her memory of the tree and the dilapidated state in which she now found it: “one of the fine large weeping willows in front of the house had been blown down, taking half of the horse-chestnut along with it—the other half still remains in a delapidated [sic] state and has
never recovered from the furious blow inflicted by its neighbor [4]."

Like the Seckel Pear, the Bartlett Pear was an eighteenth-century pear that would come to dominate nineteenth-century taste. The Bartlett Pear was not yet commercially available when William Livingston ordered 59 different pear trees from London for his orchard at Liberty Hall. The Bartlett Pair, an American variant of the “Bon Chrétien” or Williams Pear was bred in England and first imported to America in 1799 by James Carter who planted them on the Roxbury, Massachusetts estate of Enoch Bartlett [1].

Tree fruits became popular among fashionable gentleman gardeners in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as gardeners developed more and more varieties of apples, plums, cherries, and pears. In 1769, William Livingston ordered 59 different pear trees from London for his orchard at Liberty Hall. But the Seckel Pear was not among them. The Seckel Pear, a small fruit renowned for its sweetness, was not yet available. The originals of the Seckel Pear are unclear, but it was first “discovered” growing on a farm near Philadelphia in the 1760s. Word of the pear spread, but it was not commercially available until the early nineteenth century. In 1846, however, Hamilton Fish recorded a “seckle” pear growing near the eastern end of the house in the “Pleasure Grounds.” The Seckel Pear growing at the end of the central allée towards the river (the site of William Livingston’s orchard) is believed to be one of the oldest Seckel Pears in New Jersey.

The European Beech was imported to North America in the eighteenth century and was first documented as commercially available in Bernard M’Mahon’s Philadelphia nursery [1]. Its size and shape, as well as the striking color of the purple and copper variants, made the European beech a favorite for “pleasure grounds” in the nineteenth century. In 1807, Thomas Jefferson planted Purple Beeches at Monticello [2]. Mary Alice Kean recalled in 1959 that the “copper beech,” a variety of the European beech, was planted by Julian H. Kean.

The “star” magnolia is native to Japan. It was introduced to the United States in 1862 [1]. It is not known when the star magnolias were introduced to Liberty Hall. But Mary Alice Kean planted several magnolias on the property.

The “sweet bay” or “swamp bay” magnolias was one of flowering shrubs native to North America that excited the curiosity of English and European gardeners when it was first brought back to England in 1678. Philadelphia botanist and gardener John Bartram identified it as early as 1736. It was commercially available in America by 1783 in Bartram’s Nursery [1]. In 1959, Mary Alice Kean recalled that the “swamp bay magnolias on either side of the door were planted by Wm. Livingston.”

William Livingston began planting the orchard at Liberty Hall even before he launched construction of the house. He paid Stephen Crane (sheriff of Essex County, mayor of Elizabethtown, and eventual delegate to the Continental Congress) “₤20 [New] York money to buy apple trees and plant them out in an orchard.” Crane, on behalf of Livingston, acquired “thirty grafted trees, 160 trees “not grafted,” 110 grafted trees, and 160 peach trees [1].

Livingston also imported fruit trees from directly from England. In 1767, Lawrence Reade wrote to Livingston from London that he had shipped trees that Livingston had ordered from a Mr. Gordon [2]. And then in 1769, he prevailed upon another friend in London to acquire for him cyons (or slips) of fifty-nine different pear trees and twenty-seven different plumbs from seedsman James Gordon [3]. Gordon’s nursery, located at the Thistle & Brown No. 10 Fenchurch Street, was one of the best and most highly respected nurseries in eighteenth-century London. Ironically, Gordon had acquired a reputation for successfully propagating highly sought after American trees and flowering shrubs that were becoming essential elements in the English landscape garden. By 1770, Gordon and his partners Dermer and Thomson were publishing catalogs of their stock. Livingston must have had a list of Gordon’s stock, as several varieties of pears, and plumbs, such as the Morocco, Black Damask, Great Damask, Orleans, Cheston, Maistre Claude, Little Queen Claudia, Cherry, Myrabolan, Drap d’or, La Mirabele, all appear in Gordon’s catalogue [4].

