MOUNT AIRY PLANTATION

Hayden M. Hammons, 2019 William D. Rieley Fellowship

Prepared for the Garden Club of Virginia
Copyright © 2022 by The Garden Club of Virginia.
All Rights Reserved.

Images: Images included in this report without other credits were made by the author.

Reproduction: All material contained herein is the intellectual property of the Garden Club of
Virginia except where noted.

Permission for reproduction, except for personal use, must be obtained from:

The Fellowship Committee, Chair

The Garden Club of Virginia
The Kent-Valentine House
12 East Franklin Street
Richmond, VA 23219

www.gcvirginia.org
MOUNT AIRY PLANTATION
Hayden M. Hammons, 2019 William D. Rieley Fellowship
Prepared for the Garden Club of Virginia
 iv

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Project Introduction 06 Chapter Five: Coda 114
Report Framework 08 Appendix I: Selected Site Photos 116
Literatue Review 10 Appendix II: Native Plants of the Northern Neck 126
Research Methods 12 Endnotes 130
Chapter Two: Project Context 14 Figures 146
Introduction 16 Selected Bibliography 152
William Tayloe (the Elder) 16
William Tayloe (the Younger) 19
Col. John Tayloe I 20
Col. John Tayloe II 25
Philip Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary 26
Col. John Tayloe II & Col. Presely Thornton 30
Chapter Three: Physical Landscape 32
Introduction 34
Philip Miller on Site Selection 38
Philip Miller on Site Layout 40
Site Selection 44
Site Layout 48
Site Grading and Drainage 53
Chapter Four: Cultural Landscape 62
Introduction 64
Col. John Tayloe III 66
January 67
February 69
March 76
April 80
May 89
June 93
July 96
August 98
September 104
October 109
November 111
December 112
 v

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to Garden Club of

Virginia for extending this opportunity to explore one of
To my wife, Joni, thank you for your love and patience as I
worked through this report. To my son, John, I cannot wait
the state’s most significant landscapes. I would also like to to tell you about my summer at Mount Airy.
state my deep appreciation for Will Rieley and Connie Liou,
whose guidance has been thoughtful and supportive.
To Tayloe, Catherine, Tayloe, and Thomas Emery, thank
you for your unbelievable hospitality and your willingness to
let me live at Mount Airy during my research. My summer
at Mount Airy was an incredibly memorable experience, and
I know that it would not have been as impactful had you
not opened your doors to me. My appreciation extends to
Gwynne, Anne, Courtney, and everyone in the family who
welcomed me to Mount Airy and made me feel at home.
Lastly, I would like to thank Sugar, Scout, Crosby, Ranger,
Spec, and Hopscotch for accompanying me around the
grounds and for being great pups.
There are several libraries that I would like to thank. To
the staff at Rappahannock Community College in Warsaw,
Virginia, thank you for offering me a space to work and for
being so accommodating. I would also like to thank the
staffs at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, the
Library of Virginia, the Albert and Shirley Small Special
Collections Library at the University of Virginia, and the
Special Collections Research Center at the Swem Library at
The College William & Mary.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support.
1
PROJECT INTRODUCTION
Figure 1.1 (page before): Arthur Brooke’s sketch, “The Parterre”
Report Framework
O n the morning of Wednesday, July 17, 1805, there
was a buzz of activity across Mount Airy’s landscape. Located
along the Rappahannock River in Richmond County in
Virginia’s Northern Neck, this Palladian-inspired manor had
been the seat of the prominent Tayloe family for over half
a century. On this day, the current owner, Col. John Tayloe
III, was continuing to imprint his presence on the landscape,
and thus cement his legacy as one of the most prominent
members of Virginia’s planter class. Following a fruitful wheat
harvest that concluded on July 5, Col. Tayloe III’s hired and
slave laborers began a series of infrastructure projects that
would continue throughout the rest of the summer.1 As was
common at Mount Airy, these improvements were designed
to enhance the functionality of the plantation’s pleasure and
production grounds. Aside from the usual mending of fences
and whitewashing of walls, the most significant project that
summer was the construction of a gardener’s house for Col.
Tayloe III’s professional gardener, William Spence.
An “industrious, sober, and orderly” Scotsman, Spence
first arrived in Virginia in 1797, when he was employed
as George Washington’s professional gardener at Mount
Vernon.2 Writing in 1798, Washington states, “in short I
never had a hired servant that pleased me better, and what
adds to my satisfaction is that he is content himself, having
declared that he was never happyer [sic] in his life.”3 Following
Washington’s death in 1799, Spence was discharged from
08
Project Introduction - Report Framework
his duties at Mount Vernon, and his exact whereabouts are
unknown prior to 1805, when he appears in the account
books and work logs kept by Col. Tayloe III’s Mount Airy
manager, William Holburne. Within the 1805-1806 account
book, Spence’s yearly income was listed at $60, and his base
salary was supplemented with a provision of bacon and other
smoked meats that were produced in Mount Airy’s smoke-
houses. Col. Tayloe III’s stores also provided Spence with
several quarts of brandy and whiskey throughout the year,
and his shoemakers routinely repaired the gardener’s shoes.
The records also indicate that Spence had taken a wife at
Mount Airy; however, her role on the plantation is unclear.4
Work began in earnest on July 5, as Col. Tayloe III’s
wagoner team, led by thirty-one-year-old Barnaby, “hauled
stone for Gardeners House” from the mason’s shop to
the site of the new structure. By Monday, July 8, on what
Holburne noted as “a very hot day,” Col. Tayloe III’s team
of masons were quickly raising the stone walls for Spence’s
new house.5 For the next week, the wagoners and masons
successfully worked in tandem to erect the structure, and
after completing that portion of the house, their efforts
quickly turned to assembling a chimney. On Tuesday, July
16, Holburne noted that the masons were still employed
with erecting the chimney, and that during the evening,
there was a powerful storm “attended with thunder.”6 On
the following morning, July 17, work around the gardener’s

house began as usual. The wagoners continued their steady
pace of hauling and delivering stones to the work site, and
the masons attended the lime kiln, producing the mortar
needed to bind the chimney together. Suddenly, as Holburne
notes, “after getting it [the chimney] more than half up…
[it] all tumbled down.”7 Perhaps the previous night’s storm
had compromised the structural integrity of the chimney, or
maybe the supervision of the construction process had been
neglected. Nevertheless, after the dust settled, word of the
failure was spreading. In consequence, the hired contractor,
Thomas Pursley, was discharged from his position, and
the project’s schedule experienced a major setback. For the
next sixteen days, a mass of Col. Tayloe III’s laborers fever-
ishly worked to complete Spence’s house, which was finally
finished on August 2, as the masons finished plastering and
whitewashing the structure.8
Spence’s duties were integral to the aesthetic and func-
tional effectiveness of the plantation landscape, and although
it is impossible to know whether Spence had found the same
fulfillment that he had experienced at Mount Vernon, his
presence at Mount Airy and the construction of a personal
dwelling for him speaks to Col. Tayloe III’s commitment to
the beauty and productivity of the formal garden landscape.
Most importantly, an analysis of Spence’s experience offers
a glimpse of the larger historical narrative of Mount Airy,
providing an entry point into a broader series of questions
that define the inspiration for this research. For example, this
work was first influenced by the pursuit of a more general
understanding of the cultural, economic, and political land-
scapes of the Tidewater region during the eighteenth and
09
Project Introduction - Report Framework
nineteenth centuries. Secondly, inquiries into the biograph-
ical history of the family uncover how they rose to power
and how that position within their society informed their
relationship with the landscape. Thirdly, an investigation
into the prevailing design and construction methods of
the eighteenth century illuminate why and how the formal
garden landscape at Mount Airy came to be. Lastly, an anal-
ysis of the historic land use patterns uncovers how the land-
scape was organized and who populated these spaces. These
guiding questions play an integral role in the direction of this
research, offering a framework for discovery and historical
analysis.
The purpose of this report is to highlight the historical
significance of Mount Airy’s physical and cultural land-
scapes, positioning the garden design within a larger context
of daily life for those who lived and worked within these
spaces. By utilizing a variety of contemporary and multi-dis-
ciplinary perspectives, this report aims to move past an anal-
ysis that is solely oriented towards the object, but instead
urges the reader to consider the complexities of culture and
design and how these concepts are manifested into physical
space. To provide a structural framework, this report first
organizes the features of the physical landscape around the
biographical history of Col. John Tayloe II and his experi-
ence at Mount Airy during the eighteenth century. A discus-
sion about the design philosophy and construction methods
will be embedded within this narrative, with the intention
of exploring the processes that led to the creation of Mount
Airy’s formal garden landscape. Additionally, Col. John
Tayloe III’s tenure at Mount Airy will illuminate the nature

of the cultural landscape during the early nineteenth century.
By discussing subjects like seasonal labor patterns and plant
materials, this report will enliven the formal garden land-
scape with the people, places, and events that activated
and gave character to the physical landscape. This process
will ultimately unite the characteristics of the physical and
cultural landscapes into a holistic narrative that speaks to a
more complete analysis of Mount Airy.
Literature Review
Although Mount Airy’s historical significance has received
attention from a variety of observers, a methodical analysis
combining the characteristics of the site’s physical and cultural
landscape has yet to be provided. The most conclusive body
of evidence stems from a collection of accounts written from
the various perspectives of architectural historians. While a
few remarks are made about the formal approach and layout
of the gardens, the concentration of their analysis is oriented
towards the historical context and structural details of the
house. Thus, what remains is the impression that Mount
Airy’s significance rests solely on the shoulders of its archi-
tecture. This approach is shortsighted and diminishes the
formal connection between the house and the surrounding
landscape, which was an underlying principle of the orig-
inal design intention. In addition, the focus of these historic
accounts fails to represent the quotidian experiences of those
who managed and worked within this landscape. It is within
this context that this research injects the missing pieces that
address these historic inconsistencies.9
10
Project Introduction - Literature Review
The most informative architectural analysis was provided
in 1899 by architect Arthur Brooke in an article entitled,
“A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” which appeared in the
British-based journal, The Architectural Review. Brooke’s
exploration of Mount Airy is especially important for his
methodology of observing and recording the characteristics
of the house and surrounding landscape. Described in an
endnote, Brooke writes, “it is to the courtesy of H. A. Tayloe,
Esq., the present owner of Mount Airy, that the writer is
indebted for the privilege of making these studies and for
information contained in this article.”10 The collaboration
between Henry Augustine Tayloe, the 91-year-old grandson
of Col. John Tayloe II, and Brooke united the young archi-
tect with a member of the family who possessed memories
of the landscape that dated to the first half of the nineteenth
century. Because of this partnership, the representation of
the conjectural plan and corresponding perspectives, which
Brooke had “taken pains to be accurate even to the massing
of foliage,” was directly informed by H. A. Tayloe’s recol-
lections and thus provides the most reliable account of the
formal layout of the landscape.11 Brooke’s analysis provided
a framework for future historians and informed many of the
conclusions that were made throughout subsequent studies.
More recently, a renewed interest in the historical signif-
icance of Mount Airy has produced a litany of scholarship
focused on the cultural and economic aspects of the Tayloe
family’s plantation landscape. These scholars have researched
and written accounts that speak to a deeper, more complex
narrative that illuminates the nuanced nature of power, labor,
and the common ground that demarcates their interactions.

Historian Richard Dunn was the first to weave “a more inti-
mate picture of slave life” in his comparative study between
Mount Airy and Mesopotamia Plantation in Jamaica.12
Dunn employs a statistical analysis of managerial diaries and
minute books kept at Mount Airy to animate the daily labor
patterns across the Tayloe family’s many plantation quarters
and to illuminate the realities of familial separation through
forced migration. In the culmination of his study, Dunn’s A
Tale of Two Plantations provides an in-depth analysis of the
demographic composition of the Mount Airy Department
and the management of Tayloe’s skilled and semi-skilled
slave gangs.13 Dunn describes the system of education and
job training, stating that “boys and girls were placed in
every skill position except blacksmith and sailor” through
an apprenticeship system.14 Although Dunn only commits a
few paragraphs to the slave gardeners and the formal garden
landscape at Mount Airy, his scholarship is certainly notable.
The conclusions drawn in his work offer a framework and
methodology for researching and guiding the narrative of
the slave gardeners at Mount Airy.
Laura Croghan Kamoie’s Irons in the Fire further
develops Dunn’s initial inquiry by providing a critical study
of the Tayloe family’s entrepreneurial ventures. In Kamoie’s
biographical analysis of the first three generations of the
Tayloe family, she states, “[the family] led the economic
development of northern Virginia through their exploitation
of the natural environment, emphasis on extractive indus-
tries, reliance on enslaved labor, and creation of local and
regional exchange patterns in a domestic economy.”15 Kamoie
places an emphasis on the working landscape around Mount
11
Project Introduction - Literature Review
Airy as the space that facilitated a robust and dynamic plan-
tation economy. At the height of its power, the Mount Airy
Department was a place of “technological innovation and
diversification,” and those circumstances attracted a contin-
uous flow of income, which was earned through the labor
of Tayloe’s skilled and semi-skilled slaves.16 Kamoie’s study is
especially informative because it delivers concise biograph-
ical narrative of the Tayloe family. Her emphasis on their
entrepreneurial spirit underlines the economic and social
realities of the plantation landscape. Furthermore, her inter-
pretation that Mount Airy possessed an economic gravi-
tational force suggests that the house and gardens were in
constant view, and thus would have been experienced by an
unknowable number of people. Like Dunn, Kamoie provides
important context and a series of strategies that informs this
report’s analysis of the history of Mount Airy’s landscape.
Historian Camille Wells complements the studies
conducted by Dunn and Kamoie through her exploration of
the social and cultural norms of the “formidable hierarchy”
who inhabited Tidewater Virginia. Her analysis places the
design of Mount Airy within a context that explains the
pervasive forces that informed the physical and symbolical
form of the built environment.17 Wells writes, “when John
Tayloe devoted the extraordinary quantities of time, money,
and craftsmanship…one of the messages he conveyed was
that he, like most members of the Virginia elite, believed
in the efficacy of appearances.”18 The conceptual develop-
ment throughout her research plays an informative role in
understanding how Col. John Tayloe II responded to these
norms through the expression of the design of the house and
Figure 1.2: Field observations conducted with Sugar and South
12
Figure 1.3: Existing conditions analysis

Project Introduction - Research Methods

surrounding formal garden landscape. For instance, Wells
speaks to the traditional formality of siting the house within
the larger landscape, stating that these manors often “stood
on escarpments elevated above the river plains, thereby culti-
vating notions of oversight and detachment.”19 In another
example, Wells speaks to the significance and utility of
detached buildings. “By providing detached space for funda-
mental domestic chores,” writes Wells, “such as cooking and
washing, outbuildings made Virginia households complete.”20
The historic landscape at Mount Airy featured a network of
detached structures, which housed the various skilled and 1.2
semi-skilled laborers that Kamoie explored in her work.
These examples are two of many key concepts employed by
Wells that translate into the historical narrative of Mount
Airy. Her work plays an integral part in understanding the
Tayloe family’s perception of their physical and cultural envi-
ronment and how those forces informed their vision of the
formal garden landscape.

Research Methods
This project employs a variety of research methods to
formulate a more comprehensive interpretation of Mount
Airy’s physical and cultural landscapes. A discussion of these
strategies offers an opportunity to explore how contemporary
practices can be utilized to construct a more holistic frame-
work when analyzing landscapes with historical significance.
The bulk of the archival research that informs this report was
conducted at the Virginia Historical Society headquartered
1.3
in the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond,

Virginia, which houses the Tayloe Family Papers—a collec-
tion of tens of thousands of documents that highlight the
personal lives of the Tayloe family and their lives at Mount
Airy. The collection is comprised of account books, minute
books, plantation inventories, and personal letters that
span the history of Mount Airy from the mid-eighteenth
century to the twentieth century. The Tayloe Family Papers
are supplemented with additional archival materials discov-
ered at the Library of Virginia, the Earl Gregg Swem Library
Special Collections at the College of William and Mary, and
the Alderman Library Special Collections at the University
of Virginia. Historic newspapers, such as the Virginia
Gazette and the Northern Neck News, provide contempo-
rary accounts of Mount Airy and the Tayloe family, adding
personality to the archival information. Additionally,
contemporary garden treatises, like Philip Miller’s Gardeners
Dictionary, play a prominent role throughout this narrative,
and their importance at Mount Airy will be discussed later
in this report. Furthermore, having an opportunity to live
at Mount Airy during the research process was undeniably
crucial in coming to terms with the character of the formal
garden landscape. With this kind of endless access, tradi-
tional site inventories and analyses were an everyday occur-
rence. Coupled with the realization of eighteenth-century
design and construction methods, these routine site exam-
inations informed the understanding of the formal rigidity
of Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape. In the relative
paucity of explicit primary source material, the narrative
relies on an extensive bibliography of secondary sources that
reinforce the proposed assumptions and conclusions made
13
Project Introduction - Research Methods
throughout the report.
This report structures the main historic narrative around
the lives of Mount Airy’s most influential owners, Col. John
Tayloe II and Col. John Tayloe III. Chapter Two provides a
thorough biographical analysis that explains how the Tayloe
family rose to prominence in Virginia and how Mount
Airy came to symbolize their experience across the British
Atlantic world. In Chapter Three, the character of the phys-
ical landscape is the central feature of investigation. This
chapter explores the initial design and construction of Mount
Airy and how that process was influenced by Philip Miller’s
Gardeners Dictionary, arguing that this popular garden trea-
tise served as a guide for the layout of the formal garden
landscape. While the goal of Chapter Three is to illuminate
the history of the physical landscape at Mount Airy, Chapter
Four concentrates on the people, materials, and practices that
defined the cultural landscape. Here, the records kept in the
Tayloe Family Papers provide insight into the interpersonal
dynamics between the various kinds of people who popu-
lated the formal garden landscape. With Col. John Tayloe III
as its key figure, this section animates the physical landscape,
adding personality and enriching the overall narrative.
2
PROJECT CONTEXT
Figure 2.1 (page before): Mount Airy’s sprawling deer park
Figure 2.2: Context map of Virginia’s Tidewater region
Introduction
B efore analyzing the significance of the physical and
cultural landscapes at Mount Airy, this report will construct
an historic context in which to place the design and construc-
tion of the Tayloe family’s country seat. This approach injects
meaning and intention into the decisions that were made
during the time that Mount Airy was built, while simulta-
neously deviating from previous methodologies that have
examined the significance of the house in isolation. Within
the genealogical history of the family, this chapter uncovers
the personal relationships and cultural norms that inspired
the design of Mount Airy’s landscape–ultimately high-
lighting how the builder, Col. John Tayloe II, formulated
his design as a means of projecting his family’s prominence
towards the world around him. Through this process, this
chapter synthesizes several disparate contexts into a narra-
tive that provides a more holistic interpretation of the forces
that informed the design of Mount Airy.
To better understand how Mount Airy’s landscape
became one of the most symbolic representations of wealth
and power within the British Atlantic world, it is necessary
to uncover the history of the Tayloe family. The initial thrust
of this researched focused on the family’s rise to promi-
nence within Tidewater Virginia, linking that narrative with
the design and construction of Mount Airy as the symbolic
manifestation of their success. However, while historians
have explored specific characteristics of the family, such
16
Project Context - William Tayloe (the Elder)
as the economic or political endeavors of the Tayloe men,
piecing together a biographical history that incorporates a
more complete understanding of the broader socio-cultural
context has its challenges. Perhaps the most problematic
issue stems from the fact that Mount Airy has functioned
as a private residence with limited access to researchers
throughout its existence. In the words of Frank Courts, the
Tayloes of Mount Airy “were one of the most influential and
noteworthy names of the colonial and early republic periods
in America, and yet relatively little has been written that would
shed light on this distinguished but very private family.”1 So,
how does one propose a methodology that overcomes this
obstacle? The strategies used in this chapter aim to amplify
this “quiet story” by integrating the various biographical
sketches with the primary accounts housed within the Tayloe
Family Papers into a narrative that develops the relationship
between the family and the formal garden landscape.2
William Tayloe (the Elder)
During the early 1600’s, an English-born immigrant
named William Tayloe was the first of his family to arrive
in Virginia, settling along the York River in 1640. The land-
scape that Tayloe encountered was dynamic, as the demand
for tobacco had drastically altered the physical and cultural
landscapes of Virginia. “Rapid population growth,” states
 Project Context - William Tayloe (the Elder)
17

2.2
 Project Context - William Tayloe (the Elder)
18

2.3
Figure 2.3: Context map of Virginia’s Northern Neck
Trevor Burnard, “was accompanied by even more rapid
economic development in the northern American colo-
nies.”3 In the previous decades, the fertile river valleys that
were once occupied by the Algonkian tribes of the Powhatan
confederacy were now highly contested, and the introduc-
tion of European colonists and enslaved Africans set the
stage for a cultural struggle between diverging populations
who inhabited the same space.4 Like many of his contempo-
raries, William’s decision to settle along the York River was
influenced by his “proximity to water, roads, drinking water,
nearest neighbor, and soil type.”5 As a successful tobacco
merchant, William Tayloe’s economic prosperity was lever-
aged to attain political clout, where he reached the pentacle
of colonial power as he sat on the King’s Council from 1651
to 1655.6 Tayloe was a member of a burgeoning class of local
leaders whose power was increasing as the Crown rapidly
lost control of colonial operations. As Burnard explains, this
reality “gave emerging settler leaders enhanced confidence in
their ability to manage their own affairs, a confidence seem-
ingly justified by their consolidation of local power.”7 Thus,
William Tayloe established a legacy of economic and polit-
ical eminence in Virginia that would continue for subsequent
generations. Unfortunately, Tayloe’s participation in British
colonization was cut short in 1655, when he suddenly fell ill
and died without an heir to assume his growing estate.8
William Tayloe (the Younger)
By the mid 1600’s, a second William Tayloe, the nephew of
the deceased William Tayloe, arrived in Virginia to inherit his
19
Project Context - William Tayloe (the Younger)
uncle’s assets. However, the Virginia that William the younger
came to inhabit was vastly different from the Virginia that his
uncle had experienced. Instead of the dynamically changing
landscape that the first generation of English immigrants
encountered in the earlier part of the century, the social
hierarchies of the Old World had transformed the colony,
dictating the organization of power and labor in Virginia
by the mid-seventeenth century. These power constructs
not only shaped the nature of the colony’s cultural, political,
and social milieus, but they also had a tangible effect on the
landscape. Historian Rhys Issac explains, “patriarchy was not
the only formative pattern of social organization evident in
the way the terrain was occupied. The principle of money
was also powerful in giving shape to the colonial land-
scape.”9 Unlike his uncle, whose time was cut short before he
could reap the rewards of his entrepreneurial ventures, the
second William Tayloe solidified his family’s position within
Tidewater Virginia and set into motion the forces of pros-
perity that would lead to the eventual creation of Mount Airy.
This familial paradigm shift was made possible because the
younger Williams’s colonial experience was different from
that of his uncle. Whereas the original William’s wealth had
been acquired as a merchant, William the younger aligned
himself with other leading Virginia families through the
pursuit of a life as a tobacco planter. William’s choice to culti-
vate and trade tobacco signified an irreversible commitment
to his community, the colony, and the Crown.
Once he arrived in Virginia, William Tayloe’s initial
priority would have been to analyze and assess the conditions
of his uncle’s estate. Tayloe would have quickly encountered
Figure 2.4: Context map of Mount Airy
a physical landscape that was highly developed, especially
along the James and York Rivers, where the most valuable
land adjacent to the estuarine tributaries had long been
occupied and transformed to cultivate tobacco. As Courts
states, “despite his significant holdings in York County, he
[William] must have preferred the more sparsely settled
Northern Neck…purchas[ing] property from William
Fauntleroy in Old Rappahannock County in 1682.”10 That
William the younger sought out less developed land along
the Rappahannock River was indicative of the constraints of a
land-dependent colony, and a necessary transition if he were
to avoid competition and establish himself as a legitimate
member of Tidewater Virginia’s planter elite. More impor-
tantly, William’s northward migration into Rappahannock
County (now Richmond County) was a defining moment for
the Tayloes, as the family would come to occupy this land-
scape until the present day.
William aimed to minimize the “friction of distance”
by seizing an opportunity to establish his own domain.11
Shortly after acquiring the land, he constructed a house
near the confluence of Rappahannock Creek (now Cat Point
Creek) and the Rappahannock River. The original name of
his domicile was “Tayloe’s Quarters,” although it would later
be colloquially called “Old House” by the time that Mount
Airy was constructed.12 Shortly after the completion of
Old House, William Tayloe further strengthened his social
and economic prominence through his marriage to Ann
Corbin, who was the daughter of Henry and Alice Corbin
of “Buckingham House” in Middlesex County.13 Like his
uncle, Tayloe’s social and economic prowess was reinforced
20
Project Context - Col. John Tayloe I
by his political commitment to his colony and the Crown,
serving in the House of Burgesses from 1700 to 1706 and
commanding the County Militia.14 Furthermore, one of the
most significant legacies initiated by William was his reliance
on slave labor to cultivate and harvest his tobacco crops.15 As
a tool for building credit and wealth in a burgeoning slave
society, Tayloe’s participation in the buying and selling of
slaves would mark the beginning of familial enterprise that
would span the next two centuries. William Tayloe died in
1710, leaving behind a wife and three grown children who
stood at the precipice of catapulting to the top of colonial
Virginia’s planter elite.
Col. John Tayloe I
Col. John Tayloe I, William Tayloe’s oldest son, was a
twenty-three-year-old man at the time of his father’s death in
1710. Like his predecessors, Col. Tayloe I stood to inherit a
growing estate of 3,000 acres and 21 slaves.16 With an intense
focus on the production and distribution of tobacco, Col.
Tayloe I aggressively leased and purchased land to meet
the demands of the insatiable tobacco market. Through his
marriage to the widow Elizabeth Gwyn Lyde, who was the
daughter of House of Burgess Member David Gwyn, Col.
Tayloe I expanded his proprietorial reach into the adjacent
Essex County through the acquisition of “Gwynfield.”17
This trend of speculative land acquisition would continue
throughout Col. Tayloe I’s lifetime, as he established tobacco
plantations in King George and Prince William coun-
ties in Virginia, and in Charles and Baltimore counties in
 Project Context - Col. John Tayloe I
21

2.4
Figure 2.5: Botanical sketch of tobacco
22

Project Context - Col. John Tayloe I

Maryland.18 Col. Tayloe I maximized profit margins by longer expand tobacco output per worker,” Lorena Walsh
steadily purchasing slave laborers who would dock along his explains, “[planters] added other kinds of activities that cut
Rappahannock River landings, increasing the total number costs or generated additional revenues.”23
of slave laborers who could be divided amongst his newly While economic necessity certainly forced this transi-
developed plantations.19 Like his father, Col. Tayloe I lever- tion, there were positive social and cultural ramifications
aged his social and economic achievements to obtain mili- that encouraged the planter class to reimage the produc-
taristic and political appointments to the local and colonial tive capacity of their plantation landscapes. Kamoie states,
governments. Exceeding his father’s accomplishments, Col. “[planters] saw these diversified pursuits as one part of their
Tayloe I’s political career “reached its pinnacle,” when he was holistic approach to long-term security and status, not as
appointed to The King’s Council in 1732.20 However, Col. something apart from their roles as planters.”24 Col. Tayloe I’s
Tayloe I’s colonial experience would soon deviate from his participation in this movement is evident through his estab-
father’s, as changing markets forced the young planter to lishment of a diverse collection of plantation labor regimes,
seek alternate means of productivity across his plantation
landscapes
Col. John Tayloe I’s ascension to power occurred at a time
when the value of tobacco was in decline. A degrading phys-
ical landscape coupled with a volatile economic recession
forced the young planter to redefine the family’s relationship
with the cash crop, and in turn, the nature of their partic-
ipation in the British colonial experience.21 These realities
were indicative of the changing environment in Tidewater
Virginia, where the leading families responded to these
challenges by creating “a sophisticated economy…defined
by agricultural versatility, a nascent industrial sector, strong
and growing connections to international markets, and the
development of internal markets within and between regions
and colonies.”22 One major consequence from this phenom-
enon was the introduction of skilled and semi-skilled slave
laborers to the plantation landscape—a strategy that was
quickly employed by Col. Tayloe I. “Since they could no 2.5
Figure 2.6: Portrait of Col. John Tayloe I
23

Project Context - Col. John Tayloe I

the founding of an ironworks, the creation of a shipbuilding such a massive undertaking, it is necessary to analyze several
enterprise, and the construction of several grist- and sawmills resources that illuminate the nature of eighteenth-century
throughout the Northern Neck.25 Most importantly, as design philosophy, the primary methods of construction
Kamoie mentions, this economic transition can be viewed as and how those inspirations and procedures were manifested
a mechanism that provided a positive feedback loop, perpet- through Mount Airy’s physical landscape. For example, the
ually increasing landholdings and skilled and semi-skilled relationship among the builder of Mount Airy, Col. Tayloe
slave laborers. By the 1730s, “between one-quarter and II, his best friend, Col. Presley Thornton, and the highly
one-third of Col. Tayloe I’s 327 slaves likely performed craft influential English garden treatise, Philip Miller’s Gardeners
or industrial work year-round.”26 This statistic is significant Dictionary, raises several questions about who conceptual-
when considering the creation of Mount Airy, as the knowl- ized the design and administered the construction of Mount
edge acquired by Col. Tayloe I’s skilled and semi-skilled Airy’s landscape, while highlighting the book’s prominence
laborers during the construction of Old House would have during that process. Furthermore, a discussion about the
certainly been replicated for his son’s new manor. Adding to
the growing Tayloe family legacy, Col. Tayloe I’s entrepre-
neurial decision to diversify his plantation portfolio paid
huge dividends. At the time of his death in November 1747,
Col. Tayloe I was one of the wealthiest men in the colony,
owning over 325 slaves and 20,000 acres spread across five
Virginia and three Maryland counties.27
The death of Col. John Tayloe I and the assumption of
his expansive estate by his only son, Col. John Tayloe II,
marks a significant transition point within the narrative of
this report. Through the incorporation of a comprehensive
biographical analysis of the Tayloe family, the intention
is to provide a contextual framework in which to view the
design and construction of Mount Airy. Thus, the remaining
content in this chapter will pivot towards Col. Tayloe II’s
ascension to power, and how he envisioned his new estate as
“the accepted symbol of gentry status and the main source
2.6
of wealth for the planter class.”28 To uncover the processes of
 Project Context - Col. John Tayloe I
24

2.7
Figure 2.7: Jefferson-Fry map of the most inhabited areas of the
Tidewater
methods of English surveying unites Mount Airy with a
series of proportionally derived layouts, arguing that the
overall form of the physical landscape strictly adheres to a
mathematically defined logic. In the absence of any explicitly
written accounts that detail the construction of Mount Airy,
this approach aims to formulate a narrative that reveals the
influences on the physical landscape.
Col. John Tayloe II
Born at Old House in 1721, Tayloe was a twenty-six-
year-old newlywed at the time of Col. John Tayloe I’s death.29
By 1747, the young Virginian had already earned an illus-
trious reputation as one of the colony’s rising stars. Having
studied abroad in England, Col. Tayloe II leveraged the signif-
icance of his classical education and the social weight of his
family’s name to garner meaningful political appointments at
a very young age.30 However, Col. John Tayloe II came of age
at a time when the cultural, economic, and political climates
of colonial Virginia were strikingly different from those of
his ancestors. In turn, these contexts directly informed his
worldview and shaped his understanding of his place within
the British Atlantic world. One major difference stemmed
from the reality that colonial Virginia was maturing, and the
entrenched hierarchical order of the society in which Col.
Tayloe II lived prioritized the planter class above everyone
else.31 Strong connections between the rich and powerful
in England and the colonial elite in Virginia nurtured “a
commercial culture based on the extensive importation of
consumer goods…that gave a stylistic uniformity to British
25
Project Context - Col. John Tayloe II
American culture.”32 Camille Wells adds, “commercial
bonds…evolved into the realm of political influence, social
cordiality, and, as a natural eventuality, intermarriage.”33
The existence of these cultural connections was especially
significant because they were instrumental in driving Col.
Tayloe II’s decision to build a new estate—one that would
reflect his family’s elevated position with the British Atlantic
world. Another difference was that the fledgling diversified
plantation economies of the early eighteenth-century, like
the one that Col. Tayloe I implemented at Old House, had
blossomed into a thriving regional economy by the time Col.
Tayloe II came to power. As Laura Kamoie explains, “through
such activities, planters created and expanded upon a variety
of exchange relationships that provided the foundations for
other business activities within the domestic economy.”34
Thus, the leading families in Virginia could depend less on
the importation of consumer goods and more on controlling
local markets by internally trading their manufactured prod-
ucts. Col. Tayloe II inherited his father’s estate at a time in
which he could capitalize on the changing cultural, economic,
and political landscapes by utilizing his diversified plantation
labor regimes to produce and transport commodities.
While these seemingly abstract forces were guiding
the cultural, economic, and political landscapes of colo-
nial Virginia, these concepts were concurrently represented
through a more tangible form, as the prevailing architectural
expressions employed by the planter class imprinted power
and privilege onto the physical landscape. As Rhys Issac
explains:
There was, however, an evolution—a formalization—occurring
Figure 2.8: Portrait of Col. John Tayloe II
26
Figure 2.9: Sabine Hall, a contemporary Georgian estate in Richmond
County built before Mount Airy

Project Context - Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary

in the style of the great houses, which these observers did not
comment on…From early in the eighteenth century the main
residences that stood at the centers of the sprawling domains of
Virginia gentlemen were being fashioned as declarations of the
owner’s status, not only by the sheer scale but also by means of
elaborately contrived formal relationships.35
By the time Col. Tayloe II inherited his father’s estate in
1747, the third and fourth generations of the planter gen-
try in colonial Virginia had already begun to display their
status, “establishing a colonial tradition parallel to…an on-
going cultural development in England.”36 The standardiza-
tion of this process dictated a rigid, aesthetic formality for
2.8
these dwellings—with a focus on the symbolic relationship
between the central building and the immediate landscape
surrounding the main structure.37 Issac explains, “the promi-
nence of an elevated center, or ‘head’ to which all other parts,
or ‘members,’ were subordinate silently reinforced the digni-
ty and claims to obedience of the gentleman who was styled
‘the head’ of the household.”38 The visual presence of these
cultural forces certainly informed Col. Tayloe II’s decision to
construct a new estate, and the young planter did not need
to look far to see these changes across Virginia’s landscape.
Well before Col. Tayloe I’s death, the Berkeleys, Carters, and
Lees had successfully demonstrated their power and wealth
throughout the Northern Neck.

Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary

Given the existing conditions of the cultural, economic,
and political climates at the point when the ownership of the
2.9
family estate was transferred to Col. John Tayloe II, it is now

necessary to uncover how those forces impacted the inter-
stitial spaces between the built environment. This process
provides an entry point into an analysis of English colonial
gardening during the eighteenth-century. More specifically,
it creates an opportunity to uncover how knowledge was
disseminated throughout the British Atlantic world, and in
turn, how those ideals were imprinted onto the physical land-
scape at Mount Airy. Reflecting the formality and symbology
inherent in the design of these grand estates, the design of the
“landscapes of power” that surrounded these ornate struc-
tures played an integral role in the choreography between the
projection of power and how that was represented across the
physical landscape.39 Garden historian Peter Martin provides
a general understanding of the relationship between colonial
gardening and the plantation landscape. He states:
It was the great plantation owner-gardeners who tended to exert
the most significant influence on colonial gardening. They did
this through their examples of designs and patterns and their
self-conscious emulation of the country house mentality as they
imagined or knew it to exist in England. Although the southern
colonial climate and soil prevented even the most eager elite
planter-gardeners from creating parterres and landscape gar-
dens believably recalling English practice, a few of them made a
good try at it. In the process, they helped generate on American
soil the sense of an art.40
While Martin’s description provides a sufficient contextual
framework, in that it emphasizes that the plantation land-
scape in Virginia was the setting for the most sophisticated
form of English colonial gardening, it raises questions about
the mechanisms that informed the “designs and patterns”
that were routinely employed during that time.41 Thus, a
27
Project Context - Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary
discussion focused on how gardening methods and tech-
niques were spread through the publication of popular gar-
den treatises will address these questions. Furthermore, this
approach will specifically analyze one of the most prolific
examples of these works, Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictio-
nary, to argue that the design philosophy proposed by Miller
was instrumental in the design of the physical landscape at
Mount Airy.
Historian Theresa O’Malley argues that “the study of trea-
tises, models, and other source materials may help elucidate
more than just the physical form of garden features: it may
also clarify [their] associative meanings.”42 As O’Malley indi-
cates, garden literature was often imported from England, as
very little was written in the colonies that specifically catered
to the theory and practice of garden design.43 In addition,
ownership of these manuals was limited to a small number of
colonial elites who had both the time and money to obtain and
read these materials.44 Therefore, one can assume that these
treatises would have been considered a precious commodity
within the context of colonial Virginia, and their presence
within private libraries would have projected an elevated
degree of artistic sophistication onto their owner. As was
common throughout colonial Virginia, formal landscapes
“were not laid out by professional designers but contrived
by their very owners, who were knowledgeable in the arts
of architecture and gardening.”45 These books would have
been an invaluable resource for Col. Tayloe II because they
offered aesthetic inspiration and technical direction about
the creation and maintenance of a formal garden landscapes.
An inventory of library books taken by Edward Thornton
 Project Context - Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary
28

2.10

2.11
Figure 2.10: Gardeners Dictionary listed in John Tayloe II’s account
29
book
Figure 2.11: Gardeners Dictionary listed in Edward Thornton
Tayloe’s library inventory

Project Context - Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary

Figure 2.12: Front matter of Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary

Tayloe, the fourth-oldest grandson of Col. Tayloe II, high-

lights quite an extensive collection of books, journals,
and treatises housed at Mount Airy during the eighteenth
century.46 In England, socio-economic changes enabled the
burgeoning middle class to design and maintain their own
garden spaces, which led to the proliferation of professional
and amateur garden treatises.47 In maintaining their strong
cultural connection to England, Col. Tayloe II and his cohort
naturally desired to obtain the latest editions of these texts,
and the sheer number of books in his possession suggests
that he was certainly part of an elite group of colonial
Virginians. In fact, of the eight books that were listed under
the header, “Agriculture, Horticulture,” seven of those were
published in London.48 Of the works listed in the inventory,
the presence of Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary is espe-
cially intriguing. First published in 1731, Miller’s manual
argues that a garden provides the setting for people to “derive
both pleasure and utility,” uniting the formal and informal
characteristics of nature.49 “Probably the most popular text
on gardening in the colonial period,” argues O’Malley, “from
the earliest years of its publication, [this treatise] was of great
interest to colonists.”50
When considering Miller’s position as one of the most
influential English gardeners in the eighteenth century, his
recommendations were instrumental in impacting Col.
Tayloe II’s design sensibilities.51 While it has often been
recorded that James Gibb’s Book of Architecture played an
integral role in the design of the Palladian-inspired main
structure at Mount Airy, historians have made very few
2.12
connections between Philip Miller and the formal garden

landscape.52 At the least, the presence of Gardeners Dictionary
in Mount Airy’s library is one indication that Miller’s work
was available for Col. Tayloe II to consult while designing
his landscape. However, one cannot assume this work was
his primary source of knowledge. Fortunately, this is not the
only instance in which Philip Miller is directly connected
with Col. Tayloe II, and the context in which it reappears in
the records sheds light on the design of Mount Airy’s formal
garden landscape.
Col. John Tayloe II & Col. Presley Thornton
To be clear, the available records not suggest that Col.
Tayloe II was an avid gardener, nor do they explicitly detail
the processes surrounding Mount Airy’s construction.
However, accounts about the initial design of the physical
landscape appeared in the centuries following construction,
suggesting that Col. Tayloe II relied on the help of one of his
closest confidants. Describing this history of Mount Airy in
a letter entitled, “Down in Old Virginia,” which appeared in
the Northern Neck News in 1897, the author notes:
Our next visit was to the grand old home of Col. Henry Tayloe,
Mt. Airy, which stands on a high hill commanding a view of
the river and valley, of hill and dale…The grounds surround-
ing the old colonial home were laid out by Colonel Thornton,
a grandfather of Sir Edward Thornton, late British Minister to
this country, and have been described in previous letters in this
paper.53
Half a century later, a reference to Col. Thornton’s connection
to Mount Airy appeared in The Garden Club of Virginia’s
30
Project Context - Col. John Tayloe II & Col. Presley Thornton
Homes and Gardens in Old Virginia. The description states:
The architect, by family tradition, was a friend of Colonel Tayloe
stationed with the army in Virginia, Colonel Thornton of Lon-
don, perhaps kinsman of that William Thornton whose name
was later associated with the erection of the Capitol at Wash-
ington, and who planned for Colonel John Tayloe III his town
house, The Octagon, erected there 1798-1800.54
The Col. Thornton in question was Col. Presley Thornton
from Northumberland Country, who was a planter, fellow
member of the House of Burgesses, and best friend of Col.
Tayloe II.55 Further uniting the two men, Col. Thornton’s
second wife, Charlotte Benson, was the adopted daughter of
Col. Tayloe II.56 However, buried within one of Col. Tayloe
II’s account books is the most significant evidence corrobo-
rating the claims that Col. Thornton was the chief architect
of Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape. Dated November
1760, shortly after the completion of the main structure, Col.
Tayloe II’s ledger lists a charge against his account with Col.
Thornton for Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary.57
That Col. Tayloe II would purchase Gardeners Dictionary
for Thornton is significant for several reasons. Firstly, Miller’s
treatise is the only book that is explicitly listed within Col.
Tayloe II’s account books, suggesting that purchase was espe-
cially important at the time it was recorded. Secondly, the
timing of the purchase in relation to the completion of Mount
Airy is noteworthy because it defines a chronology that places
the design and implementation of the formal garden land-
scape within the broader context of the house’s construction.
Lastly, and most importantly, the connection among Col.
Tayloe II, Col. Thornton, and Philip Miller strengthens the
 31

Project Context - Col. John Tayloe II & Col. Presley Thornton

claim that Gardeners Dictionary was the foundational text
informing the design of Mount Airy, and that Col. Thornton
was an instrumental actor throughout that process.
With Gardeners Dictionary in hand, Col. Tayloe II and
Col. Thornton, along with an impressive collection of slave
laborers, wage laborers, and professional craftsmen, set out
to sculpt a landscape that “stood for [his] English education,
his coastwise and transatlantic business concerns, [and] his
understanding of Anglo-American trends in fashion and
learning.”58 Mount Airy was to be a celebration of the more
than one hundred years of the Tayloe family’s colonial expe-
rience, and its underlying purpose was to outwardly project
the family’s cultural, economic, and political legacy across the
landscape of the Northern Neck. The next chapter analyzes
eighteenth-century methods of design and construction
and links those methodologies with the creation of Mount
Airy’s physical landscape. Furthermore, a comparative study
between the design suggestions provided by Philip Miller
and how they were employed at Mount Airy illuminates
the significance of Gardeners Dictionary and uncovers the
spatial organization of the formal garden landscape.
3
PHYSICAL LANDSCAPE
Figuere 3.1 (page before): Elevation of Mount Airy’s front terrace
from the deer park
Figure 3.2: Site map highlighting Mount Airy’s three physiographic
areas
Introduction
I t was a hot and humid August morning in 1741, as a
team of surveyors and enslaved men departed Old House,
the family estate of the Tayloe Family. The crew was heading
just a few miles to the east of the old Tayloe estate toward
a newly acquired parcel of land situated beside and atop a
prominent ridge that buttressed the Rappahannock River
valley. The movement and cadence of their journey would
have followed the contours of a landscape that reflected the
typical orientation and arrangement of the eighteenth-cen-
tury Tidewater agricultural tradition. Land use was charac-
terized by a patchwork of neatly defined plots of corn, wheat,
and tobacco intermixed within a larger mosaic of unpro-
ductive land and dense wilderness. In describing his travels
through the Northern Neck in the late-1790’s, Issac Weld
depicts a landscape “worn out by the culture of tobacco…
that on the whole the country has the appearance of barre-
ness [sic].”1 Where the landscape had not yet been cultivated,
there existed large swaths of dense forest filled with bottom-
land hardwood species like oaks, hickories, and pecans.
Wildlife was abundant throughout the region, as the natural
landscape supported a diversity of native fauna like whitetail
deer, wild turkey, and eastern cottontail rabbit. An aquatic
network of natural creeks, estuarine marshes, and artificial
canals linked the interior farmlands of the Northern Neck
to the docks and wharfs along the Rappahannock River, and
the team would have undoubtedly intersected these features
34
Physical Landscape - Introduction
along their journey. Worn dirt roads connected key cultural,
governmental, and religious points of interest across the
broader landscape, with the most traveled routes being
those that were the most efficient avenues for the transporta-
tion of goods.2 On that day, the surveying team would have
been travelling along one of these routes, winding their way
through the busy river valley.
Their primary objective that day was to begin the process
of measuring, recording, and drafting the boundaries of
Col. Tayloe II’s newest land acquisition.3 Equipped with
the common tools of the trade, such as a compass, circum-
ferentor, and a 2-pole chain, these men began the arduous
task of identifying and delineating the bounds of the
property.4 Figure 3.2 identifies the parcel of land that they
surveyed, which was approximately 450 acres comprised
of three distinct physiographic areas. Fanning towards the
Rappahannock River, the westernmost portion of the prop-
erty contained fertile river valley, where the presence of
highly productive soils composed of strata of bluish-gray
and brown sand, gravel, and silt provided an ideal situation
for agricultural production. Prior to Col. Tayloe II’s owner-
ship, this portion of Richmond County had been utilized for
the cultivation of tobacco and other commodities, and the
new owner appeared to have no intentions of deviating from
the historic patterns of land use.5 The second area featured
a long, linear segment of the landscape that followed the
 Physical Landscape - Introduction
35

3.2
Figure 3.3: Agricultural lands within the Rappahannock River Valley
36
at Mount Airy
Figure 3.4: 2016 USGS Topographic Quadrangle labeling “Smith Hill”