Following the death of William Livingston and the sale of Liberty Hall, the orchard continued to be an important part of the grounds. When Lord Viscount Bolingbroke (aka George Belaise) advertised the property for sale in 1806, the property was described as containing “a great variety of flowering Shrubs, Flowers and Fruits, imported from different parts of Europe,” and “having an orchard.” An 1846 plan of the garden and orchard recorded in Hamilton Fish’s “Book of Accounts” lists cherries, peaches, plums, pears, apples, and apricots.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, the fashion for gardens changed from the formal, geometric and symmetrical “French” aesthetic to the “English” style landscape garden. Those changes are reflected in the gardens of Liberty Hall. William Livingston owned several books on gardens, including John Evelyn’s Sylva (the most important treatise on trees to be published in the seventeenth century), Philip Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary (a major English reference work), and Batty Langley’s Principles of Gardening, an influential volume by the noted eighteenth-century English garden designer. The same books could be found in the libraries of Livingston’s American peers—Robert R. Livingston, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, all of whom were enthusiastic gardeners.

Langley’s Principles of Gardening hinted at the emergence of the English style landscape garden with its emphasis on curves in garden design. The new style made its way to American gardens where curvilinear walks and paths created new ways to experience the natural world. As Manassah Cutler explained in regard to the State House Yard in Philadelphia in 1787, “The numerous walks . . . are all in a serpentine direction, which heightens the beauty, and affords constant variety [1].” The new style was adopted by the most fervent and fashionable gardeners-- George Washington, for example, included a “serpentine” path at Mount Vernon [2]. The English style arrived at Liberty Hall with the arrival from England of Lord Bolingbroke, aka George Belaise, who purchased Liberty Hall in 1798. In the few short years that lived at Liberty Hall, he made substantial alterations and additions to the garden, including the creation of the “Serpentine Path” that meanders around the front of the property. When he advertised the property for sale in 1806, he could boast that “The Garden or pleasure ground in front of the house (of three acres) has gravel walks round it, and contains a great variety of flowering shrubs, Flowers and Fruits imported from different parts of Europe.” “There is also,” the ad explained, “a Hot House 60 feet in length, filled with the finest fruits, such as Peaches Nectarines Cherries Figs, and the best sorts of Grapes.” The garden was purchased in 1806 by Thomas Eddy who owned it until it was sold to Susan Livingston Kean Niemcewicz. In 1830, Lucy Eddy visited the garden and recalled childhood memories of the garden: “Returned yesterday from a delightful excursion to revisit our old place at Elizabeth Town—a place endeared to me by many recollections of the past—“pleasant yet mournful to the soul.” She remembered time spent on the gravel walks and “well remembered trees under whose shade I had passed many a happy hour in the days of my childhood [3].”

A surviving plan of the path dating to 1846 shows the addition of fruit trees to the pathway. Specimen trees and shrubs dating to the nineteenth century still line the path and create visual as well as botanical variety today.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “kitchen” gardens and “herb” gardens were essential for any household. The Livingston and Kean families grew a wide variety of vegetables in the “kitchen” garden and eagerly shared seeds with friends and family. In March 1788, John Jay sent William Livingston (his father-in law) cauliflower seeds from New York, writing:

Dear Sir,
The enclosed cauliflower seed is of the early kind. If you wish to have any of the late, I can easily procure it. I got this and the Madeira Lettuce seed from a gardniner, who says they are of the same parcels of which he means to take seed for his own garden. I hope they will both prove good--. I am not certain whether this letter will go by the Boat or the Post—if by the former, a little tub with pickled salmon will accompany it—We are all well and impatient to se you, which we shall endeavor to do as soon as the Bay becomes a little more free from Ice.
‍
I am Dr SirYour affectionate [son-in-law]
John Jay[1]

Herb gardens were the source of flavorings and medicine in household. While we do not have a list of herbs grown at Liberty Hall in the Livingston or Bolingbroke era, Count Julian Niemcewicz listed the following herbs in his Elizabeth Town garden in 1800:
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Pot & Sweet Herbs, Thyme, Sweet Marjoram, Chervil, Coriander, Borage, Buglos, Burnet, Marigold, Chary, Angelica, Lovage, Scurvy Grass, Carraway, Carduus, Balm, Penny royal, Chamomile, Mint, Tansey, Tarragon, Sage, Hysop, Rosemary, Lavander, Wormwood, Caspicum, Nasturtium, Summer Savory [2].