Physical Landscape - Introduction

physical signature of a steep, coastal plain terrace. Embedded
within the slope ran a vein of ferruginous sandstone, some of
which was quarried and used in the construction of Mount
Airy.6 While it is unknown whether Col. Tayloe II was aware
of the existence of the sandstone, it is safe to presume that
he would have favored siting his house near one of the most
abundantly used building materials at Mount Airy. The
third portion comprised the easternmost landscape atop the
escarpment. This space was characterized by gently rolling
hills and towering hardwoods interspersed with pockets of
open meadows. Commanding an elevated position above
3.3
the surrounding landscape, this space had been inhabited
for several centuries, as indigenous peoples and first-gener-
ation European colonists were attracted to the advantages of
settling the high ground. An early-colonial highway followed
the signature of the ridgeline and was still an operational thor-
oughfare when Col. Tayloe II purchased the property.7 Prior
to the acquisition, the landscape that would become Mount
Airy was adjacent to the highway and in the possession of
William Smith. The summit of the ridgeline was known as
“Smith Hill” within the local vernacular, and it is believed
that this area was a small hamlet consisting of several modest
structures.8
Although the Tayloe family had long been present in this
part of the Northern Neck, settling along Rappahannock
Creek in 1682, this event signifies the first documented
record of the family’s explicit connection to the landscape
that would be developed into Mount Airy. While the dura-
tion of time that it took to complete the survey is unknown,
3.4
the sheer size of the property and the rugged topography
Figure 3.5: Photograph of the common 2-pole chain used in colonial
37
America
Figure 3.6: Cartouche illustrating the tools and techniques of
surveying in the 18th century

Physical Landscape - Introduction

suggests that it would have taken several days, if not weeks,
to complete the job. To determine the boundaries of the
property, the surveyor would identify existing adjacent prop-
erty lines and landmarks in the landscape, such as streams,
roads, or large trees, and use his two-pole chain to measure
the distances from one point to another. The members of
the team would have paid special attention to the features
of the physical landscape, noting the presence of any natural
resources that would have increased the value of the prop-
erty. Once the fieldwork was complete, the notes that were
taken on site were transcribed and drafted into the form of
3.5
a plat or sketch map. After this process, Col. Tayloe II now
possessed a greater knowledge of the physical landscape and
the legal validity to alter its form and function. Today, the
original plat hangs at Mount Airy, reinforcing the family’s
long history with this landscape.
This chapter examines the relationship between Col.
John Tayloe II and the physical landscape at Mount Airy.
With his plat in hand by 1741, Col. Tayloe II began devising
a plan for the design and construction of his new estate. He
would soon embark on a process that would take nearly
two decades, hundreds of skilled and semi-skilled workers
and enslaved men, and thousands of hours of grueling
labor to reach its completion. This chapter highlights Col.
Tayloe II’s initial response to his surroundings and how he
intended to manipulate the physical landscape as a means
of projecting power and his family’s economic, political,
and social standing within the British Atlantic world. In the
absence of any written account directly linking Col. Tayloe
3.6
II with the construction timeline, this chapter will rely on
Figure 3.7: Painting depicting the spatial orientation of a plantation
38
with the main architectural unit situated atop a hill overlooking the
river below

Physical Landscape - Philip Miller on Site Selection

the combination of Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary and
several secondary sources that speak to the processes that
were generally employed throughout the eighteenth century.
To develop a relationship between the siting of Mount
Airy and the physical landscape, this chapter discusses the
general considerations that influenced how these structures
were typically positioned within the landscape. Furthermore,
this chapter will examine how rational logic and mathemat-
ical proportion were projected onto the physical landscape
to design, construct, and organize Mount Airy’s formal
garden landscape. Lastly, this chapter will analyze some of
the key features of the physical landscape at Mount Airy. For
example, a discussion about the descending terrace network
offers an opportunity to explain how this system impacted
the aesthetic and functional characteristics of the space.
Ultimately, this chapter is intended to provide a narrative that
tracks the history of the physical landscape at Mount Airy,
allowing the reader to connect the alteration and manipula-
tion of the site with the aspirations of the builder, Col. John
Tayloe II.
evaluation outlines a set of unique site selection principles
that were vital to the success of a garden. “In a Garden,”
writes Miller, “the principle Things to be consider’d [sic], are
the Situation, Form, Soil and Aspect or Exposure.”10 A brief
overview of the interplay between these elements will offer
a more complete understanding of Miller’s philosophy, and
ultimately, it will provide a set of benchmarks with which
to compare Miller’s recommendations against the physical
landscape at Mount Airy.
In speaking to the first principle, Miller stresses the
necessity of situating a garden in the most efficient manner.
He writes, “in the Choice of a Place to plant a Garden in,

Philip Miller on Site Selection

An analysis of Philip Miller’s description of the phys-
ical characteristics of an esteemed garden offers a starting
point for formulating a set of design principles for Mount
Airy. Steeped in the long tradition of English gardening,
Miller’s treatise was “an express invitation” for readers to
learn the process of capturing, enhancing, and recreating the
3.7
most sublime elements of the natural environment.9 Miller’s
Figure 3.8: USGS Geologic Map displays the distribution of soil types
39
across Richmond County and the three distinct profiles found at
Mount Airy

Physical Landscape - Philip Miller on Site Selection

the Situation…[is] the most essential Point to be regarded.”11
Providing a more detailed account of the spatial implica-
tions of this principle, the treatise states that the situation
of a garden should not be too high or too low in eleva-
tion, but that those that rest on a rising slope “are the more
happy.”12 Miller’s recommendations lend credence to the
previous assumptions made about Col. Tayloe II’s decision
to site Mount Airy atop Smith Hill. High above the river
valley, Mount Airy’s gardens would safely avoid the seasonal
climactic forces wrought by the Rappahannock River, while
offering a commanding viewpoint over the surrounding
landscape.
Additionally, Miller provides insight into the relation- Mount Airy
ship between the health of a garden and the soil that nour-
ishes it. Miller warns, “if [a garden] has not a good Body of
Earth…that whatever is planted in it, will, in a while, droop
and die away.”13 Contemporary travelers passing through
the Northern Neck described the soils between the ridges as
“generally poor, being either a light Sand, or a white or red
Clay, with a thin Mould.”14 From a contemporary perspective,
the United States Geological Survey (USGS) locates the land-
scape at Mount Airy within the Bacons Castle Formation of
the upper Pliocene. With a depth ranging from 0 to 70 feet,
these soils are “predominately thin-bedded and laminated
clayey silt and silty fine sand.”15 Miller offers several observa-
tional and exploratory techniques for testing the suitability
of the soil, some of which may have been used at Mount
Airy before the gardens were constructed. He encourages the
designer to “observe whether there be any Heath, Thistles, or
3.8
other Weeds growing spontaneously therein,”or if there are

trees on site that “grow crooked, ill-shap’d [sic] and grubby,
of a faded Green, and full of Moss.”16 Furthermore, Miller
proposes a detailed process in which the designer digs several
pits at a depth of four feet, creating study areas in which they
could study the cross-sections of strata. “If you find three
Feet of good Earth,” Miller writes, “it will do well, but less
than two will not be sufficient.”17
Throughout his writing, Miller’s aesthetic sensibilities
appear to be influenced by the choreography between the
atmospheric qualities of a garden space and the elemental
forces that course throughout it. For example, he suggests
employing the technique of capturing water from natural
springs atop a hill and conveying them through the garden.
Miller writes that after the water has passed through the
garden, it will flow towards the valleys below, rendering
them “fertile and wholesome.”18 The tone of Miller’s descrip-
tion reinforces an anthropocentric narrative that was
commonplace during the eighteenth century, in which the
role as the ultimate arbiter of nature was projected onto the
garden designer. Miller extends that perception by adding
that if properly situated, there is an element of magnificence
that extends to the landscape beyond the garden, displaying
a “continu’d [sic] Prospect of Champains, intersected by
Rivers, Ponds, and Brooks, fine Meadows, and Hills cover’d
with Buildings or Woods.”19
Miller concludes his discourse by reiterating the need
to strike a balance between the experiential and physical
properties of the landscape. “A Garden necessarily requires
the Sun, a good Soil, the Care of the Gardener,” he explains,
“without any of these…it would be egregious Folly to plant a
40
Physical Landscape - Philip Miller on Site Layout
Garden where any of these are wanting.”20 Building on these
elements of site selection, this chapter will continue to explore
the principles that informed Miller’s design philosophy and
his explicit guidelines for laying out a garden. This process
will provide an opportunity to discuss the design strategies
of the sloping falls garden and their proliferation across the
British colonies in North America during the eighteenth
century. Secondly, this approach establishes a context in
which to view the legacy of the gardens at Mount Airy. Lastly,
the investigation of these elements provides a natural segue
into how the physical landscape was altered and manipulated
as the gardens were constructed.
Philip Miller on Site Layout
In his examination of the “exceptionally luxurious” garden
design at Mount Airy, historian Peter Martin acknowledges
the constraints placed on researchers who study the history
of this landscape.21 As he correctly notes, the earliest accounts
of the gardens are found in Col. John Tayloe III’s “Minute
Book” in 1805, which provides insight into the quotidian
details at Mount Airy. However, Martin states:
There are few colonial gardens, either town or plantation, about
which such detail is known today, and it all delineates a complex,
even extravagant landscape garden. What the “Minute Book”
does not state is the location of these various garden features.22
In Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary, the information
detailed in “Of the Designing or Manner of Laying-out a
Fine or Pleasure-Garden,” examines the aesthetic, function-
al, and organizational characteristics of a variety of design
Figure 3.9: “West Lawn” and Jefferson’s Monticello
41
Figure 3.10: Sunken “South Lawn” and Jefferson’s Poplar Forest

Physical Landscape - Philip Miller on Site Layout

components that contribute to the “Disposition and Distri-
bution” of a garden.23 From bowling greens and parterres to
gravel walks and terraces, Miller details the general purpose
and specific nuance of each element, and how they might be
unified to create a coherent and legible site design. As has
been previously discussed, perhaps no other source provides
a more logical understanding of what influenced the design
of the physical landscape at Mount Airy. Thus, a careful anal-
ysis of Miller’s site design recommendations present an op-
portunity to uncover how, where, and why these elements
were implemented. While this methodology is in no way
3.9
perfect, it creates a process to address the shortfalls spelled
out by Peter Martin by suggesting how the gardens were ar-
ranged across the physical landscape.
Miller begins his discussion on garden design by desig-
nating the architectural unit as the central focus of the land-
scape, with every element of the garden emanating away
from the structure in all directions. This designation not only
reinforced the cultural implications recorded earlier in this
chapter, but it also provided a datum within the landscape
with which a designer could reference when drafting and
constructing the gardens. Miller provides explicit instruc-
tions for the designer, stating that “there ought always be a
Descent from the House to the Garden not fewer than three
Steps.”24 According the Miller, this orientation is advanta-
geous because the elevation assures positive drainage away
from the structure, while positioning the spectator at a point
that enhances the viewshed across the gardens. Moving
outward along a central axis that bisects the architectural
3.10
center, the bowling green is described by Miller as an “open
Figure 3.11: Principal garden walk at the Governor’s Palace in
42
Colonial Williamsburg
Figure 3.12: “Box Garden” at the Governor’s Palace in Colonial
Williamsburg

Physical Landscape - Philip Miller on Site Layout

level Piece of Grass, full as broad as the Length of the Front
of the Building.”25 He continues to develop the design frame-
work by restricting the use of walks or paths that would
ostensibly intersect the ground plane, arguing that “it is
much more agreeable to view an entire Carpet of Grass from
the House.”26 Miller does permit the use of gravel walks on
the edges of the lawn panel and suggests aligning a four foot
wide border of flowers opposite the turf. In completing the
cross-section, he resolves the design vignette with a line
of evergreen shrubs on the backside of the planting beds,
resulting in a visual aperture that frames the distant views
3.11
outside of the immediate landscape.
It is important to note the special consideration that
Miller gives to this garden element. By reinforcing the
spatial relationship between the lawn panel and the struc-
tural components, Miller speaks directly to a dialogue that
unites landscape and architecture. In emphasizing this
strategy, Miller recommends establishing a primary walk
from the edge of the lawn panel to the end of the garden. This
principal pathway would align to a central axis that would
emanate from the center of the structure, defining a rigid,
symmetrical spine. In viewing these features in section, one
would move in a straight line directly from the structure,
across the lawn panel, and through the primary walk to the
garden’s terminus. From an organizational perspective, these
“great Lines and chief Walks” were the primary nodes with
which a designer could begin to assign and orient a network
of secondary garden spaces.27
Miller specifies several examples of the minor design
3.12
interventions, detailing their nature, scale, and orientation
Figure 3.13: Terraced kitchen garden at the Governor’s Palace in
43
Colonial Williamsburg

Physical Landscape - Philip Miller on Site Layout

to the major garden axis. From groves and galleries to laby-
rinths and amphitheaters, Miller provides a design logic [sic]; because from the Height of one Terrass [sic], all the lower
Parts of the Garden may be discover’d [sic]; and from others,
that guides the reader to incorporate these garden features the Compartiments [sic] are seen, which form so many several
in a manner that “greatly contribute[s] to the rendering of it Gardens one under another, and present us with very agreeable
magnificent.”28 For example, one of Miller’s principles stresses Views, and different Scenes of Things.32
that “Diversity should always be kept, not only in the general Additionally, Miller notes that terraced gardens are particu-
Design of a Garden, but also in each distinct Piece.”29 In this larly equipped to handle stormwater because the change in
approach, Miller rejects the inherent predictability of repeti- elevation was advantageous for conveying runoff from the
tion and pattern, and in its place, he proposes a philosophy upper terraces to the lower ones. However, he does add a ca-
that aims to arrange these garden spaces in a manner that veat by warning designers that terraced gardens are the most
promotes variability and curiosity. To achieve this method- expensive to build and maintain. That Col. John Tayloe II
ology, Miller relies on the principle of proportion, and how gravitated towards the most costly of Miller’s gardens should
it relates to the relative scale and arrangement of the various
adjacent spaces. “It is much better to have but two or three
Things pretty large, than four times the Number of small
ones, which are but Trifles.”30 It is clear that Miller’s design
philosophy relies on a lively juxtaposition between the rigid
symmetry of the central axis and more fluid spatial organi-
zation of the asymmetrical subspaces that attach to it. This
concept is critical to the process of understanding the phys-
ical landscape at Mount Airy, providing insight into how the
gardens were arranged.
Perhaps the most relative portion of Miller’s discourse is
his interpretation of the “Gardens whose Ground and Level
are separated and interrupted by Falls and Terrasses [sic],
Banks, Slopes, Flights of Steps, &c.”31 Of the three distinct
gardens that Miller describes, he notes that special consid-
eration should be given to those that feature a network of
terraces. He states:
3.13
There is a peculiar Excellency in Gardens that have Terrasses

come as no surprise. As an extension of the architecture, the
gardens were to embody the main structure’s extravagance,
and no expense would be spared to accomplish his vision.
Although Philip Miller was a ubiquitous figure in the
field of English garden design in the eighteenth century,
his propensity for terraced gardens was hardly unique. In
fact, Miller’s description was merely a reinterpretation of a
long-standing gardening tradition—one that made explicit
the manipulation of the physical landscape as the ultimate
impetus for desired power. Within the context of the British
American colonies, the terraced gardens of the provincial
elite were also an artifact of a political process. Archaeologist
Mark Leone argues that the proliferation of terraced gardens
in the Chesapeake region “clustered at a time of needed
power” between the 1750s and 1790s when the elite’s
authority “was still weak.”33 Given that Leone’s timeline is
consistent with the approximate construction at Mount Airy,
his analysis raises questions about how the political realities
within colonial Virginia might have influenced Col. John
Tayloe II. Thus, it is important to analyze the physical land-
scape at Mount Airy in a manner that evenly balances these
converging cultural and political contexts.
Site Selection
By the middle of the decade, the promising young planter
was “eager to possess” an estate that truly represented “the
accepted symbol of gentry status.”34 The Tayloe family had
performed exceptionally well in colonial Virginia, and their
new estate would be designed to be an expression of the
44
Physical Landscape - Site Selection
highest degree of colonial architecture and landscape design.
At a larger scale, the ways in which Col. Tayloe II and his
cohorts interpreted these cultural norms had a direct impact
on the composition of the physical landscape. As Rhys Issac
states, “the distribution, siting, and external appearance of
the principal plantation centers” was a key consideration
when designing a new estate.35 Speaking to the connection
between the physical landscape and its cultural significance,
historian Camille Wells adds:
Planters enhanced the effect of their mansion’s size, solidity, and
elegance by choosing their sites with great care…Others stood
on escarpments elevated above the river plains, thereby cultivat-
ing notions of oversight and detachment…The house and—by
implication—its owner thus faced with equal authority and for-
mality approaches by both land and water. For a colonial Virgin-
ia gentleman, there was to be no backside; oversight—perhaps
even to the point of implied surveillance—was the message.36
To strike the right balance between power and poetry, siting
the house in a way that reinforced these concepts would have
to be an essential component of Mount Airy’s design.
When considering the acquisition of the 450-acre parcel
in 1741, the purchase suggests that Col. Tayloe II recognized
an opportunity to capitalize on the dynamic topographic
profile of the property. With a difference in elevation of
over 100 feet, placing a structure at the apex of the ridge-
line would command a dignified position relative to the river
valley below.37 In addition, the magnitude of this landscape
signature also established a sightline with the Rappahannock
River, which is situated nearly three-and-a-half miles
across the river valley to the west. This visual relationship
between structure and water would become a central theme
Figure 3.14: Photograph of Sabine Hall captures an expansive view
45
across the Rappahannock River valley
Figure 3.15: Anthony St. John Baker’s rendering of the Rappahannock
River valley from Mount Airy

Physical Landscape - Site Selection

to the design of Mount Airy, thereby defining the primary
axial alignment of the house and surrounding landscape by
its relative position to the river.38 At the time of purchase,
detailed characteristics of the landscape surrounding Smith
Hill remain undocumented. Given that the anecdotal
evidence suggests the presence of a cluster of small dwellings
near Mount Airy’s main structure, one could assume that
there was a patchwork of clearings or a general gradient in
the density of vegetation that responded to the placement of
these buildings. Perhaps Col. Tayloe II personally witnessed
the sweeping views from atop an already exposed Smith Hill,
3.14
or he may have had to rely on the word of his surveyors to
envision the nature of the sightlines once the vegetation had
been cleared. Therefore, there exists a challenge in drawing
conclusions that suggest the explicit methodology that Col.
Tayloe II employed when making his decision to site Mount
Airy in its current configuration. However, analyzing his
decision within the cultural context of the eighteenth century
reinforces the idea that his conclusion was informed by the
symbolic relationship between the immediate site and the
surrounding physical landscape.
For those who experienced the visual impact of Mount
Airy’s siting, their accounts and recollections reinforce the
significance and effectiveness of this design principle. While
visiting Mount Airy in 1827, Englishman Anthony St. John
Baker produced a series of paintings, of which two remain,
that are incredibly informative because they illustrate the
author’s interpretation of a forgotten visual experience. In
this image, an elevated perspective of the sprawling river
3.15
valley and opposite hillsides depicts a bucolic, yet industrious
 Physical Landscape - Site Selection
46

3.16
Figure 3.16: Diagram illustrating the key considerations that
47
influenced the site selection of Mount Airy
Figure 3.17: Topographic model of Mount Airy showcases the sudden
variability in elevation and how its siting relates to the surrounding

Physical Landscape - Site Selection

physical landscape

landscape. Although the precise location of the artist’s vantage

point within this painting is uncertain, it was more than likely
created close to the house. Conversely, Mount Airy’s appear-
ance from the Rappahannock River also reinforced the visual
impact of its siting. While an unknown journalist was trav-
elling down the Rappahannock River and reporting for the
Phenix Gazette in 1831, he noted from aboard the vessel that
“Mount Airy and other judiciously located mansions and
highly cultivated estates, gave assurance that we were within
the limits of the Ancient Dominions.”39 One visitor recorded
in 1915 that “the house looks upon miles of broad, gleaming
river, with the houses of Tappahannock nestling among the
green trees of Essex,” and that the landscape beneath Mount
Airy was “beautifully diversified with field and forest.” By
the mid-twentieth century, Mount Airy’s “superb situation
on the ridge” had continued to captivate most passersby for
nearly 200 years since the construction of the house.40
Once the approximate location of Col. John Tayloe II’s
new estate was determined, the next logical step of the design
process would have required a detailed site plan. To achieve
this task, an understanding of both the fundamental princi-
ples of design and the technical methods of construction was
an absolute requirement. One had to implement solutions
for the layout of the design, site grading and drainage, the
organization of programmatic elements, and the selection of
materials, all while establishing a coherent aesthetic language
that could be easily interpreted by those who were fluent in
the cultural nuances of the most notable English landscapes.
The following discussion strives to narrow the scope of
3.17
analysis to the emerging details about the organization and
Figure 3.18: Hydrologic and topographic analysis diagram
construction of Mount Airy.
Site Layout
Perhaps the least understood period of Mount Airy’s
history is the timeline framing the initial design and construc-
tion of the formal garden landscape. In the absence of any
records or accounts documenting these efforts, this report
relies on several methodological approaches to formulate
a cohesive narrative that addresses this historic lacuna. A
major constraint in redeveloping this timeline is addressing
the sequencing of events during construction. Additionally,
there are several outstanding questions that center on the
design and construction methods that were employed on
site. Although Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary serves as
a useful roadmap, the question remains as to which of the
garden elements were selected by Col. John Tayloe II and
designed by Col. Presley Thornton. Most importantly, it is
necessary to discover what unifying logic connected these
spaces and influenced how they were drawn, measured, and
implemented in the field. Therefore, the following discussion
organizes and addresses these critical questions about the
spatial, technical, and temporal evolution of Mount Airy’s
physical landscape during its design and construction. While
this approach will naturally fail to recover every unrecorded
moment, it provides a holistic framework for reconstructing
and understanding this period.
By 1747, Col. Tayloe II was poised to begin the arduous
process of designing and constructing his new country
estate.41 It had been over half a decade since the initial survey
48
Physical Landscape - Site Layout
of Smith Hill was completed, and with the recent death of
his father, Col. John Tayloe I, the moment had come for him
and his family to leave Old House and relocate to Mount
Airy. Although it is unclear as to what exactly happened
atop Smith Hill between 1741 and 1747, it is safe to presume
that Col. Tayloe II would have expended a considerable
amount of energy, time, and resources in preparing the site
for construction. This work might have begun with periodic
site observations conducted at various points throughout the
year, which would have offered the observer an opportunity
to witness the evolution of the site from season to season.
As Philip Miller prescribed, recording and analyzing
the most pertinent physical processes unfolding across the
site would indicate the optimal orientation for the gardens.
Gleaning any observational data about the site’s solar aspect
and sun exposure would highlight discrete locations indi-
cating where plant species would thrive based on their shade
tolerance. Furthermore, an awareness of the relationship
between the topographical and hydrological systems would
have a direct impact on the design of the terrace network,
suggesting how the natural movement of stormwater would
move through the site after the landscape was manipulated.
Additionally, the site topography would directly affect the
viewshed towards the formal gardens and across the broader
landscape. For Col. Tayloe II and Col. Thornton, formal-
izing their observations into a coherent body of knowledge
would have been a fundamental component that informed
the initial design.
In contrast to the passive practice of observation,
preparing the site for construction would have also required
 Physical Landscape - Site Layout
49

3.18

an unimaginable amount of physical labor. With the assump-
tion of his father’s property through his recently received
inheritance, Col. Tayloe II would have had the flexibility
to periodically reassign a portion of his 320 slaves to Smith
Hill.42 It is unknown whether his enslaved workforce was
deployed on a permanent basis or if their labor schedule
was more intermittent and dependent upon the agricul-
tural demands of the various growing seasons. However, the
evidence does suggest that the primary focus of the initial site
preparation would have been limited to the immediate land-
scape surrounding the architectural unit. The fact that Col.
Tayloe II purchased Gardeners Dictionary for Col. Thornton
in November 1760 suggests that the formal gardens were
not fully realized until after Mount Airy was completed in
1758.43 Nevertheless, the initial site preparation would have
certainly made an unalterable impact on the nature of the
physical landscape.
What is clear is that there would have been no shortage
of work to complete before construction could begin. To
accomplish such an undertaking, the site would have needed
to possess the proper infrastructure to move, receive, and
store a constant flow of people and materials. To that end,
Mount Airy’s location next to an already established highway
would have been extremely advantageous because it would
have provided a means of transportation without having to
expend any energy or time to obtain it.44 In addition, the
builder and the construction process might have required
an additional network of secondary roads to move building
materials like wood or stone from the points at which they
were extracted to the construction site. Another significant
50
Physical Landscape - Site Layout
task would have required clearing the landscape of any trees
or preexisting structures. Given that there was a small settle-
ment located near the site, there could have been several
buildings to demolish and remove. This process would have
required extensive coordination between Col. Tayloe II, his
agents, and the builders of Mount Airy, and their decisions
would have certainly responded to the characteristics of the
existing conditions of the physical landscape. The means and
methods of site preparation would have occurred at various
degrees of intensity between 1747 and 1754, at the point
along the timeline in which the focus shifted towards the
construction of Mount Airy.45
By injecting the role of Mount Airy’s chief architect, John
Ariss, into the narrative, this approach enriches the interper-
sonal connection between Ariss and Col. Thornton. These
two men shared the critical task of overseeing the design
and construction of a unified site plan, and the efficacy of
their design hinged upon the coherent dialogue between the
architecture and the landscape. Of the architectural histo-
ries sampled in this report, Thomas Tileston Waterman’s The
Mansions of Virginia, 1706-1776 provides the most detailed
historic account of Ariss. Born in neighboring Westmoreland
County, Ariss was “the most important figure” in the history
of Georgian architecture in colonial America, and the works
produced throughout his prolific career were responsible for
translating the Georgian aesthetic onto the Virginian land-
scape.46 Supporting the high praises bestowed upon Ariss,
Camille Wells states that “Mount Airy’s symmetrical compo-
sition of masonry elements announced that it was built all in
one carefully planned and seamlessly executed campaign.”47
Figure 3.19: Diagram depicting the process of creating a root-two
51
rectangle, or diagonea

Physical Landscape - Site Layout

Waterman’s research identifies the architect’s permanent the root-two rectangle, or diagonea. The application of this
residence in Richmond County between 1755 and 1762. proportion can be executed in a few steps. The diagonea is
Although he remained actively involved in several projects created by drawing a diagonal hypotenuse from one corner of
throughout Virginia, Waterman’s research identifies that the a square to its opposite corner, and then rotating the hypote-
architect maintained a permanent residence in Richmond nuse to align with one side of the square. A new rectangle is
County between 1755 and 1762, suggesting that the time- created by replacing the shorter length of the square with the
line of Mount Airy’s construction fell within that seven-year longer distance of the hypotenuse. Whereas the original ratio
period.48 of the square was 1:1, the new ratio created by the diagonea is
It was during this timeframe, between 1755 and 1762, 1:1.414214, increasing the total area of the polygon by 70%.
that the construction of the formal garden landscape at In implementing the diagonea in real space at such a large
Mount Airy would have occurred. Working closely with scale, Col. Thornton would have utilized the same surveying
Ariss, Col. Thornton devised a site design that reinforced the methods and equipment that were used to document the
principles of the Palladian-influenced Georgian architecture
showcased throughout the interior and exterior of the main
structure. His plan juxtaposed the elements of mathematical
proportion and symmetry found in the architecture with the
philosophical and functional characteristics of the terraced
falling gardens. Taking cues from Philip Miller’s Gardeners
Dictionary, Col. Thornton incorporated several of the
author’s prescribed design principles and amended them to
fit within the spatial framework of his design. The resulting
site design echoes the sophistication and opulence embedded
within the architecture and offers one of the finest examples
of a colonial garden landscape in the British Atlantic world.
Figure 3.19 illustrates the basic design concepts used at
Mount Airy and how Col. Thornton used these principles of
mathematical proportion to sculpt the physical landscape.
When considering which common proportion was employed
at Mount Airy, it is evident that Col. Thornton derived the
3.19
dimensional configuration of the formal gardens by using
 Physical Landscape - Site Layout
52

3.20
Figure 3.20: Layout diagram detailing how the formal garden
53
landscape was defined and measured
Figure 3.21: Sketch of the Gunter’s Chain showcasing its versatility as
a measuring instrument

Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage

property in 1741. After adopting the house’s primary axis investigation into the location of the dependency structures
as the centerline for the site design, Col. Thornton and his and/or other garden elements that fall within the grid but
laborers would have staked the exterior boundary of the have been lost over time.
formal garden space to establish the diagonea’s dimensions.
Moving away from the centerline in a perpendicular manner Site Grading and Drainage
in either direction, the team would have used the two-pole
chain to measure 7 poles to the northwest and 7 poles to the The most significant element of Mount Airy’s physical
southeast, totaling 14 equal units, or 462’. The team would landscape is the complex network of descending, asymmet-
have then returned to the original control point along the rical terraces that defined the ground plane of the formal
centerline and measured 20 full pole lengths, or 660’, along garden space. As a common design motif repeated along the
the primary axis to the southwest. After determining the Atlantic Coast during the eighteenth century, these terraces
second control point along the centerline, the team would provided both aesthetic and functional purposes. As Miller
repeat the first step to locate the third and fourth points of
the rectangle. Once Col. Thornton and his laborers finished
the work, the newly defined boundary of the formal garden
measured 462’ x 660’, which has an area of 304,920 sq. ft., or
precisely seven acres.
Figure 3.20 communicates how the diagonea was
measured at Mount Airy and how Col. Thornton utilized
a grid to delineate the various components of the formal
garden landscape. The existing spatial composition of the
landscape suggests that the grid network used at Mount Airy
was composed of 280 cells, with each cell measuring 33’ x 33’.
This theory is evident when overlaying the grid on top of the
contour data, which indicates that the terracing across the
landscape is constrained to the rigid and orthogonal preci-
sion of the 33’ dimensions. What is even more interesting
is that the alignment of Mount Airy’s dependencies falls
directly in accordance with the logic established by this grid
3.21
system. Most importantly, the grid acts as a map for future
Figure 3.22: Mule-powered grading technology and terrace
54
construction methods akin to those used at Mount Airy
Figure 3.23: Set of steps along a former path located west of the
greenhouse at the base of the raised walk

Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage

Figure 3.24: Model of Mount Airy showcasing terrace network

noted, terraced garden designs offered a more encompassing

viewshed across the landscape, while providing a practical
means for diverting stormwater. These philosophies under-
line the design intention behind the terraces at Mount Airy.
Although there are no records that precisely identify
when the site grading occurred at Mount Airy, it most likely
would have occurred sporadically and would have taken
quite some time to complete. Within the context of the eigh-
teenth century, the amount of time and labor that would
have been required to grade the total seven acres of land with
such sophistication and precision suggests that the work
3.22
was underway well before 1748. It is safe to assume that the
uppermost terrace, or house terrace, would have garnered
the earliest attention and would have been in some state of
completion by the time construction began on the house in
1748.
The labor endured during the site grading process would
have been immense, as the work required to move massive
quantities of earth with eighteenth-century technology was
physically demanding. Most of the rough grading work
would have been executed by any number of Col. John
Tayloe II’s slave labor force. These laborers would have used
mule-powered excavation and other handheld tools to cut
and fill the soil. When grading along a boundary between two
terrace groups, the laborers would have carefully sculpted
the slope with hand tools to achieve a uniform appearance.
Additional tasks would have required more skilled laborers,
like Col. Tayloe II’s masons. The masons would have been
responsible for constructing the extensive retaining walls
3.23
along the northern and southern boundaries of the formal
 Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage
55

3.24
 Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage
56

3.25
Figure 3.25: Grading diagram illustrates the asymmetrical terrace
57
network at Mount Airy
Figure 3.26: Stone retaining wall and steps mark the transition
between the forecourt terrace and the house terrace

Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage

garden landscape and the short retaining wall between the terraces, which suggests that this space was used for more
forecourt terrace and the house terrace. The masons would practical and productive purposes. As a fourth and final
have also placed the set of steps along the northern boundary terrace group, there are three distinct sunken panels that act
where the grade rises to the raised walk and where a similar as depressions in the landscape. With an elevation of 136’,
condition occurs at the transition between the forecourt sunken panel B marks the lowest point in the formal garden
terrace and the house terrace. The work of these unskilled landscape.
and skilled laborers should not be minimized, as their efforts A hydrologic analysis of Mount Airy’s terrace network
were essential to the overall success of the formal garden shows how these seemingly disparate spaces work together
landscape. to convey and dispose stormwater offsite and into the river
To fully grasp Col. Presley Thornton’s approach and valley. A central ridgeline runs the length of that primary
the organization of Mount Airy’s terraces, this analysis will axis, acting as a continuous highpoint and dividing the seven
use plan and section elevation graphics to characterize the acres into two halves. When extended beyond the primary
distinct terrace groups and to communicate how the collec-
tive terraces function as an integrated system. With the
highest elevation at 148’, the house terrace accomplishes the
extremely important function of placing the architectural
unit above everything else within the extent of the formal
garden landscape. The house terrace is one of the smallest
at Mount Airy, and aside from the area that falls within the
footprint of the house and its dependencies, most of the space
is dedicated to a small lawn panel at the front of the house.
Descending from the house terrace, the next terrace group
rests at 145’ and can be subdivided into three distinct spaces:
the forecourt terrace at the front of the house, the pleasure
garden terraces to the northwest and southeast of the house,
and the bowling green to the southwest of the house. The
third and largest terrace group is the kitchen garden terrace,
which lies more than five feet below the formal garden and
bowling green terraces. The grade across the kitchen garden
3.26
terrace is relatively uniform and less complex than the upper
 Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage
58

3.27
Figure 3.27: Section elevation depicting the terrace network
59
at Mount Airy
Figure 3.28: Steep slopes characterize the transition from the bowling
green terrace to the kitchen garden terrace

Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage

Figure 3.29: Sunken panel A with the raised walk in the background

axis, the terraces begin to subdivide the entire space and

direct stormwater towards the constructed sunken panels
situated in the formal garden landscape. At Mount Airy, the
three main sunken panels serve as detention basins for most
of the formal garden landscape. In the case of sunken panels
B and C, long ditches were constructed to capture water
within the relatively flat kitchen garden terrace to improve
drainage. Historically, when excess stormwater collected
within these panels, designed overflow outlets diverted the
water away from the formal garden landscape and towards
the river valley. Figures 3.27 and 3.30 examine the terraces
3.28
in section, which offers a more obvious representation of the
variation in elevation across the formal garden landscape.
Additionally, they also illustrate how the proportion and size
of these various planes correspond with the 33’ dimension,
while sections running the length of the seven-acre formal
garden landscape illustrate the dramatic effect of the terrace
network.
This chapter analyzed the relationship between Col.
John Tayloe II and the physical landscape at Mount Airy. It
produced evidence to suggest that Col. Presley Thornton was
intimately connected to the project and that he employed
Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary as a framework for the
site design. Additionally, a thorough analysis of Gardeners
Dictionary was conducted to establish a contextual narrative
that could be directly applied to and measured against the
physical landscape at Mount Airy. This chapter also discussed
Miller’s predilection for thoughtful site selection, which
offered insight into how that process might have unfolded
3.29
before construction commenced. Using Miller’s approach,
 Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage
60

3.30
Figure 3.30: Section elevation depicting the terrace network at Mount
61
Airy
Figure 3.31: Field work analyzing the convergence of several terraces
Figure 3.32: Photograph of Mount Airy taken from sunken panel B

Physical Landscape - Site Grading and Drainage

this chapter shifted its focus to understanding the site selec-
tion methods at Mount Airy and how the surrounding land-
scape played an integral role during that process. The final
portion of this chapter illustrated how mathematical propor-
tion defined the extents and components of the formal
garden landscape, while providing detailed analysis about
the asymmetrical terrace network.

3.31

3.32
4
CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Figuere 4.1 (page before): Mount Airy’s carriage turnaround and
64
formal forecourt
Figuere 4.2: Tayloe’s House in Colonial Williamsburg

Cultural Landscape - Introduction

Introduction

A s the construction of Mount Airy’s architectural

components reached substantial completion in 1758, Col.
social acumen. His commitment to the sport was evidenced
by the installation of one of the only private race tracks in the
John Tayloe II’s grand vision was approaching its natural region, which was sited at the foot of the bluff below Mount
conclusion after an arduous seventeen-year process. The Airy. As Kenneth Cohen states, these social spaces facilitated
design team of Col. Tayloe II, John Ariss, and Col. Presley “the network-building at races, consolidating a small clique
Thornton proved to be successful in their collaborative of wealthy planters, traders, and government officials.”3 The
efforts, achieving their primary goal of making a “dramatic legacy of thoroughbred horse breeding and racing would
statement” along the Rappahannock River.1 In conjunc- continue in the Tayloe family for several generations. More
tion with the conclusion of construction, Col. Tayloe II’s
ascent to the most elite station within colonial Virginia
was bolstered with his nomination to reside on the King’s
Council. Like his father, Col. John Tayloe I, this appointment
offered Col. Tayloe II an unimaginable amount of political
power. In keeping with his wealthiest cohorts, Col. Tayloe
II purchased a newly completed townhouse in Williamsburg
in 1759, where he resided while the Council was in session.
The second residence, named “Tayloe’s House,” was the first
urban dwelling owned by the family in over a century.2
For the next two decades, Col. Tayloe II divided his time
between Mount Airy and Williamsburg, where the aging
planter filled his busy schedule by presiding over a variety
of business meetings, political obligations, and social events.
Perhaps his most passionate interest focused on the successful
acquisition and breeding of thoroughbred race horses. As
one of the premier sports in the British Atlantic world, Col.
4.2
Tayloe II’s involvement signified yet another display of his

importantly, the significance of this important cultural space
adds a degree of complexity to Mount Airy’s landscape that
extends beyond the extent of the formal gardens.
In the final years of his life, Col. Tayloe II witnessed the
volatile transition of political power from the Crown to the
broad collection of upstart revolutionaries located across
the British colonies in North America. The outbreak of the
American Revolution was an especially difficult period for
Col. Tayloe II, whose staunch loyalty to the Crown created
an “untenable” position for the 55-year-old.4 In maintaining
his allegiance to the Crown, Col. Tayloe II resigned from his
civic duties and retired to Mount Airy, where he lived for the
remainder of his life. On April 19, 1779, Col. John Tayloe
II died at Mount Airy at the age of 57. As the central figure
behind the conceptualization and construction of Mount
Airy, his death marked the end of a foundational era of its
history. Conversely, for Col. Tayloe II’s only son, Col. John
Tayloe III, his legacy at Mount Airy was just beginning.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an analysis of
Mount Airy’s cultural landscape. By analyzing the detailed
records compiled by Col. Tayloe III’s overseers, this approach
provides an opportunity to extract several conclusions that
build a cohesive narrative. Firstly, this chapter reveals the
customs, materials, and tools that dictated how such an
expansive estate was maintained. Secondly, this chapter aims
to present the people who worked the ground at Mount Airy,
enlivening the physical landscape with the stories of those
whose labored over it. Lastly, this chapter attempts to map
the various garden elements and discuss how their arrange-
ment was designed to accomplish a hierarchy of pleasure and
65
Cultural Landscape - Introduction
production spaces.
The information presented in this chapter is chrono-
logically organized in accordance with the twelve-month
calendar year, beginning in January and ending in December.
Each of the twelve sections is treated as a vignette of Mount
Airy that explains the day-to-day tasks during that month.
Furthermore, each section focuses on an important person,
ritual, or space that dominated the nature of labor at Mount
Airy during the highlighted month.
Following the death of Col. John Tayloe II in 1779, what
remains of the Tayloe Family Papers dwindles to a few scraps
of deteriorated paper from an account book. This general
lapse could be the natural consequence of Col. Tayloe II’s
absence from Mount Airy, or perhaps the information that
did exist has been destroyed or lost over time. This pattern
persists until 1805, when a sudden shock of materials rein-
vigorates the historic record. Thus, it is the emerging themes
within these primary sources that inform this analysis.
This chapter specifically examines the dominant land use
patterns and maintenance regimes that were recorded during
Col. John Tayloe III’s ownership of Mount Airy, which ranged
from 1791 to 1828. When devising a method for organizing
the raw data, the available materials primarily capture three
distinct time periods: 1805, 1811-1818, and 1824-1828. The
primary sources analyzed include a collection of detailed
account books, inventories, minute books, and personal
correspondence. When incorporated into a comprehensive
narrative, these materials create a vivid picture illustrating
the quotidian activities around Mount Airy. This approach
provides an opportunity to compare these practices from
Figuere 4.3: Portrait of Col. John Tayloe III
66

Cultural Landscape - Col. John Tayloe III

decade to decade, offering an analysis that explains how the Once he returned from England, Col. Tayloe III immedi-
cultural landscape generally changed during Col. Tayloe III’s ately took possession of his expansive estate, which included
37-year ownership. This process can also generate conclu- over 500 slaves and thirteen plantations spread across
sions that can be verified and applied to the holes in the time- Virginia and Maryland.9 When he assumed control, the
line, which fortifies the narrative when the direct evidence primary crops cultivated across his properties were tobacco,
is lacking. Once explained, these materials tell the story of wheat, and corn. Additionally, these main products were
Mount Airy’s cultural landscape. supplemented with beef and pork that was raised, butchered,
and cured for local markets. As a driven businessman with
Col. John Tayloe III a keen entrepreneurial mind, Col. Tayloe III significantly
altered the agricultural models that were instituted by his
A brief biographical overview of Col. John Tayloe III father to adapt Mount Airy’s “profitability and durability
builds a contextual framework with which to analyze his in the face of massive economic change.”10 In satisfying the
“imperious and aggressive” management of Mount Airy.5
Born on September 2, 1770, Col. Tayloe III was born into
a “world of privilege and affluence,” as his family’s position
in society placed the young boy within the most elite circles
in colonial Virginia.6 Perhaps the most challenging moment
during Col. Tayloe III’s childhood occurred when his father
died in 1779. At the time of his death, one of Col. Tayloe II’s
eight sons-in-law, Robert Wormeley III, was charged with
properly raising and mentoring Col. Tayloe III to “handle
the responsibilities of an estate as large, complex, and diver-
sified” as Mount Airy.7 Like Col. John Tayloe II, Wormeley
III maintained his loyalty to the Crown during the American
Revolution. In contrast, the emerging concepts of national
sovereignty and personal liberty guiding the patriot’s cause
attracted Col. Tayloe III. However, in fulfilling his obligation,
Wormeley III shipped Col. Tayloe III to England before he
could act on his political beliefs, where he was educated at
4.3
Eton and Cambridge until 1791.8

demands of the burgeoning domestic markets, most planters
pivoted from the dominant tobacco monoculture practices
to an approach that prioritized “agricultural diversification
and business enterprise.”11 Planters modified their plantation
landscapes to include cotton, flax, hemp, and indigo, and in
some instances, completely phased out tobacco altogether.
Furthermore, planters worked to emphasize household
manufacturing and internal infrastructure improvements as
a means of accelerating the interior trade network.12
This fundamental shift in plantation economics and
land use practices directly impacted the nature of labor and
the spatial organization of Mount Airy’s cultural landscape.
The application of this transition is especially evident in the
primary source materials. As an actively involved owner, Col.
Tayloe III expected regular reports from his two primary
managers, Griffin Garland and William Holburne, who were
responsible with documenting the scheduled tasks across the
estate.13 Although the scope of their reporting extended to
the entire Mount Airy Department, the evidence suggests
that Garland and Holburne were instructed to provide
detailed accounts focusing on the immediate formal garden
landscape. Thus, it is the emerging details embedded within
this regular correspondence that inform the conclusions
presented about Mount Airy’s cultural landscape.
January
At the beginning of every new year, preparation for the
upcoming growing season generally defined the nature of
labor around Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape. These
67
Cultural Landscape - January
activities can be organized into two broad categories that
reflect similarities in the task’s location and primary func-
tion. This month also provides an opportunity to intro-
duce the key personalities, namely Col. Tayloe III’s enslaved
gardeners, who play a central role as the people who facili-
tated the work described in the source materials.
The records suggest that January was typically a time when
the gardeners were employed in a variety of menial tasks that
concentrated on general garden preparation and landscape
maintenance. In preparing Mount Airy’s kitchen gardens for
the upcoming growing season in 1805, the gardeners’ jobs
included grubbing fruit trees, hauling manure, and planting
trees in the nursery.14 When their responsibilities carried
them away from the kitchen gardens, the gardeners worked
on several projects that were essential to maintaining Mount
Airy. For example, the gardeners were expected to clear snow
away from the many structures at Mount Airy and retrieve
ice for the ice house.15 Noted in a diary on January 8, 1825,
the gardeners “put 265 loads of Ice [sic] in house in two day.”16
Tree maintenance was also conducted during January, and
the gardeners’ time was often divided between Mount Airy
and two of Col. Tayloe III’s plantation quarters in Richmond
County, Old House and Marske. From January 19, 1813 to
January 25, 1813, the gardeners were sent to Marske to trim
the quarters’ extensive orchard, and from January 19, 1818,
to January 27, 1818, they were likewise deployed to Old
House.17 Lastly, the gardeners played an integral role in the
butchering, hanging, and smoking of meat in several of Col.
Tayloe III’s smokehouses across the Department, including
the two smokehouses at Mount Airy. The records provide a
Figuere 4.4: Roster of Mount Airy’s gardeners
68

Cultural Landscape - January

glimpse into the nature of this work, when the gardeners hung with a combination of men and boys, which suggests a clear
176 pounds of bacon, 55 hams, and 55 shoulders on January division of labor predicated on physical ability.21 The longest
16, 1826.18 This process would typically begin in January and tenured gardener was Richard “Dick” Yeatman, whose name
end in February before the planting season began in earnest. appears in every available inventory between 1805 to 1862.
Maintaining the green and hothouses was the second Dick’s son, Richard Yeatman Jr., and Godfrey each worked
category defining the nature of labor during January. as gardeners for over three decades. It is evident that the
Although the source materials plainly indicate that work younger gardeners generally began working between the ages
around the green and hothouses occurred almost daily of eight and ten, while the oldest gardener was Dick, who
throughout the year, there were some specific jobs that were was 78 and infirmed when he was recorded in 1862. In addi-
unique to January. In addition to caring for the variety of tion, the records suggest that Col. Tayloe III would increase
plants within the structure, the gardeners were also charged the number of gardeners to meet the labor demands. One of
with cleaning the green and hot houses during this month. these young gardeners was Dick Yeatman’s son, George, who
This process would have included clearing the contents from
the structure to clean the interior walls and floors. On a rainy
January day in 1805, the gardeners were directed to gather
broom straw to remove soot from the chimneys or to aid in
any other type of specialized cleaning.19 When considering
the daily use witnessed around the green and hothouses,
one could assume that this would have been a lengthy and
detailed process. A more complete analysis of the green and
hot houses will be provided in next month’s section.
By compiling the various inventories of the domestic and
agricultural slave laborers listed in Col. Tayloe III’s ledgers,
this process produces a complete roster of the gardeners who
maintained Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape between
1805 to 1862.20 The adjacent chart displays the names, birth
years, and years spent at Mount Airy for the ten gardeners
who appeared in the inventories. It appears that the number
of gardeners used at Mount Airy ranged between two and
4.4
five gardeners. Col. Tayloe III generally staffed his gardeners

was inventoried from 1818 to 1822, and again in 1831. The
younger gardeners typically worked in brief periods before
they were transferred to other positions. Horace relocated
to Washington D.C. in 1817, when Col. Tayloe III and his
family permanently moved to the Octagon House.22 Tom
was sold for $500 at the age of 14, which explains his abrupt
disappearance from the records in the 1816 Mount Airy
inventory.23
The story of the Yeatman family offers a more personal
analysis of the people who worked the ground at Mount Airy.
Richard Yeatman Sr. was born in 1786, during the period in
which Col. Tayloe III was studying in England and Robert
Wormeley III was managing Mount Airy. Although Dick’s
father’s occupation is unknown, it is more than likely that
he served as a gardener as well. Dick’s name first appears in
a minute book from 1805 and is repeated in the 1808 annual
inventory, where he is valued at £100.24 Richard Yeatman Jr.
was born in 1818 and began working alongside his father at
the age of nine in 1829. For the next three decades, the father
and son worked closely together across Mount Airy’s vast
landscape. During that time, Richard aged through adoles-
cence and young adulthood, learning how to maintain the
intricate formal gardens and maximize the efficiency of the
production grounds. He also established a family during this
time with his wife, Sally, who together had seven children by
1862.25 As old age forced Dick into retirement, the Yeatman
family patriarch was removed from his duties at some point
between 1855 and 1861. In 1862, the father and son were
separated under the ownership of Col. Tayloe III’s third oldest
son, William Henry Tayloe, who seized an opportunity to
69
Cultural Landscape - February
distance his property from the damages wrought by the Civil
War. Richard and his family were sent to Larkin Plantation
in Perry County, Alabama, where the gardener was charged
with designing, installing, and maintaining a new garden
landscape.
February
February generally marks the first of four seasonal transi-
tion phases at Mount airy. In varying degrees of intensity, the
dominant labor patterns would shift from the slower pace
of winter toward a more aggressive and more demanding
schedule in preparation for the upcoming planting season.In
the earlier weeks of February, the gardeners continued trim-
ming trees in the gardens at Marske, Mount Airy, and Old
House. For example, the gardeners were recorded as “trim-
ming up round the Hill Sides [sic]” on February 1, 1812,
which is the only entry within the minute books that explic-
itly mentions maintaining the expansive bluff below Mount
Airy.26 On February 12, 1818, Col. Tayloe III’s jobbers were
sent to Marske to prune his peach orchard.27 Additionally,
the gardeners remained active in their duties around Mount
Airy’s nursery. In 1805, the minute book documents the
gardeners’ efforts to grub and plant several young apple trees
in the nursery.28 During the following week, the gardeners
“took up” young trees at Menokin and planted them in nurs-
ery.29 Lastly, the gardeners would typically conclude their
duties around the ice and smokehouses in February. In 1829,
the gardeners traveled to Doctor’s Hall and hung 32 shoul-
ders and 36 hams, and in the following year, they hung 335
Figure 4.5: Plan and elevation detailed drawings of Wye House’s
greenhouse
pieces of bacon at Mount Airy.30
During the latter half of February, warmer temperatures
and longer days signaled the early signs of spring. This tran-
sition typically sparked a fury of activity around the formal
garden landscape, as the gardeners’ tasks took a much more
“serious” tone to prepare for the impending growing season.31
The records indicate that the gardeners’ time was evenly
divided between the kitchen garden and pleasure grounds.
While working in Mount Airy’s expansive kitchen garden,
Godfrey and Dick staked beans, sowed peas, and planted
lettuce in 1825.32 During the following year, they planted
potatoes and sowed celery seed.33 In addition, the garden-
er’s responsibilities for maintaining the maintenance-heavy
pleasure grounds increased as the turf, cut flowers, shrubs,
and trees that filled the gardens began a new growth cycle.
On February 16, 1805, the gardeners picked and raked the
“large Grass [sic] off Bowling Green walks.”34 In the next
week, they expanded their scope to include the entire gravel
walk network, where they were “picking…and wheeling off
the Grass [sic].”35 In 1818, the gardeners were tasked with
trimming “the Lawn [sic],” although the location and extent
of this area is unclear.36
Of the garden features presented in this chapter, the
green and hothouses partner to form the most intriguing
and significant element of Mount Airy’s cultural landscape.
Not only does this impressive structure truly exemplify the
grandeur that characterized the formal garden landscape,
but as one the few remaining artifacts from the original
site design, the remains of the greenhouse complex offer
insight into the spatial organization of the space. Working
70
Cultural Landscape - February
in combination with the kitchen garden, the central green-
house and flanking hothouses functioned as an integral piece
of Tayloe’s production grounds. In addition, the impressive
architecture provided an idyllic backdrop for the formal
pleasure grounds by enriching the aesthetic quality of these
spaces.37 The following discussion uncovers what influenced
the structure’s design and how it was used and maintained at
Mount Airy.
The existence of the greenhouse complex at Mount Airy
reflects yet another cultural attachment to the English garden
aesthetic. As the American gardening standard became more
aggressive and experimental, the demand increased “for
structures that could attain and maintain a higher standard
of climate control.”38 Detailing the basic concepts informing
the structure’s design, Dennis Pogue states:
These very different levels of rigor in maintaining a controlled
climate were reflected in the design of the respective building
types. Large glass windows and other related features aimed at
allowing sunlight to enter and warm the building, and then to
keep it trapped inside, were incorporated into greenhouse de-
signs from the beginning. In addition, the use of a supplemental
heat source—in the form of a “stove,” or a series of flues, run-
ning beneath the floor and/or within the walls, to convey hot
air emanating from a fire box placed in adjoining space—was
apparently widespread as early as 1718.39
In addition, Pogue explains that the most effective green-
houses possessed a bank of large windows along the south
facing wall, while the hothouses incorporated “the greatest
possible use of glass…to maximize solar gain.”40 The adjacent
detailed drawings demonstrate the scale and spatial organi-
zation of the greenhouse at Wye House, which has often been
 Cultural Landscape - February
71

4.5
Figure 4.6: Mutual Assurance Society policy’s illustration and
72
description of the greenohuse complex
Figure 4.7: Anthony St. John Baker’s painting of Mount Airy’s
greenhouse

Cultural Landscape - February

cited as having inspired the design of Mount Airy’s green-
house complex. While that connection has been met with an
appropriate amount of skepticism, these illustrations offer
the most reliable example that indicates how this structure
might have looked.41
Building on the visual cues offered by the technical draw-
ings, there are several additional accounts that describe the
material and spatial conditions of the greenhouse complex.
A Mutual Assurance Society insurance policy from 1805
notes the existence of a “Greenhouse [sic] the walls of brick
covered with wood” located approximately 20 feet from one
4.6
of the two smokehouses.42 As the document illustrates, the
greenhouse was drawn with a hothouse on either side, which
was described as having “walls of brick [and] sides of glass
covered with glass.”43 During his visit in 1827, Anthony St.
John Baker produced an additional landscape painting of
Mount Airy’s west elevation, which partially captures the
greenhouse’s western and southern façades. His rendering
depicts the greenhouse as a two-story, brick structure with
two chimneys. The painting shows the tall, arched windows
along the southern façade below a bank of smaller, squared
windows. One obvious omission is the adjoining hothouse
that would have been attached to the greenhouse’s western
façade. It is unclear why the artist excluded the hothouse
from the painting. However, this image clearly reveals
the greenhouse’s sheer scale and spatial relationship with
the main house, which reinforces its monetary worth and
cultural significance within the formal garden landscape.
Between 1808 and 1827, the annual inventories regularly
4.7
valued the greenhouse complex at £4,000, which was 40% of
Figure 4.8: HABS documentation of greenhouse remains
73

Cultural Landscape - February

the estimated overall value of Mount Airy’s main residential
unit and its two dependency wings.44
The emerging details describing the nature of labor around
the greenhouse complex activates the space with the people
and materials who commonly occupied it. When analyzing
the ninety-one entries recorded in the minute books during
February, 59% explicitly list a task that occurred within this
part of the landscape. In addition, the data indicates that the
intensity of daily use varied from year to year. In 1813, the
gardeners worked the green and hothouses for seven of the
twenty-two work days. During the following year, they spent
twenty-one of the twenty-three days “attending [the] Green
House [sic].”45 The source material identifies several tasks
associated with the green and hothouses. The gardeners’
responsibilities were typically organized into two categories.
The first involved the work that was required to maintain the
structures, while the second focused on the labor connected
to caring for the exotic and fruiting plants that were growing
within them.
Maintaining the greenhouse complex required a great
deal of effort. The extent of this work either occurred within
the structure or in the immediate landscape surrounding
it. In 1805, Ben, who was one of Col. Tayloe III’s joiners,
was tasked with painting the new storage shelves that were
installed inside the greenhouse.46 During that same year,
the masons plastered and whitewashed the interior walls.47
This treatment was typical in greenhouses, as the white walls
greatly increased the reflectivity of the sunlight that entered
through the windows. In 1817, carpenter Harry spent two
4.8
weeks “getting shingles…[and] planing [sic] Hot House
 Cultural Landscape - February
74

4.9
Figure 4.9: Plan diagram of the greenhouse complex
75
Figure 4.10: South façade covered in Hedera helix (English Ivy) and
Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia Creeper)

Cultural Landscape - February

frames.”48 On February 18, 1818, the masons were sent to
the greenhouse to mend the chimneys, although the signif-
icance of the repair is unknown. 49 In addition, there are
several accounts that describe the periodic storms that would
produce hail and damage the abundance of glass cladding
used on the structure.50 In contrast, the records detailing the
specific location and work that occurred around the struc-
ture is much more ambiguous. The only general conclusion
is that the space in front of the south façade was routinely
maintained and used as a temporary workspace when the
wooden planters were moved out of the structure. Figure 4.9
locates the approximate extent of the greenhouse workspace.
Moreover, it identifies several key features that define the
greenhouse complex’s spatial organization and how it relates
to the larger formal landscape.
The general cultivation and care for the variety of plant
species housed within the greenhouse complex comprise the
second category. In 1805, the gardeners spent a significant
amount of time watering, making hot beds, and wheeling
manure.51 The plants were placed into distinct areas within
the structure that reflected their intended use. For example,
the larger exotic species would have occupied the central
greenhouse space, where they would have made use of the
controlled climate and abundant sunshine during the colder
months. In contrast, the two hothouses were more func-
tional than opulent. The gardeners would have worked in
these spaces to propagate and transplant fruit and vegetable
producing plants for the upcoming growing season. Several
of the leading garden treatises, including Miller’s Gardeners
4.10
Dictionary, recommended specific design considerations
Figure 4.11/2: Monticello’s kitchen garden
Figure 4.13/14: Demonstration kitchen garden squares with gravel
walks and wooden railings at Colonial Williamsburg
that aimed to maximize a hothouse’s capacity to produce
healthy plants.52 One technique included covering the plants
in manure or “mould” to generate heat and function as fertil-
izer, and the records indicate that this was common prac-
tice at Mount Airy.53 By the end of February, the gardeners
would have spent an increasing amount of time within the
hothouses in preparation for the growing season. As March
quickly approached, the gardeners would shift their focus
toward planting Mount Airy’s extensive kitchen garden with
the fruits and vegetables that would sustain the Tayloe family
for the upcoming year.
March
As springtime blossomed across the Northern Neck,
Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape was thrust into full
production. March generally marked the most intensive
month of labor in Mount Airy’s kitchen garden, where a grid
of “meticulously edged garden squares” produced a broad
range of fruits, herbs, and vegetables.54 The gardeners played
an active role in transplanting, maintaining, and harvesting
these plant varieties, and their movement across the formal
garden landscape was generally concentrated to those paths
that connected the numerous kitchen garden plots with the
greenhouse complex. Thus, this month affords an opportu-
nity to define the nature of labor by discussing the materials,
methods, and techniques employed in Mount Airy’s kitchen
garden.
In the accounts analyzed in this chapter, the 1805 minute
book offers the most detailed account of the work that
76
Cultural Landscape - March
occurred in the kitchen garden during March. On March 2,
the gardeners planted onions, beets, and carrots. 55During
the following week, Godfrey, Dick, and Horace were busy
“getting the Squares [sic] in order for peas [and] putting up
Cucumber [sic] frames.”56 Work in the kitchen garden carried
into the next week, as the gardeners “uncovered Asparagus
[sic]” and planted peas and beans in the squares.57 Beginning
on March 18, the gardeners continued working the asparagus
beds and putting “mould in the Cucumber [sic] frames.”58
On the following day, they removed the manure bedding
that covered the artichokes and prepared several unplanted
squares for planting.59 On March 21, the gardeners tended
the “Gravel [sic] walks in [the] Kitchen Garden” and grafted
apple trees the next day.60 During the last week of March, the
gardeners continued preparing squares, where they planted
peas, beets, carrots, and parsnips.61 These fruits and vegeta-
bles were common at Mount Airy, and the gardeners would
have been more than familiar with their growing habits.
Figure 4.15 provides a full inventory of the fruits, vegetables,
herbs, and nuts that were recorded in the source materials.
In addition, the 1818 minute book provides more
insight into the material conditions of the kitchen garden.
On March 13, Col. Tayloe III’s carpenters met in the kitchen
garden to begin repairing and replacing the wooden rail-
ings that bordered each square, which continued until April
7.62 Given that there were thirteen carpenters employed at
Mount Airy in 1818, the length of this work suggests that
there were numerous wooden railings located throughout
the kitchen garden.63 While the carpenters labored over the
wooden railings, Col. Tayloe III’s team of masons were sent
 Cultural Landscape - March
77

4.12

4.14
4.11

4.13
Figure 4.15: Inventory of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and nuts
78
Figure 4.16: Plan diagram of kitchen garden’s circulation patterns
and spatial organization

Cultural Landscape - March

to the kitchen garden to wash, repair, and white wash the
garden wall, which began on March 14 and concluded on
March 24.64 In contrast to the wooden railings, which were
described as bordering the kitchen garden squares, the loca-
tion of the garden wall is unclear. When considering that
the primary materials used to construct the wall required
masonry, the evidence suggests that it maintained a signifi-
cant presence in the formal garden landscape.
Figure 4.16 locates the site circulation network, which
was the most essential element of Mount Airy’s kitchen
garden. This highly-organized grid of gravel walks and turf
ramps was critical to the daily movement of people and
materials. It was especially important because it connected
the greenhouse complex with the kitchen garden and
provided at grade access into the site. The graphic highlights
the major circulation corridors with a dashed line and the
major plots with a red fill. In addition, the diagram reveals
three distinct design considerations that inform the circu-
lation network’s spatial organization. The first concerns the
three at grade access points help with grade that are located
along the northern, western, and southern boundaries of the
formal garden landscape. These entry points allowed larger
equipment to easily move across the threshold, avoiding the
need for an earthen ramp to navigate the change in elevation.
The second consideration focuses on the spatial relationship
between the internal circulation network and the major plots.
As the diagram indicates, the major service roads would have
provided several access points into each major plot. The final
thought is a more design oriented observation that places
4.15
the kitchen garden’s circulation network within the context
 Cultural Landscape - March
79

4.16
Figure 4.17: Arthur Brooke’s kitchen garden rendering
80
Figure 4.18: A restored garden plan showing the expanded kitchen
garden
Figure 4.19/22: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s kitchen garden

Cultural Landscape - April

of the larger site-wide system. Given that the major service
roads were located along the periphery or below the formal
garden terrace, those conditions suggest that there was a clear
hierarchy between land uses. The circulation patterns of the
kitchen garden and pleasure garden rarely overlapped except
for the main walk. The explicit distinction between these two
spaces will be explored in next month’s section.
Mount Airy’s kitchen garden contained several minor
plots within the six major plots. The spatial organization of
these individual spaces would have aligned to the larger grid
and would have been accessed by a network of smaller gravel
4.17
walks that connected to the larger service roads. Although the
source materials do not explicitly mention the exact number
of minor plots, efforts have been made to recreate the kitchen
garden’s design within the numerous architectural histories
about Mount Airy. In his 1899 rendering, Arthur Brooke’s
kitchen garden includes sixteen individual plots “bounded
by herbs and berry-bushes” and aligned to a central walk
“bordered with fig-trees.”65 A similar rendering produced in
1933 appears to adopt the same layout; however, this plan
includes an additional twelve plots that extend toward the
western boundary of the formal garden landscape. When
considering the extensive list of plant varieties grown at
Mount Airy, it is more than likely that the demand for fertile,
workable ground pushed the extents toward the edges.

April
As work in the kitchen garden continued at a frenetic
4.18
pace, the gardeners’ scope of work expanded into the
 Cultural Landscape - April
81

4.20

4.22
4.19

4.21
Figure 4.23: Plan diagram of pleasure garden’s circulation patterns
and spatial organization
three principal spaces that comprised Mount Airy’s plea-
sure gardens: the bowling green and the north and south
parterre gardens. Characterized by their rigid geometry
and precisely manicured appearance, Mount Airy’s pleasure
gardens “matched the house in their elegance and scale.”66
In contrast to the kitchen gardens, where productivity and
efficiency were paramount, the pleasure gardens’ primary
intention was to showcase an enlightened design sensibility
that reflected the collective aesthetic of the British colonial
elite. Ultimately, these elements ostensibly functioned as the
Tayloe family’s attempt to impose their wealth and power
onto the physical landscape. Therefore, this month is dedi-
cated to uncovering the key characteristics of Mount Airy’s
pleasure gardens.
The source materials suggest that the influx of work in
the pleasure gardens generally coincided with the Tayloe
family’s annual return from Washington City. The family
began “enjoying the winter urban social and political scene”
in the fledgling capital city in 1797.67 In 1799, Col. Tayloe III
purchased a prominent lot to the west of the White House.
Under the direction of the lead architect, William Thornton,
the Octagon House was completed by 1802 and served as the
Tayloe family’s winter quarters until 1817, when Col. Tayloe
III permanently moved to Washington City for the remainder
of his life.68 The compulsion to be an influential participant
during these social seasons explains the transient behavior
between the Tayloe family’s urban and rural estates. When
hosting at Mount Airy, the bowling green and parterres were
significant cultural spaces that offered leisurely outdoor
activities for Col. Tayloe III’s guests. More importantly, their
82
Cultural Landscape - April
spatial organization affected the rhythm and movement of
socialization.
The records suggest that the pleasure gardens were typi-
cally activated within a few weeks before the Tayloe family
returned to Mount Airy. In preparation for their arrival at
Mount Airy in 1805, the gardeners “dressed up the Pleasure
[sic]” during the first week of April.69 Aside from their tasks
in the kitchen garden and around the greenhouse complex,
the gardeners “dressed the Borders [sic],” and “hoed [the]
Gravel [sic] walks,” for the two weeks prior to the Tayloe
family’s arrival at Mount Airy on April 18, 1805.70 Over the
next two weeks, the gardeners were instructed to roll and
clean the bowling green and gravel walks, while also dressing
the “flower Borders [sic].”71 From picking and trimming to
rolling and dressing, these maintenance techniques generally
dominated the nature of labor during the spring and summer
months across Mount Airy’s pleasure gardens.
Figure 4.23 offers an analysis of the circulation patterns
and spatial organization of the three pleasure garden
elements. In contrast to the kitchen garden, these spaces
were constructed closer to the main structure, and thus were
envisioned to function as an outdoor expansion of the inte-
rior space. The major circulation network displayed with a
red dashed line illustrates how these spaces were connected
by an orthogonal grid of gravel walks. Overlapping Mount
Airy’s site centerline, the main walk circulated people away
from the house and toward the formal garden landscape.
From the main walk, a symmetrical network of gravel walks
extended toward the north and south parterre gardens. These
walks would have also offered opportunities to connect to
 Cultural Landscape - April
83

4.23
 Cultural Landscape - April
84

4.24
 Cultural Landscape - April
85

4.25
Figure 4.24/25 (page before): Section elevations depicting the spatial
86
relationship between the kitchen and pleasure gardens
Figure 4.26: Arthur Brooke’s rendering of the north parterre garden
Figure 4.27: Arthur Brooke’s rendering of the south parterre garden

Cultural Landscape - April

those features that were outside the extent of the pleasure
gardens but within the same programmatic parameters. The
best example of this condition is at the terminus of the raised
walk, where the Tayloe family’s guests would have gathered
to overlook the kitchen garden and the distant vistas of the
Rappahannock River valley.
As the central component of the pleasure garden land-
scape, the bowling green extends along the site center-
line towards the Rappahannock River before the terrace
descends to the kitchen garden elevation. As Miller
suggested, the bowling green was a necessary element in an
4.26
esteemed English garden, and thus its presence at Mount
Airy is not unexpected. Nonetheless, the bowling green was
the most dominant element of the pleasure garden terrace
at Mount Airy. This space had the capacity to comfortably
hold several hundred people or to provide ample room for
recreational activities like lawn bowling. Maintaining such a
vast expanse of turf was an arduous task, and the gardeners
employed several techniques and tools to manage this space.
Additionally, the bowling green’s prevailing characteristics
have remained relatively consistent throughout its history.
The bowling green is currently maintained to generally
resemble its original design, with its large swath of green
grass and its borders of annuals, perennials, and shrubs.
Unlike the bowling green, which has remained relatively
unaltered since it was originally constructed, there is scant
existing evidence that characterizes the formal design details
of the north and south parterre gardens. The most relevant
document is Arthur Brooke’s conjectural site plan from 1899,
4.27
whose significance was explained in the opening chapter. His
Figure 4.28: Mount Airy’s north parterre garden in 1937
87
Figure 4.29: Mount Airy’s south parterre garden in 1968

Cultural Landscape - April

rendering depicts both parterre gardens as being roughly
symmetrical in size and equally distanced along a north-to-
south alignment, which is labeled in Figure 4.23. Both spaces
are organized into quadrants that unify around a central
element. Brooke includes a large tulip tree in the northern
design and a circular structure in its southern counterpart.
In addition, each quadrant is divided into sub-quadrants
that each focus on a less significant site feature. These minor
elements might have included stone statuary or large exotic
plants transported from the greenhouse complex. When
visiting in 1774, Philip Fithian noted Mount Airy’s “large,
4.28
well formed, beautiful Garden [sic],” that displayed “four
large beautiful Marble Statues [sic].”72 Although there are no
detailed accounts of the perennial, turf, shrubs species used
in these gardens, it is likely that the same palette was applied
to both spaces.
The similarities between the two parterre gardens
abruptly ends once they are analyzed with more scrutiny.
When considering the interstitial space between the major
and minor elements and the primary gravel walks, Brooke’s
drawing offers two distinctly different designs. Figure 4.26
highlights the north parterre garden, which was framed
between the greenhouse complex to the north, the raised
walk to the west, and the main structure to the south. The
design features an orthogonal layout with a square gathering
space around each of the four minor elements. These indi-
vidual spaces are directly accessed by a narrow gravel path.
Figure 4.27 offers Brooke’s interpretation of the southern
parterre garden. In contrast to the northern space, this design
4.29
employs circular gathering spaces stitched within a busy
 Cultural Landscape - April
88

4.31

4.33
4.30

4.32
Figure 4.30/33: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s pleasure gardens
network of orthogonal and diagonal narrow paths. Given
the abundance of edge conditions, maintaining the southern
parterre garden would have been the more labor intensive of
the two schemes.
Although it is difficult to corroborate, the fact that there
are two distinct configurations raises several questions about
the original design intent. For example, was this irregularity
motivated by an aesthetic appeal or was it merely the conse-
quence of a purely functional consideration. Perhaps these
spaces were utilized to showcase different aspects of the
garden. When considering the proximity between the green-
house complex and the northern parterre garden, this space
might have functioned as an outdoor exhibition area for Col.
Tayloe III’s finest exotic plants. In addition, the intricacy of
the southern parterre garden suggests that this space would
have been an appropriate siting for the four marble statues
that Fithian recalled in his journal. Nevertheless, pursuing
these questions might inspire future exploration into Mount
Airy’s parterre gardens, which could potentially uncover
clues that elucidate the original design intent.
May
During the month of May, the gardeners’ labor patterns
were highly diversified. The source materials suggest that
their work was evenly separated between the greenhouse
complex, the kitchen gardens, and the pleasure gardens. In
addition, the records provide several examples that locate the
gardeners beyond the extents of the formal garden landscape.
In most instances, the gardeners were engaged in a variety
89
Cultural Landscape - May
of projects that improved the physical infrastructure located
across Mount Airy. The most notable of these spaces was
Mount Airy’s expansive deer park, where the rolling, bucolic
landscape functioned as an extension of the pleasure grounds.
In addition to a brief overview of the gardener’s work within
the formal garden landscape, this month offers an opportu-
nity to illuminate the deer park’s rich history and to discuss
the mystery behind its evolving spatial configuration.
The 1805 minute book provides the most detailed
example of the labor diversification that typically character-
ized the month of May at Mount Airy. Following the return
of the Tayloe family from Washington City, the gardeners
were forced to maximize the efficiency and productivity
of every component within the formal garden landscape.
During the second week of the month, an entry was recorded
on Saturday, May 11, which offers the most complete account
that highlights the variability of tasks completed in a single
week. On Monday, the gardeners mowed the bowling green
and gravel walks before watering the “Green House & Frames
[sic].”73 During the next day, the gardeners worked exclu-
sively in the kitchen garden, where they mowed and weeded
the numerous squares.74 On Wednesday, they continued
their work in the kitchen garden but were also ordered to
hoe and rake the gravel walks in the pleasure gardens.75 On
the following day, the gardeners finished weeding the kitchen
garden and “dressed the Bordered [sic] round the Bowling
Green [sic].”76 On Friday, their focus shifted toward mowing
the “Banks [sic] in the Garden [sic],” which presumably
meant the steep slopes bordering the terraces.77 The gardeners
completed their work week around the greenhouse complex,
Figure 4.34: Oil painting of Mount Vernon’s deer park
90
Figure 4.35: Plan diagram of the former and current configurations of
Mount Airy’s deer park

Cultural Landscape - May

where they spent the entire Saturday watering and cleaning Tayloe III’s masons and carpenters were busily “raising stone
out the greenhouse.78 and puting [sic] up park wall” in the deer park.83 Two days
A dispute between Col. John Tayloe II and his neighbor, later, the carpenters were in the deer park laying one of the
Col. Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, provides a convenient many bridges that were scattered throughout the space.84 As
entry point into the discussion about Mount Airy’s deer the carpenters finished their work “about the garden railing”
park. On November 5, 1768, Col. Tayloe II’s wife, Rebecca in early May 1818, they immediately shifted their focus to
Plater Tayloe, wrote to Col. Carter in regards to a “Breast “getting timber for [the] Park [sic] railing.”85 For the next
of Venison [sic]” that had recently been gifted to the Tayloe twelve days, the carpenters repaired the wooden railings,
family.79 As she noted in her letter, an increasing number of while Col. Tayloe III’s masons followed closely behind and
deer housed within Mount Airy’s deer park had been hunted whitewashed the mended fences.86 Although the cause of the
without the consent of Col. Tayloe II. She writes, “as a further deer park fence’s deterioration is unclear, it appears that this
proof of this unneighborly [sic] treatment, the Deer [sic] that task was commonplace at Mount Airy. For example, it was
are now about the House [sic], are Wounded [sic] by being
shot at.”80 Although she was quick to assume that Col. Carter
was in no way culpable, stating that “it is those that live rather
nearer to us,” the records indicate that Rebecca’s letter did not
settle the issue.81 In fact, the issue does not resurface in the
source materials until March 31, 1771, when Col. Tayloe II
wrote directly to Col. Carter. He states, “I will as soon as I
have to attend, take the matter in hand…to have such a fence
made on the lines between us, as shall ever deft a deer to get
over.”82 Given the immensity of their respective properties,
constructing this fence would have required a tremendous
amount of labor and materials to effectively contain Mount
Airy’s deer population.
The 1814 and 1818 minute books offer a more specific
description of the physical elements that were constructed
within deer park. This analysis ultimately suggests how the
deer park functioned and creates a more general sense of its
4.34
material aesthetic quality. Beginning on May 18, 1814, Col.
 Cultural Landscape - May
91

4.35
 Cultural Landscape - May
92

4.37

4.39
4.36

4.38
Figure 4.36/41: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s deer park
93

Cultural Landscape - June

noted in August 1805 that a summer storm “with a heavy
wind blew down [the] Park [sic] fence and let two deer out.”87
In addition to the walls, fences, and bridges, the source mate-
rials list several plant species that were planted in the deer
park, including cedar, locust, oats, and corn.88
Although these materials provide sufficient evidence
detailing the design interventions, labor patterns, and stan-
dard materials employed across the deer park, they fail to
indicate the extent of the space or how these elements were
organized. Figure 4.35 attempts to reconcile these shortcom-
ings by approximating the extent of the former deer park. As
4.40
the plan diagram illustrates, the deer park was much larger
than its current extent, spanning the entire distance to Col.
Carter’s property to the south and toward Richmond County
Courthouse (Warsaw) to the east. In addition, it is likely
that the former entry drive sequence travelled through the
deer park, as the pastoral surroundings would have created
an ideal approach to the main structure. It is evident that
the former extent of the deer park was reduced as parts of
the property were either altered to introduce different land
uses or subdivided and sold. To illustrate this point, Figure
4.35 locates the existing road network and the areas that are
currently under agricultural production, highlighting the
spatial conflict between the deer park’s former and current
extents.

June
The month of June typically signified the beginning of
4.41
a six-to-eight-week harvest season at Mount Airy. During
Figure 4.42/45: Harvest team rosters featuring the gardeners, their
jobs, and their location within the Mount Airy Department
this period, most of Col. Tayloe III’s able bodied domestic
servants and skilled and semi-skilled workers were removed
from their normal positions at Mount Airy and reassigned
to assist in the harvest at the various plantation quarters
within the Department. This was especially true for the adult
gardeners, as they were often recorded in the minute books
as being absent from Mount Airy during harvest time. In
their place, the young gardeners were charged with main-
taining the formal garden landscape. Moreover, the length
and detail of the daily minutes generally dwindles to a few
lines, which presumably reflects the reality that Col. Tayloe
III’s agents were more consumed with recording information
about the harvest than they were with Mount Airy’s formal
garden landscape. Nevertheless, this month offers an oppor-
tunity to reveal how the nature of labor was impacted by the
harvest season. Furthermore, it provides a unique moment
when the young gardeners are thrust into the spotlight.
The 1805 minute book indicates that prior to the harvest
season the gardeners’ labor patterns generally reflected the
diversification that characterized the month of May. In addi-
tion, it appears that the nature of labor shifted toward a more
routine-based maintenance approach, where the gardeners
cycled through the same tasks every week. Before Godfrey
and Dick were reassigned for the wheat harvest on June 29,
1805, the gardeners spent the first week of the month cleaning
“the Serpentine Walk [sic]…[and] before the Green House
[sic],” and attending to the plants in the greenhouse and in
the kitchen garden squares.89 Over the next two weeks, the
gardeners cleaned, mowed, and rolled several spaces within
the formal garden landscape, including the bowling green,
94
Cultural Landscape - June
the serpentine walk, and the forecourt.90 Once Dick and
Godfrey were “in [the] harvest field,” Horace (14) was solely
responsible for mowing, watering plants, and weeding the
flower borders around the bowling green and in the north
and south parterre gardens.91
The remaining minute books provide a more complete
sample of the average start dates and locations of the annual
wheat harvest. On June 22, 1811, Dick and Godfrey were
“cutting wheat at the Fork” for the entire week, while Horace
was employed as a “binder and raker [sic]” at Old House.92 In
their absence, John (16) was “working as usual.”93 Two years
later, the wheat harvest commenced on June 25, 1813, and
Dick and Godfrey joined an eight-person crew of cradlers at
Old House.94 John (18), Fred (17), and Tom (12) attended the
garden while the older gardeners were away, although there
is no detailed account of their activities. During the following
year, the harvest began on June 23.95 However, Dick was the
only gardener ordered to participate in the process, which
presumably meant that Godfrey stayed behind with the
younger gardeners to carry out his gardening responsibilities
at Mount Airy.96 On June 30, 1816, Dick and Godfrey were
once again folded into the harvest at Old House, where they
contributed to a nine-person crew of cradlers.97 Beginning
on June 25, 1818, Dick and Godfrey were employed in their
usual role as cradlers at Old House, while George (7) was
occupied with “sundry work in [the] garden.”98 Between 1825
and 1831, Dick continued to work the June wheat harvest as
a cradler at Old House, while it appears that Godfrey’s age
had prohibited his participation.99
The source materials clearly indicate that the gardeners’
 Cultural Landscape - June
95

4.43

4.45
4.42

4.44
Figuere 4.46: Wooden wheelbarrow
96
Figuere 4.47: Metal hand trowel with wooden handle

Cultural Landscape - July

time and efforts had completely shifted away from the formal
garden landscape at Mount Airy by the end of June. In
striving to maximize efficiency during the intensive harvest
periods, Col. Tayloe III’s adult gardeners were routinely sent
away to assist in the process. Their absence placed an incred-
ible burden on the younger gardeners who were forced to
perform the various tasks associated with the greenhouse
complex, the kitchen gardens, and the pleasure gardens.
The next month will chronicle how the gardeners worked to
redouble their efforts once the harvests were completed.
4.46
July
In comparison to June, the records detailing the nature of
labor during July are more irregular and less detailed. Given
that the annual wheat harvests typically extended into the
first two weeks of July, it is plausible that the fatigue from this
process might have impacted the record keeping responsi-
bilities of Col. Tayloe III’s agents. In addition, the common
labor patterns during July hardly deviated from those that
were recorded in May and June, which might also explain
the infrequent entries in the minute books. Nevertheless, this
month creates an opening to explore the various gardening
tools that were used at Mount Airy. As important artifacts
of Mount Airy’s cultural landscape, a brief discussion about
these tools enriches the gardeners’ narrative and reinforces
the Tayloe family’s commitment to maintaining their immac-
ulate formal garden landscape.
A brief overview of the minute book entries illustrates
4.47
just how little was recorded during the month of July. The
Figuere 4.48: Inventory of gardeners’ tools recorded in 1817
97

Cultural Landscape - July

1805 minute book offers the most detailed account; however,
the entries are dominated by the events surrounding the
construction of William Spence’s house. Aside from their
participation in that process, the gardeners continued their
regular maintenance patterns, including weeding the kitchen
garden squares, dressing the flower borders, and hoeing and
raking the gravel walks.100 The 1805 minute book indicates
that the gardeners generally repeated these tasks with very
little variability for the remainder of the month.101 The 1813
and 1814 minute books are more cursory in their content,
which is typical for the subsequent years. For the entire
month, the records characterize the gardeners as “attending
the Garden [sic]” or “in the Garden[sic].”102 The 1818 minute
book takes an even more apathetic tone, listing the gardeners
“at sundry jobs in [the] garden” or with the common short-
hand “ditto.”103 The records perpetuate this trend until 1825,
when the gardeners “set out celery plants…[and] sowed
turnips.”104
Figure 4.48 presents an inventory of the gardeners’ tools
that were present at Mount Airy in 1817. From rakes and
forks to shears and knives, the list represents one of the
most comprehensive inventories of gardening equipment
in Virginia. The inventory lists the tool’s name in the right
column and the corresponding quantity in the left column.
Analyzing the inventory identifies a clear hierarchy that clas-
sifies the tools into four distinct categories. These groups
categorize tools that share similarities in their general appli-
cation, as well as their location within the formal garden
landscape.
4.48
The first group associates the tools that served the
Figuere 4.49: Mount Airy’s carriage turnaround and forecourt
greenhouse complex, which included the two axes, the two
pair of pruning knives, and the one tan fork. These instru-
ments were vital to maintaining the structure’s two fire-
places, clipping any unwanted vegetation from the many
plant species, and servicing the hothouses with manure. The
second association focuses on the tools that were used in
the kitchen gardens. This group contains tools like the three
spades, the two weeding hoes, and the four small hoes, which
were used regularly to cultivate and maintain the network
of kitchen garden squares. The third collection gathers the
pleasure garden tools, including the one edging iron, the two
chisels for trimming, and the three pair of shears. These tools
were designed with precision in mind, and thus they were
especially useful in the more formal spaces like the north
and south parterre gardens. The last group characterizes
the utilitarian tools that were used across the formal garden
landscape, which contains instruments like the six rakes, the
three scythes, and the three wheelbarrows. These tools had
several applications and were often employed beyond the
formal garden landscape.
The 1817 inventory is an incredibly significant source
because it showcases the everyday tools that were so integral
to the cultivation and maintenance of Mount Airy’s formal
garden landscape. In addition, it underlines the Tayloe fami-
ly’s commitment to the preservation of their estate, as well
as their willingness to spare no expense in that pursuit. The
inventory also enlivens the gardeners’ narratives by intro-
ducing the physical artifacts that were propelled by their
labor. Lastly, it creates an opportunity to imagine how the
tools functioned and where they were employed. As the next
98
Cultural Landscape - August
month will demonstrate, several of these tools were used to
maintain Mount Airy’s formal approach and forecourt.
August
The 1805 minute book implies that August was generally
a continuation of the routine-based maintenance approach
that characterized the nature of labor during the summer
months at Mount Airy. During the first week of August, the
gardeners watered the greenhouse plants, worked the kitchen
garden squares, and planted peas, beans, and turnips.105 In the
following week, they distributed compost around the kitchen
garden and planted cedar trees.106 The gardeners spent the
next week in the pleasure gardens, where they were ordered
to rake the gravel walks and trim the hedges.107 Their work
during the fourth week was spread across the formal garden
landscape, as they watered the greenhouse plants, worked in
the kitchen garden, and “mowed [the] fore Court [sic].”108 In
the final week of August, the gardeners continued their sched-
uled routine maintenance. The subsequent minute books are
far less detailed than the 1805 manuscript, and thus it is diffi-
cult to determine if these labor patterns remained relatively
consistent or if they evolved over time.
The 1805 minute book’s entries for August list Mount
Airy’s forecourt more than any other month during that year.
As a significant component of Mount Airy’s formal garden
landscape, the forecourt functioned as a public-facing space
where the Tayloe family would formally welcome their visi-
tors and guests. Unlike the kitchen and pleasure gardens,
where vibrant colors, patterns, and textures characterized
 Cultural Landscape - August
99

4.49
100

Cultural Landscape - August

4.50
Figuere 4.50: Plan diagram of Mount Airy’s forecourt and
101
carriage turnaround
Figuere 4.51: Mount Airy’s forecourt facing south
Figuere 4.52: Mount Airy’s forecourt facing northwest

Cultural Landscape - August

the aesthetic of these private spaces, the forecourt was much
more unassuming and austere. The forecourt is especially
important because it is the most intact element from the
original formal garden landscape design. From its large lawn
panels and stone walks to its stone columns and acorn finials,
the circulation patterns and material elements have remained
in place for over 250 years.
Figure 4.50 illustrates the spatial organization of Mount
Airy’s forecourt. In keeping with the Palladian aesthetic, the
forecourt is a symmetrically designed space that aligns to
the site centerline. The carriage turnaround was an essential
4.51
component of this space because it marked the final point
along the entry drive sequence and the beginning of the
formal procession toward the main house. The plan diagram
locates the current entry drive with a light red fill and the
former entry drive with a dashed red line. Regardless of the
direction, both drives converged at the same point, which
was punctuated with a bronze sundial.
From the carriage turnaround, the Tayloe family’s visi-
tors and guests would ascend a set of stone steps to reach
the house terrace and enter the forecourt space. These steps
are flanked by two stone columns each topped with a stone
urn and two stone retaining walls, which are accented with
a stone acorn finial. The top of the steps is met by the main
walk, which appears to consist of the same ferruginous stone
that was used for the main structure. The current extent of the
stone walks are identified by the dark red fill. Field research
suggests that the width of the main walk has narrowed over
time, which is indicated in the diagram. The principal walk
4.52
terminates at the base of the main stair and is met by two
102

Cultural Landscape - August

4.54

4.56
4.53

4.55
Figure 4.53/58: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s forecourt and
103
carriage turnaround

Cultural Landscape - August

arching auxiliary walks. These narrower walks connected
Mount Airy’s service wings to the forecourt and were most
often used by Col. Tayloe III’s house servants.
As one of the first spaces that one encounters when
visiting Mount Airy, it is evident that the forecourt has
the capacity to make a memorable first impression. When
considering the sample of architectural histories, the authors
have offered a more sensory analysis of the forecourt. Their
collective accounts offer a more detailed description of the
forecourt’s material quality and aesthetic ambiance, revealing
a more nuanced representation of the space that cannot be
4.57
communicated by the plan diagram. Writing in 1899, Albert
Brooke describes his approach to Mount Airy along “the
avenue [that] winds to the flat of a high terrace and encircles
a sun dial.”109 As he moved closer to the house, Brooke was
mesmerized by the ornate “vases on pedestals” that flanked “a
flights of wavering stone steps.”110 When describing her visit
to Mount Airy in 1927, Edith Sale remarks, “two large stone
urns carved most beautifully in classic style give a distinc-
tive decorative tone to the composition.”111 She continues
by describing a much more vegetated forecourt than exists
today, stating that “a wide walk extends…to the house,” which
was partially “hidden by a rare growth of vines and enor-
mous trees.”112 In 1932, Barrows and Waterman describes the
“low retaining wall which is further decorated by squat acorn
finials [and] the only planting in the court is a pair of fine old
hollies.”113
The adjoining images capture the most significant arti-
facts of Mount Airy’s forecourt and carriage turnaround.
4.58
Since Sale’s visit in 1927, the vines and larger tree have been
Figuere 4.59: Plan diagram of Mount Airy’s four phantom elements
removed from the space; however, the three remaining
American hollies still dominate the landscape. Aside from
the two boxwoods that obscure the stone retaining walls,
these ornamental elements are highly visible and continue
to convey the same sense of wealth and opulence that under-
lined their incorporation into the formal garden landscape.
September
Like February, September generally witnessed the
seasonal transition from summer to autumn, where cooler
temperatures and shorter days signified the beginning of the
dormant period at Mount Airy. This evolution is evidenced
in the source materials, which suggest that the nature of
labor in September shifted from the routine-based mainte-
nance approach to a preparation-based regime that focused
on readying the garden for the upcoming winter months.
This month analyzes how the gardener’s labor patterns trans-
formed during September. Furthermore, this month offers
a chance to discuss the lesser known elements, or phantom
elements, of Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape. While
often mentioned in the records, their general location within
the landscape is ambiguous and inconclusive. Therefore, this
discussion analyzes certain context clues within the source
materials to suggest the location of these spaces. In addition,
these claims are strengthened by describing the potential
design strategies that might have influenced their placement.
To illustrate the shift in labor patterns, the 1805 minute
book highlights how the gardeners’ work gradually tran-
sitioned into a preparation-based approach by the end
104
Cultural Landscape - September
of September. During the first two weeks, the gardeners
continued to perform the routine-based maintenance
tasks that were prevalent throughout the summer. These
jobs included working the kitchen garden, cleaning the
“Serpentine Walk [sic],” and mowing the grass.114 The third
week of September witnessed the initial change in labor
patterns. Between Monday and Wednesday, the gardeners
mowed and weeded the kitchen garden, mowed the bowling
green, and rolled the gravel walks.115 On Thursday, the
gardeners mowed the banks and dug strawberries.116 By
Friday, the gardeners began preparing the kitchen and
nursery yards for the winter, and on the following day, they
constructed a cistern.117 During the last week of September,
the gardeners abandoned the routine-based maintenance
regime by spending the entire week moving plants into the
greenhouse complex for winter storage.118 In the subsequent
minute books, some of these transitional tasks included
storing fodder in the stables, cutting wild oats, and trimming
trees in the nursery and serpentine walk.119
Figure 4.59 locates the four phantom elements of the
formal garden landscape. Although routinely mentioned in
the minute books, their imprint on the landscape has been
ostensibly erased overtime. These spaces include the former
entry drive, the kitchen yard, the nursery, and the serpentine
walk.
By analyzing the site grading, the former entry drive’s
location is the most obvious of the four phantom elements. As
part of the original grading plan, a massive earthen ramp was
constructed at the easternmost corner of the formal garden
landscape. This ramp, which is approximately aligned with
105

Cultural Landscape - September

4.59
Figuere 4.60: Arthur Shurcliff’s site plan of Mount Airy
106
Figuere 4.61: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s formal entry drive
Figuere 4.62/65: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s
current entry drive

Cultural Landscape - September

the carriage turnaround, was designed to quickly elevate the
approaching guests onto the forecourt terrace from the lower
elevations of the deer park. Aside from the earthen ramp’s
functional application, it appears that this element was inten-
tionally designed to mimic a common motif. This strategy
prescribed that as one neared the formal garden landscape,
their views of the structure would be shielded by the earth-
work until they climbed to the apex, revealing the grandness
of the space.
At Mount Airy, the drastic difference in elevation
obscures any views of the main structure from the base of
4.60
the slope. Figure 4.60 captures an inset of Arthur Shurcliff ’s
1931 site plan of Mount Airy. His rendering clearly depicts a
large ramp located directly below the office structure and a
large tulip tree. Figure 4.61 illustrates the obscured perspec-
tive created by the earthen ramp, where only the roof of the
office is visible from that vantage point. It is unclear as to
when the former entry drive was abandoned for the current
configuration.
The second phantom element is the nursery. The records
indicate that the nursery was an active space within Mount
Airy’s formal garden landscape. The gardeners worked the
nursery throughout the year, and it appears that this garden
feature served both productive and aesthetic purposes.
Figure 4.59 locates the nursery directly between the south
parterre garden and the office structure. The dark red rect-
angle captures approximately 6,500 sq. ft. of prime garden
space.
There are several clues that place the nursery within this
4.61
general location. Its placement on the southeastern side of
107

Cultural Landscape - September

4.63

4.65
4.62

4.64
Figuere 4.66: Existing conditions of Mount Airy’s nursery
108
Figuere 4.67: Arthur Shurcliff’s site plan of Mount Airy

Cultural Landscape - September

the site would have created the best conditions for gaining
sunlight. In addition, it’s adjacency to an at grade access
point would have minimized the distance travelled beyond
the formal garden landscape. From an aesthetic analysis, the
rotating carousel of young fruiting trees and flowering shrubs
would have offered an idyllic backdrop to the south parterre
garden, while also softening the harsh office wall. The nursery
vegetation would have also screened the main structure from
the former entry drive, strengthening the concealment motif.
As Figure 4.60 highlights, Shurcliff encountered a grove of
young tees during his visit, but he does not indicate whether
4.66
this space held any cultural significance. The most concrete
piece of evidence that corroborates the nursery’s location is
found in a Biennial Visit Report submitted for HABS docu-
mentation in 1966. When recounting the renovations that
were made to Mount Airy, William R. Hollomon writes, “the
bath he placed in the left arcade, leading to the guest house,
above the old plant nursery.” 120 Thus, the evidence supports
the suggested location of the nursery between the south
parterre garden and the office structure.
Mount Airy’s kitchen yard is the third phantom element
of the formal garden landscape. The extent of the kitchen yard
is less certain than the former entry drive and the nursery.
Figure 4.59 locates the kitchen yard between the west wing,
the dairy, and the smokehouse. The records suggest that the
kitchen yard was an active working space, and the gardeners
were routinely ordered to clean and organize this element
throughout the year. Given this land use condition, the busy
kitchen yard would have stood in direct conflict with the
4.67
desired aesthetic of the pleasure gardens, and thus it would
Figuere 4.68: Inventory of goods sent to Washington City
109
on October 31, 1817

Cultural Landscape - October

have been appropriate to create a strong separation between regime. This transition was punctuated by the Tayloe fami-
the two features. Aside from these considerations, there ly’s annual departure for the Octagon House in Washington
is very little evidence supporting a definite location of the City. The records indicate that the gardeners played an inte-
kitchen yard. gral role in this process. Therefore, this month provides an
Of the four phantom elements, the serpentine walk opportunity to briefly characterize October’s labor patterns
is the least understood. This feature first appeared in the and to analyze the gardeners’ participation in preparing for
1805 minute book, where the gardeners cleaned, mowed, the Tayloe family’s journey to their winter quarters.
and planted new trees throughout the year.121 In 1818, the In 1805, the gardeners engaged in a variety of tasks that
gardeners spent the second week of September “cutting the reflected the preparation-based approach at Mount Airy. On
under growth below the Serpentine [sic] walk.”122 Figure 4.59 October 2, the gardeners traveled to Old House to gather
locates the serpentine walk between the greenhouse complex apples for cider.123 On October 12, they intensively cleaned
and the north parterre garden; however, as the plan diagram and organized the contents within the greenhouse complex.124
indicates, there is an overlapping conflict between these two
spaces. There are three main considerations informing the
serpentine walk’s suggested location. The first stems from
Shurcliff ’s site plan. Figure 4.67 depicts a curvilinear gravel
path that connects the main structure with the greenhouse
complex, although he does not imply that this feature was a
part of the original design. In addition, placing the serpen-
tine walk within this space would have functioned like the
nursery in that it would have provided a pleasant vegetated
backdrop to the north parterre garden. Lastly, the dense vege-
tation would have reinforced the buffer between the formal
pleasure gardens and the working kitchen yard. Ultimately,
the evidence does not fully support this location.

October
During the month of October, the nature of labor at Mount
4.68
Airy fully shifted toward a preparation-based maintenance
Figuere 4.69: Transcribed inventory of goods sent to Washington City
110
on October 31, 1817

Cultural Landscape - October

During the following week, the gardeners wheeled manure quantities of nuts. On October 19, 1817, the gardeners
throughout the kitchen garden and covered several of the collected chestnuts and walnuts for the upcoming trip.135
squares, including the asparagus beds.125 In the last week of Figures 4.68 and 4.69 display the items that the gardeners
October, they cleaned the flues of the hothouses and “dug collected and packed for that year’s move to Washington
Holes [sic] around the house for Scaffold [sic] holes.”126 These City. This inventory is noteworthy because it presents a
tasks clearly varied from the more maintenance-based jobs, complete picture of the variety and quantities of goods that
which were more routine and sually confined to the primary were transported from Mount Airy to the Octagon House.
garden elements. In addition, it offers an extensive list of the fresh and dried
The changing nature of these labor patterns persisted over produce that was grown in Mount Airy’s kitchen gardens
Col. Tayloe III’s lifetime. By October 26, 1812, the gardeners and in Col. Tayloe III’s various gardens and orchards across
were beginning the winter-long process of smoking meat in the Department. The inventory also features a collection
Mount Airy’s two smokehouses.127 They continued this work of smoked and cured meats, including fourteen turkeys,
for the next two days, while also spending time cutting hay.128
During the second week of October 1817, the gardeners were
assigned to a ditching crew and began housing the green-
house plants.129 In the following year, the gardeners were
sent to gather apples.130 On October 12, 1826, they once
again housed the greenhouse plants and harvested apples for
cider.131
The most significant job during this transition period
was when the gardeners prepared for the Tayloe family’s
annual departure from Mount Airy. The records suggest that
their working hours were divided between foraging for nuts,
collecting various provisions, and physically packing the
caravan of “Carts & Waggons [sic].”132 On October 8, 1805,
the gardeners left the greenhouse to assist “in packing up
things for [the] City.”133 In 1812, they spent two days “hulling
walnuts for the City.”134 With access to a variety of native
chestnuts, hickories, and walnuts across the Northern Neck,
4.69
the gardeners would have no issues collecting significant
Figuere 4.70: Mount Airy’s smokehouse
111

Cultural Landscape - November

thirteen geese, and five ducks. Given what is known about
the gardeners’ involvement with the smoking process at
Mount Airy, they would have been intimately involved with
preparing those goods. The list also includes several kitchen
commodities like beeswax, butter, honey, and lard.
The 1817 inventory ostensibly signified the end of the
production season at Mount Airy. The gardeners spent that
summer working long hours in the oppressive heat while
they maintained the many kitchen garden squares, and the
inventory is a representation of their efforts. Following the
Tayloe family’s departure, the gardeners would accelerate the
preparation-based labor regime by concentrating the scope
of work to those tasks that looked to winterize Mount Airy’s
formal garden landscape.
and plum at the “bottom of [the] Garden [sic].”139 During the
following week, they began to work the borders around the
kitchen garden squares and the flower borders in the pleasure
gardens, while planting “a row of different kinds of Shrubs
[sic]” around the bowling green.140
The subsequent minute books offer several accounts
of the tasks associated with winter preparation. Between
November 5 and November 9, 1812, the gardeners worked
the asparagus beds and the strawberries in the greenhouse
complex.141 From November 10 to November 19, 1812, they
stored cabbages and apples for the winter and attended the
strawberries. On November 20, 1812, the gardeners returned

November
November at Mount Airy generally witnessed the most
concentrated period that focused on “getting [the] garden in
winter order.”136 In 1805, the records indicate that their work
was divided between planting and trimming a variety of plant
species across the formal garden landscape and working in
the greenhouse complex. During the first week of November
1805, the gardeners trimmed trees, watered the plants in the
greenhouse complex, and “put out Raspberry [sic] boxes.”137
On the following week, they worked the greenhouse complex,
planted young trees along the serpentine walk, and “assisted
about raising scaffold” for seasonal repairs to the main struc-
ture.138 On November 16, 1805, the gardeners planted “trees
4.70
of different kinds in [the] fruitery [sic]” and planted apricots

to the smokehouses, where they continued “cuting [sic] out
meat.”142 Their work also extended into the kitchen garden,
where they were actively remediating the soils and main-
taining the squares. For three weeks in November 1816,
the gardeners packed “fodder in the garden.”143 During the
following year, they spent two weeks “manuring [and] edging
[the] garden squares.”144
By the end of November, the gardeners were nearing
the end of preparation-based labor regime at Mount Airy.
The gardeners had prepared the numerous kitchen garden
squares and the various pleasure garden elements for winter,
while turning their attention to the greenhouse complex
and to several areas beyond the formal garden landscape. As
December approached, the gardeners would enter the winter
dormant period, where their work around Mount Airy was
primarily concentrated around the greenhouse complex.
December also signified the Christmas holiday season, which
offered one of the only times in the year where the gardeners
could spend time away from their work.
December
December is the least documented month recorded in
Mount Airy’s minute books. For example, the often reliable
1805 minute book has no entries for December. Although
it is difficult to pinpoint the underlying cause of this condi-
tion, the relative ease and simplicity of December’s tasks
might explain why the records are so scant. In addition,
the Christmas holidays were one of the few times of the
year when the enslaved gardeners were awarded time off,
112
Cultural Landscape - December
which typically lasted from Christmas Eve through New
Year’s Day. Nevertheless, the existing accounts indicate that
the gardeners were engaged in tasks that typified the winter
dormant period at Mount Airy.
The 1812 minute book offers the most complete account
of the gardeners’ work in December. During the first week
of the month, the gardeners split their time between lofting
corn and “seting [sic] out trees at the court house.”145 On
December 8, they were ordered to assist in “cuting [sic] out
meat,” while they spent the following day “cuting [sic] brush”
across Mount Airy’s broader landscape.146 Between December
10 and December 17, the gardeners trimmed trees, covered
the cabbages and fig trees with manure, and worked at the ice
house.147 For the remainder of December 1812, the gardeners
continued working the greenhouse complex, the ice house,
and the smokehouse.148
Following the 1812 entries, the subsequent minute books
provide a few examples of the nature of labor at Mount Airy
in December. After “spading up” around the hothouses on
December 2, 1815, Col. Tayloe III’s gardeners and jobbers
worked the remainder of the month “at the Fork cleaning
roads.”149 On December 18, 1816, they worked around the
greenhouse complex hauling manure and cutting wood for
the two fireplaces.150 On December 12, 1817, the gardeners
were sent to Old House to trim the orchard.151 Lastly, the
gardeners covered the cabbages, figs, and strawberries with
manure on December 4, 1824.152
As Christmas approached at the end of December, the
gardeners were ostensibly finished with their work for the
calendar year. Over the course of the year, the nature of labor
 113

Cultural Landscape - December

fluctuated to meet the demands of the Tayloe family, the
formal garden landscape, and the Mount Airy Department.
During the winter months, the gardeners’ labor was mainly
limited to the greenhouse complex and spread across several
areas outside of the formal garden landscape. In anticipation
of the family’s return from Washington City, the gardeners
prepared the pleasure and production grounds for the
upcoming social and growing seasons. During the middle of
the summer, the nature of labor was organized around the
seasonal harvests across the Mount Airy Department, and
the gardeners, Dick and Godfrey, were typically employed in
the process. For the remainder of summer and the beginning
of fall, the gardeners pursued a maintenance-based approach
that divided their time and efforts between the greenhouse
complex, the kitchen garden, and the pleasure gardens.
Nearing the end of the year, the gardeners transitioned into
a preparation-based regime that worked to minimize the
work across the formal garden landscape in anticipation of
winter. One key task during this period was preparing for the
Tayloe’s move to Washington City for the winter, which typi-
cally marked the end of the more intensive work at Mount
Airy. With the new year quickly approaching, the gardeners
would restart the process of cultivating and maintaining
Mount Airy’s formal garden landscape.
5
CODA
Figuere 5.1 (page before): South façade covered in Hedera helix
116
(English Ivy)

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

Appendix I: Selected Site Photos
The following images were taken over the course of my summer at Mount Airy. They catalog my favorite places and where
I experienced my fondest moments while living there. There are many qualities to admire about Mount Airy, and researchers
have typically focused on the larger systems, like the site architecture or the expansive terrace network. In contrast, I was
immediately attracted to Mount Airy’s details. Over the course of the summer, I explored and analyzed the formal garden
landscape with a keen appreciation for how beautiful Mount Airy is at a granular level. These selected site photos were
captured during those moments of curiosity.
117

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

118

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

118
119

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

120

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

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Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

122

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

123

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

124

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

125

Coda - Appendix I: Selected Site Photos

 126

Coda - Appendix II: Native Plants of the Northern Neck

Appendix II: Naitve Plants of the Northern Neck
Listed below is a collection of native plant species endemic to the Northern Neck that have been identified by the Northen
Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society. The highlighted and emboldened text represents native plant species that
were identified at Mount Airy between May and August 2019. For more information, visit https://nnnps.squarespace.com.

Large Trees
Acer negundo | Eastern Boxelder
Acer rubrum | Red Maple
Betula nigra | River Birch
Carya cordiformis | Bitternut Hickory
Carya glabra | Pignut Hickory
Carya tomentosa | Mockernut Hickory
Celtis occidentalis | Common Hackberry
Diospyros virginiana | American Persimmon
Fagus grandifolia | American Beech
Fraxinus americana | White Ash
Fraxinus pennsylvancia | Green Ash
Juglans nigra | Black Walnut
Juniperus virginiana | Eastern Red Cedar
Liquidambar styraciflua | Sweetgum
Liriodendron tulipifera | Tulip Poplar
Nyssa sylvatica | Black Gum
Oxydendrum arboreum | Sourwood
Pinus echinata | Shortleaf Pine
Pinus strobus | Eastern White Pine
Platanus occidentalis | American Sycamore
Prunus serotina | Wild Black Cherry
Quercus alba | White Oak
Quercus coccinea | Scarlet Oak
Quercus falcata | Southern Red Oak
Quercus marilandica | Blackjack Oak
Quercus michauxii | Swamp Chestnut Oak
Quercus muehlenbergii | Chinquapin Oak
Quercus nigra | Water Oak
Quercus palustris | Pin Oak
Quercus phellos | Willow Oak
Quercus rubra | Northern Red Oak
Quercus stellata | Post Oak
Quercus velutina | Black Oak
Robinia pseudoacacia | Black Locust
Sassafras albidum | Sassafras
Taxodium distichum | Bald-cypress
Tilia americana | American Basswood
Ulmus americana | American Elm
Small Trees
Alnus serrulata | Smooth Alder
Amelanchier arborea | Downy Serviceberry
Asimina triloba | Pawpaw
Carpinus caroliniana | American Hornbeam
Castanea pumila | Allegheny Chinquapin
Cercis canadensis | Eastern Redbud
Chionanthus virginicus | Fringetree
Cornus alternifolia | Pagoda Dogwood
Cornus florida | Flowering Dogwood
Crataegus crus-galli | Cockspur Hawthorn
Ilex opaca | American Holly
Magnolia virginica | Sweetbay Magnolia
Morus rubra | Red Mulberry
Salix nigra | Black Willow
Shrubs
Aralia spinosa | Devil’s Walking Stick
Aronia arbutifolia | Red Chokeberry
Baccharis halimifolia | Black Chokeberry
Callicarpa americana | American Beautyberry
Cephalanthus occidentalis | Buttonbush
Clethra alnifolia | Sweet Pepperbush
Cornus amomum | Silky Dogwood
Epigaea repens | Trailing Arbutus
Eubotrys racemosus | Fetterbush
Euonymus americanus | Stawberry Bush
Gaylussacia baccata | Black Huckleberry
Gaylussacia frondosa | Dangleberry
Hamamelis virginiana | Witch Hazel
Hydrangea arborescens | Wild Hydrangea
Ilex glabra | Inkberry
Ilex laevigata | Smooth Winterberry
Ilex verticillata | Winterberry
Itea virginica | Virginia Sweetspire
Iva frutescens | Marsh Elder
Kalmia latifolia | Mountain Laurel
Lindera benzoin | Spicebush

Lyonia ligustrina | Maleberry
Lyonia mariana | Staggerbush
Morella caroliniensis | Evergreen Bayberry
Morella cerifera | Wax Myrtle
Morella pensylvanica | Northern Bayberry
Rhododendron atlanticum | Dwarf Azalea
Rhododendron viscosum | Swamp Azalea
Rhus copallinum | Winged Sumac
Rhus glabra | Smooth Sumac
Rhus typhina | Staghorn Sumac
Rosa carolina | Pasture Rose
Rosa palustris | Swamp Rose
Salix humilis | Upland Willow
Sambucus canadensis | Common Elderberry
Spiraea tomentosa | Steeplebush
Stewartia ovata | Mountain Stewartia
Vaccinium pallidum | Early Lowbush Blueberry
Vaccinium stamineum | Deerberry
Viburnum acerifolium | Mapple-leaf Viburnum
Viburnum dentatum | Arrow-wood
Viburnum nudum | Possum-haw
Viburnum prunifolium | Black Haw
Vines
Bignonia capreolata | Cross-vine
Campsis radicans | Trumpet-creeper
Celastrus scandens | American Bittersweet
Clematis virginiana | Virgin’s-bower
Decumaria barbara | Climbing Hydrangea
Gelsemium sempervirens | Carolina Jessamine
Lonicera sempervirens | Coral Honeysuckle
Mikania scandens | Climbing Hempweed
Parthenocissus quinquefolia | Virginia-creeper
Passiflora incarnata | Purple Passionflower
Wisteria frutescens | American Wisteria
Grasses
Agrostis perennans | Autumn Bentgrass
Andropogon glomeratus | Bushy Bluestem
Andropogon virginicus | Broomstraw
Arundinaria tecta | Switch Cane
Carex crinita | Long-fringed Sedge
Carex lurida | Sallow Sedge
Carex scoparia | Broom Sedge
Carex stricta | Tussock Sedge
Carex vulpinoidea | Fox Sedge
Chasmanthium latifolium | River Oats
Danthonia sericea | Silky Oatgrass
Danthonia spicata | Poverty Oatgrass
Distichlis spicata | Saltgrass
Dulichium arundianaceum | Three-way Sedge
Elymus hystrix | Bottlebrush Grass
Elymus virginicus | Virginia Wild Rye
Eragrostis spectabilis | Purple Lovegrass
Juncus canadensis | Canadian Rush
Juncus effusus | Common Rush
Juncus roemerianus | Black Needle Rush
Leersia oryzoides | Rice Cutgrass
Luzula multiflora | Common Woodrush
Panicum amarum | Southern Seabeach Grass
Panicum virgatum | Switchgrass
Schizachyrium scoparium | Little Bluestem
Schoenoplectus pungens | Common Threesquare
Scirpus cyperinus | Woolgrass
Sparganium americanum | American Bur-reed
Spartina alterniflora | Saltmarsh Cordgrass
127
Coda - Appendix II: Native Plants of the Northern Neck
Spartina cynosuroides | Big Cordgrass
Spartina patens | Saltmeadow Hay
Spartina pectinata | Freshwater Cordgrass
Tridens flavus | Purpletop
Tripsacum dactyloides | Eastern Gammagrass
Typha latifolia | Common Cattail
Zizania aquatica | Southern Wild Rice
Ferns
Adiantum pedatum | Northern Maidenhair Fern
Asplenium platyneuron | Ebony Spleenwort
Athyrium asplenioides | Southern Lady Fern
Botrypus virginianus | Rattlesnake Fern
Dennstaedtia punctilobula | Hay-scented Fern
Dryopteris cristata | Crested Wood Fern
Dryopteris intermedia | Evergreen Wood Fern
Dryopteris marginalis | Marginal Wood Fern
Onoclea sensibilis | Sensitive Fern
Osmunda spectabilis | Royal Fern
Osmundastrum cinnamomeum | Cinnamon Fern
Polystichum acrostichoides | Christmas Fern
Pteridium aquilinum | Southern Bracken Fern
Thelypteris palustris | Marsh Fern
Woodwardia areolata | Netted Chain Fern
Woodwardia virginica | Virginia Chain Fern
Herbaceous Plants
Achillea millefolium | Common Yarrow
Actaea pachypoda | Doll’s Eyes
Actaea racemosa | Bugbane
Agalinis purpurea | Purple False Foxglove
Ageratina altissima | White Snakeroot
Anemone quinquefolia | Wood Anemone

Anemone virginiana | Thimbleweed
Antennaria plantaginifolia | Pussytoes
Antennaria solitaria | Single-head Pussytoes
Aquilegia canadensis | Eastern Red Columbine
Aralia nudicaulis | Wild Sarsaparilla
Arisaema triphyllum | Jack-in-the-pulpit
Asarum canadense | Common Wild Ginger
Asclepias incarnata | Swamp Milkweed
Asclepias syriaca | Common Milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa | Butterfly Milkweed
Baptisia tinctoria | Yellow Wild Indigo
Bidens cernua | Nodding Beggar-tricks
Caltha palustris | Marsh Marigold
Caulophyllum thalictroides | Blue Cohosh
Chamaecrista fasciculata | Common Patridge-pea
Chelone glabra | White Turtlehead
Chimaphila maculata | Striped Wintergreen
Chrysopsis mariana | Maryland Golden-aster
Claytonia virginica | Spring Beauty
Clitoria mariana | Butterfly Pea
Conoclinium coelestinum | Mistflower
Coreopsis lanceolata | Lance-leaf Coreopsis
Desmodium paniculatum | Narrow-leaf Tick-trefoil
Equisetum arvense | Field Horsetail
Equisetum hyemale | Tall Scouring Rush
Eurybia divaricata | White Wood Aster
Eutrochium dubium | Three-nerved Joe-pye-weed
Eutrochium fistulosum | Hollow Joe-pye-weed
Eutrochium purpureum | Sweet-scented Joe-pye-weed
Geranium carolinianum | Carolina Geranium
Helenium autumnale | Common Sneezeweed
Helianthus divaricatus | Woodland Sunflower
Heuchera americana | American Alumroot
Hexastylis virginica | Virginia Heartleaf
Hieracium venosum | Rattlesnake Weed
Hibiscus moscheutos | Swamp Rose-mallow
Houstonia caerulea | Common Bluets
Houstonia purpurea | Summer Bluets
Hydrophyllum virginianum | Virginia Waterleaf
Hypericum gentianoides | Pineweed
Hypericum mutilum | Dwarf St. John’s-wort
Hypericum punctatum | Spotted St. John’s-wort
Impatiens capensis | Orange Jewelweed
Ionactis linariifolia | Stiff-leaved Aster
Iris versicolor | Northern Blue Flag
Iris virginica | Virgina Blue Flag
Kosteletzkya pentacarpos | Seashore Mallow
Lespedeza capitata | Round-headed Lespedeza
Liatris pilosa | Grass-leaf Gayfeather
Lilium superbum | Turk’s-cap Lily
Limonium carolinianum | Sea Lavender
Lobelia cardinalis | Cardinal Flower
Lobelia siphilitica | Great Blue Lobelia
Lupinus perennis | Sundial Lupine
Maianthemum racemosum | False Solomon’s-seal
Medeola virginiana | Indian Cucumber-root
Micranthes virginiensis | Early Saxifrage
Mimulus ringens | Square-stemmed Monkeyflower
Mitchella repens | Partridge-berry
Mitella diphylla | Two-leaved Miterwort
Monarda punctata | Spotted Beebalm
Nuphar advena | Common Spatterdock
Nuttallanthus canadensis | Blue Toadflax
Nymphaea odorata | White Water-lily
Oenothera biennis | Common Evening-Primrose
Oenothera fruticosa | Southern Sundrops
128
Coda - Appendix II: Native Plants of the Northern Neck
Opuntia humifusa | Eastern Prickly-pear
Orontium aquaticum | Golden Club
Osmorhiza longistylis | Aniseroot
Packera aurea | Golden Ragwort
Peltandra virginica | Arrow-arum
Penstemon laevigatus | Smooth Beard-tongue
Phlox paniculata | Garden Phlox
Physostegia virginiana | Northern Obedient-plant
Podophyllum peltatum | Mayapple
Polygonatum biflorum | Solomon’s-seal
Pontederia cordata | Pickerelweed
Pycnanthemum incanum | Hoary Mountain-mint
Rhexia virginica | Virginia Meadow Beauty
Rudbeckia hirta | Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia laciniata | Cut-leaf Cornflower
Rudbeckia triloba | Brown-eyed Susan
Ruellia caroliniensis | Carolina Wild-petunia
Sabatia angularis | Rose-pink
Sagittaria latifolia | Broad-leaved Arrowhead
Salvia lyrata | Lrye-leaf Sage
Sanguinaria canadensis | Bloodroot
Saururus cernuus | Lizard’s-tail
Scutellaria elliptica | Hairy Skullcap
Scutellaria integrifolia | Hyssop Skullcap
Sericocarpus asteroides | Toothed White-top Aster
Silene stellata | Starry Campion
Sisyrinchium atlanticum | Eastern Blue-eyed-grass
Solidago altissima | Tall Goldenrod
Solidago caesia | Blue-stememd Goldenrod
Solidago juncea | Early Goldenrod
Solidago nemoralis | Gray Goldenrod
Solidago odora | Sweet Goldenrod
Solidago pinetorum | Small’s Goldenrod
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Solidago rugosa | Rough-stemmed Goldenrod
Solidago sempervirens | Seaside Goldenrod
Symphyotrichum grandiflorum | Large-flowered Aster
Symphyotrichum laeve | Smooth Blue Aster
Symphyotrichum novi-belgii | New York Aster
Symphyotrichum pilosum | White Old-field Aster
Symplocarpus foetidus | Skunk Cabbage
Thalictrum pubescens | Common Tall Meadow-rue
Thalictrum thalictroides | Rue-anemone
Trillium pusillum | Virginia Least Trillium
Uvularia perfoliata | Perfoliate Bellwort
Uvularia sessilifolia | Sessile Bellwort
Veratrum virginicum | Virginia Bunchflower
Veratrum viride | Green Hellebore
Verbena hastata | Blue Vervain
Vernonia noveboracensis | New York Ironweed
Viola cucullata | Marsh Blue Violet
Viola labradorica | Dog Violet
Viola pedata | Bird’s-foot Violet
Viola sagittata | Arrow-leaved Violet
Viola sororia | Common Blue Violet
Yucca filamentosa | Common Yucca
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Endnotes

Chapter One: Project Introduction

1 Tayloe Family Papers, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book of John Tayloe, 1805 (hereafter
TFP).
2 From George Washington to James Anderson (of Scotland), July 25, 1798, Founders Online, National Archives,
accessed July 11, 2019, https://founders.archive.gov/documents/Washington/06-02-02-0357.
3 Ibid.
4 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 4, Account Book, 1805-1812.
5 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book of John Tayloe, 1805: 106.
6 Ibid., 110.
7 Ibid., 112.
8 Ibid., 120.
9 For a collection of architectural histories about Mount Airy, see Robert A. Lancaster, Jr., Historic Virginia Homes and
Churches, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1915): 338-344; Edith Tunis Sale, Interiors of Virginia Houses of
Colonial Times, (Richmond: William Byrd Press, Inc., 1927): 149-158; Thomas Tileston Waterman, The Mansions of
Virginia, 1706-1776, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1946): 243-272; Howard Dearstyne and
A. Lawrence Kocher, Shadows in Silver, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954): 98; John A. Barrows and Thomas
Tileston Waterman, Domestic Colonial Architecture of Tidewater Virginia, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1968): 126-137;
Mario di Valmarana, Building by the Book 1, (Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 1984): 75-98; David
King Gleason, Virginia Plantation Homes, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1989): 48-49.
10 Arthur Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” The Architectural Review 6, no. 8 (Aug., 1899): 94.
11 Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” 94.
12 Richard S. Dunn, “A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life at Mesopotamia in Jamaica and Mount Airy in Virginia, 1799
to 1828,” The William and Mary Quarterly 34, no. 1 (Jan., 1977): 33.
13 After assuming ownership of Mount Airy, Col. John Tayloe III centralized his agricultural practices in the plantations
along the Rappahannock River. These Mount Airy Department included seven separate but interdependent properties
that were located throughout Richmond, Essex, and King George counties. These plantations included Mount Airy,
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Old House, Forkland, Marske, Menokin, Gwinfield, and the Hopyard.
14 Richard S. Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life and Labor in Jamaica and Virginia, (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2014): 188.
15 Laura Croghan Kamoie, Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginia’s Gentry, 1700-1860,
(Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 2007), 1.
16 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 2.
17 Camille Wells, Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia, (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 2018): 30.
18 Wells, Material Witnesses, 105.
19 Ibid., 34.
20 Ibid., 75.
Chapter Two: Project Context
1 Frank Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy: The Tayloes of Virginia,” Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine 42, no. 1
(Dec., 1992): 4851.
2 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4865.
3 Trevor Burnard, “The British Atlantic,” in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal, eds. Jack P. Greene and Philip D.
Morgan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 112.
4 For a quantitative analysis of the Algonkian people, see Maurice A. Mook, “The Aboriginal Populations of Tidewater
Virginia,” American Anthropologist 46, no. 2 (Spring, 1944): 193-208.
5 Craig Lukezic, “Soils and Settlement Location in 18th Century Colonial Tidewater Virginia,” Historical Archaeology
24, no. 1 (1990): 1.
6 For more information on the privileges granted to those who served on the King’s Council, see Rhys Issac, The
Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 133-134.
7 Burnard, “The British Atlantic,” 117.
8 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4851.
9 Issac, The Transformation of Virginia, 21.
10 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4851-4852.
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11 The term “friction of distance” is an underlying concept of most geographical theories that analyze the relationship
between settlement patterns and land use. In this setting, tobacco farmers looked to maximize their productivity and
profitability by minimizing the distance between their houses and their adjacent tobacco fields.
12 Ibid., 4582.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations, 47. Richard Dunn briefly explains the concurrence between the introduction of
slaves to the Northern Neck in 1680 and the construction of William Tayloe’s plantation along the Rappahannock
River.
16 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 32.
17 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4852-4853.
18 Ibid., 4853.
19 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 18-19. Kamoie notes that between 1727 and 1769, 83 percent of the 6,000 slaves imported
into the Northern Neck were brought into the region via the Rappahannock River. The Tayloe family’s geographical
proximity to the river put them in an advantageous position to purchase the most valuable workers; Dunn, A Tale of
Two Plantations, 48. In addition, Richard Dunn states, “He [Tayloe] served as a factor for a number of slave ships on
the Rappahannock, which gave him first choice in buying slaves for himself.”
20 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4853. Explaining the significance of Tayloe’s appointment to The King’s Council, Courts
states, “[this position] represented the highest political attainment for a private citizen, and gave him a position of
influence and advantage that his father had not attained.”
21 For more information on the relationship between the mercurial global tobacco market and the responses of Virginia’s
colonial elite, see Stacy L. Lorenz, “‘To Do Justice to His Majesty, the Merchant and the Planter’: Governor William
Gooch and the Virginia Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no.4
(Oct., 2000): 345-392.
22 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 3.
23 Lorena S. Walsh, “Slave Life, Slave Society, and Tobacco Production in the Tidewater Chesapeake, 1620-1820,” in
Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, eds. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993): 179-180.
24 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 14.
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25 Ibid., 19. Kamoie illuminates the importance of milling sites within the context of colonial Virginia, stating that they
“often became the hubs of local commercial networks because of the important services they provided.” One of the
oldest mills at Mount Airy (located near Mill Pond Rd.) was maintained and operated into the mid-twentieth century.
26 Ibid., 31.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., 33.
29 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4854. John Tayloe II married Rebecca Plater, the daughter of a notable family from St.
Mary’s County, Maryland. The intermarriage between these two families was typical of the Tayloe’s colonial experience,
gaining social and political capital through the process.
30 Ibid., 4853-4854. Speaking to John Tayloe II’s political achievements, Courts writes, “a bright and well-educated young
man, when only 23 years he was appointed with Thomas Lee and others to a commission sent to negotiate with the six
Iroquois Nations in Pennsylvania, and signed the Treaty of Lancaster on behalf of Virginia.”
31 Issac, The Transformation of Virginia, 37. Issac states, “the manner in which the new anglicized Classical conventions
were introduced into the colony is itself revealing of the dynamics of innovation in a maturing colonial society that
was inevitably a cultural province of the mother country.”
32 Burnard, “The British Atlantic,” 119-120. Burnard adds, “anxious to show their credentials as English gentlemen, these
colonial elites shared devotion to gentility, improvement, and Anglicization that not only linked them culturally to
elites in the British homeland but also made them culturally, socially, and politically similar to one another.”
33 Wells, Material Witnesses, 30.
34 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 61.
35 Issac, The Transformation of Virginia, 36- 37.
36 Ibid., 38.
37 Wells, Material Witnesses, 34. Wells explains the importance of this connection, stating “while much of the work of
colonial Virginia mansion was meant to do occurred within the walls, its most important role was to cut a distinguished
figure in the countryside.”
38 Issac, The Transformation of Virginia, 38-39.
39 For more information on the relationship between the display of power and the physical landscape, see Mark P. Leone,
“Landscapes of Power,” in The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005): 63-110.
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40 Peter Martin, The Pleasure Gardens of Virginia: From Jamestown to Jefferson, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1991): 100.
41 Martin, The Pleasure Gardens, 100.
42 Therese O’Malley, “Appropriation and Adaptation: Early Gardening Literature in America,” Huntington Library
Quarterly 55, no.3 (Summer, 1992): 406.
43 O’Malley, “Appropriation and Adaptation,” 407.
44 Ibid., 408. O’Malley writes, “the total number of copies of garden treatises in the entire country in the late eighteenth
to early nineteenth century appears to have been quite small…we cannot assume that any but a very few landowners,
established gardeners, and garden writers had the opportunity to consult them.”
45 Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto, “The American Colonial Garden and the Garden of the Country Place Era: The Role
of Ancient and Early Modern Italy,” in Foreign Trends in American Gardens: A History of Exchange, Adaptation, and
Reception, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016), 116.
46 TFP, (UVA Special Collections), Mss 38-62-a, Inventory Book of Edward T. Tayloe: 16-18. The inventory contains
books that were housed within Edward Tayloe’s personal library at his estate, Powhatan Plantation in King George
County, Virginia. Within his records, Edward included an asterisk at the beginning of each item that was taken from
Mount Airy. Although far from a complete list of books from Col. John Tayloe II’s library, the characteristics within
this sample are certainly informative.
47 Elena Butoescu, “Eighteenth-Century Garden Manuals: Old Practice, New Professions,” Romanian Journal of English
Studies 13, no.1 (Dec., 2016): 70. Elaborating on the demand for gardening manuals, Butoescu writes, “These changes
influenced the evolution of the practice of gardening in England in the long eighteenth century and consequently, the
authors of gardening manuals distinguished between professional and amateur gardeners. In other words, the rise of
the profession of gardener generated a paradigm shift in the organization of the new professions related to gardening
as a leisure activity and gardening as a profitable business.”
48 TFP, (UVA Special Collections), Mss 38-62-a, Inventory Book of Edward T. Tayloe: 16-18.
49 Butoescu, “Eighteenth-Century Garden Manuals,” 74.
50 O’Malley, “Appropriation and Adaptation,” 416.
51 Andrea Wulf, The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire, and the Birth of an Obsession, (New York: Vintage Books,
2008): 44. Speaking on Miller, Wulf states, “Miller proved that he was the most innovative gardener of his generation,
bringing together abstract theory with practical methods; curiosity with orderliness and ambition. Miller was unique
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because his stewardship of a growing plant collection was combined with his broad education, his understanding of
the commercial trade, and his talent as an experimenter.”
52 Mario di Valmarana, Building by the Book 1, 78-79. Mario di Valmarana’s analysis is one of several that connect the
design of Mount Airy with Gibbs. Additionally, his work is the only source from the study sample of architectural
histories that connected Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary to Mount Airy. Although he makes the correct association,
di Valmarana omits the role of Col. Presley Thornton and places the design of Mount Airy solely on the shoulders of
Col. John Tayloe II.
53 Theodore Townsend, “Down in Old Virginia,” Northern Neck News [Warsaw, VA], 29 Jan. 1897, p.1.
54 The Garden Club of Virginia, Houses and Gardens in Old Virginia, 99.
55 George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: John Tayloe to George Washington. 1756. Manuscript/
Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/mgw442270/>. Tayloe writes, “he comes
under my subscription & will be mentioned to you by my best friend Colo. Presley Thornton who will have the best
opportunity of Judging of his Meritt [sic].”
56 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118b 5, Account Book of John Tayloe, 1749-1768. Under his ledger with
Col. Presley Thornton, Col. John Tayloe II write in 1758, “by my promise to give in Portion to your wife, my Cousin,
Charlotte if marry to please me.” The amount that was given to Col. Thornton totaled £500.
57 Ibid.
58 Wells, Material Witnesses, 105.
Chapter Three: Physical Landscape
1 Issac Weld, Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, during the Years
1795, 1796, and 1797, 2nd ed. (London: John Stockdale, 1799): 151.
2 Issac, The Transformation of Virginia, 30.
3 In the interest of continuity, this report adopts the spatial extents of Mount Airy defined in the Historic American
Buildings Survey conducted in 1934. The report records the boundaries as “beginning at the junction of state routes
360 and 646, the boundary proceeds north and then northwest along state highway 646 to the junction with state route
621, proceeding southwesterly along that road to its junction with state route 624, then continuing southerly along 624
to the junction with state route 360, then continuing easterly along that route to the junction with 646 which was the
starting point.” Historic American Buildings Survey, National Register of Historic Places, by James Dillon (Washington,
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D.C.: Library of Congress, 1934-1937.
4 Andro Linklater, Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise
of Democracy, (New York: Walker Publishing Company, Inc., 2002): 18-20. Linklater’s analysis of eighteenth century
surveying techniques speaks directly to the relationship between the physical mechanics of surveying and the cultural
significance that was attached to the process. “This was the power that lay in Gunter’s chain—a means of making
private property. So long as it was the acre that expanded or shrank while the price remained the same, no true market
in land could be established. Once the earth could be measured by a unit that did not vary, supply and demand would
determine the price, and it could be treated as a commodity. That was not Gunter’s intention, but it was a consequence
of the accuracy that was built into his means of measurement.” However, a shorter chain consisting of two poles spaced
33 feet apart was commonly used throughout colonial America because it was more easily deployed in an undeveloped
landscape. When considering the rugged topography surrounding Mount Airy, the 2-pole chain would have likely
been used during the surveying process.
5 The 300 acres of cropland are still used in the same fashion today, as the landscape is used for the cultivation of
agricultural and silvicultural products. This reality illuminates the tradition of agriculture at Mount Airy, as the
designated land use for this space has remained the same for over 300 years.
6 The historic record of the ferruginous sandstone has been somewhat conflicting throughout the years. While it has
been repeatedly stated as fact in several architectural histories that the reddish-brown sandstone was quarried on
site, some contemporary geologists dispute the claim. Some research has been conducted on the stone used at Mount
Airy and Menokin, which could guide future research. For more information see, Genevieve Brie and Christopher
M. Bailey, “Provenance of Ferruginous Sandstone at Menokin on the Northern Neck Peninsula, Virginia,” (poster
presented at the 66th annual meeting of the Geological Society of America Southeastern Section Meeting, Omni
Richmond Hotel, Richmond, VA, March 30, 2017).
7 In Arthur Shurcliff ’s field notes from November 27, 1928, he notes the “site of old highway removed about 1750,” and
he provides rough approximation of its location on his plan drawing.
8 Elizabeth Lowell Ryland, Richmond County Virginia: A Review Commemorating the Bicentennial, (Warsaw: Richmond
County Board of Supervisors, 1976), 117. Today, “Smith Hill” is a term that is still used within some circles of the Tayloe
family. Members of the family have accidently unearthed foundations and other remnant structures throughout the
deer park, many of which predate the construction of Mount Airy.
9 Butoescu, “Eighteenth-Century Garden Manuals,” 74.
10 Philip Miller, The Gardeners Dictionary: Containing the Methods of Cultivating and Improving the Kitchen, Fruit and
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Flower Garden, as Also the Physick Garden, Wilderness, Conservatory, and Vineyard, 1735, (London: Bible and Crown,
1735): 365.
11 Miller, Gardeners Dictionary, 365.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 366.
14 Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, In Four Parts, bk. 2, Of the Natural Product and Conveniences
of Virginia; in Its Unimprov’d State, before the English Went Thither, (London: The Union, 1705): 8, accessed February
13, 2021, https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/beverley/beverley.html.
15 U.S. Department of the Interior, Geologic Map and Generalized Cross Sections of the Coastal Plain and Adjacent Parts
of the Piedmont, Virginia [map], 1:250,000, Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, National Center, 1989.
16 Miller, Gardeners Dictionary, 366.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 365.
19 Ibid., 366.
20 Ibid., 366-367.
21 Martin, Pleasure Gardens, 121.
22 Ibid., 123.
23 Miller, Gardeners Dictionary, 367.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., 368.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., 369.
32 Ibid.
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33 Leone, “Landscapes of Power,” 82.
34 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 33.
35 Issac, The Transformation of Virginia, 30.
36 Wells, Material Witnesses, 105.
37 The siting of Mount Airy appears to have pushed this concept to its fullest realization. One major characteristic of
the ridgeline that intersects the property is a dog-leg feature that redirects the ridge from its usual north-to-south
directionality towards the east, thus creating a viewshed of nearly 270 degrees.
38 Martin, The Pleasure Gardens, 101. In describing the juxtaposition between the immediate garden enclosure and the
surrounding landscape, Martin writes, “practical consideration most often governed the choice of elevated ground
for many plantation houses, but frequently so did the aesthetics deriving from prospects that could take in forests,
rivers, fields, and hills. If one could command such views from a garden enclosure that itself may not have been varied
or interesting, then the effect could be visually and pictorially pleasing. Indeed, contrasts between a garden that was
geometrical, regular, and enclosed and the landscape views surrounding it could heighten the beauty of the grounds
around the main house.”
39 Unknown author, Phenix Gazette, September 14, 1831, accessed July 12, 2019, https://virginiachronicle.
com/?a=d&d=PG18310914.1.3&e=14-09-1831-15-09-1831--en-20-PG-1--txt-txIN-phenix+gazette-------.
40 Waterman, The Mansions of Virginia, 253.
41 An analysis of the study sample of architectural histories indicates that the period between 1747-1748 appears to be a
consistent start date for the construction of the architectural components.
42 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118b 5, Account Book of John Tayloe, 1749-1768.
43 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 33.
44 Further analysis of Arthur Shurcliff ’s field notes from November 27, 1928 show that the approximate location of the
“old highway” passed almost directly behind Mount Airy.
45 di Valmarana, Building by the Book, 76.
46 Waterman, The Mansions of Virginia, 243.
47 Wells, Material Witnesses, 105.
48 Waterman, The Mansions of Virginia, 248. He writes, “with the Mount Airy commission Ariss probably moved there to
take charge of construction, for it was in 1762 (when the house would have been about finished) that he relinquished
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his lease on a place in Richmond County.”

Chapter Four: Cultural Landscape

1 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4854.
2 Ibid., 4855.
3 Kenneth Cohen, “Well Calculated for the Farmer: Thoroughbreds in the Early National Chesapeake, 1790-1850,” The
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 115, no. 3 (Jul., 2007): 376.
4 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4854.
5 Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations, 107.
6 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4857.
7 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 93.
8 Ibid., Kamoie states, “despite the second John’s support of the patriotic cause, no Tayloe patriarch played a central role
in the Revolution or the birth of the new nation.”
9 Ibid., 95.
10 Ibid., 99.
11 Ibid., 94.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 99. Ibid., 99. In speaking to Col. Tayloe III’s ownership style, she writes, “[he] was a hands-on manager who
insisted on being involved in and kept abreast of everything around his landed estate.”
14 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
15 Ibid.
16 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
17 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
18 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
19 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
20 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1808-1827; TFP, (Virginia Historical Society),
 140

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Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1829-1836; TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book,
1838-1840; TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 13, Minute Book, 1840-1860; TFP, (Virginia Historical
Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1861-1862.
21 Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations, 213.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 442.
24 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805; TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d
538, Inventory Book, 1808-1827.
25 Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations, 457.
26 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
27 Ibid.
28 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
29 Ibid.
30 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
31 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
32 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
33 Ibid.
34 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
35 Ibid.
36 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
37 Dennis J. Pogue, “Greenhouses, Orangeries, and Hothouses: A Survey of Chesapeake Form and Functions” (paper
presented at the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference, Virginia Beach, March 15, 2003): 1. Pogue states, “that
this aesthetic pretension was in fact the major force driving the ascendant popularity of greenhouses in England
in the 18th Century—with concerns about the actual functional capabilities of the structures as effective methods
of preserving exotic plants playing a distinctively subservient role—is borne out by the proliferation of picturesque
greenhouses to match the equally romantic garden configurations in which they were set.”
38 Pogue, “Greenhouses,” 2.
39 Ibid.
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40 Ibid., 3.
41 Ibid. Pogue argues, “as it happens, the Lloyd family that owned and built the Wye greenhouse, the Tayloes of Mount
Airy, and the Carrolls of Mount Clare, all share a degree of familial connection. This relationship has led a number
of scholars to assume that direct communication between the branches of the family must have been at the heart of
the process of designing these buildings, and at least in part serves as an explanation for their existence when such
structures were believed to be so rare in the region. Some scholars even have argued that the presumed architectural
similarities between the buildings were so striking as to support this conclusion--although, as we shall see, those
similarities are superficial at best.”
42 Mount Airy Declaration of Assurance, Mutual Assurance Society, September 18, 1805.
43 Ibid.
44 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1808-1827.
45 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
46 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
47 Ibid.
48 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
52 Dennis Pogue explains that “it was strongly recommended that plants in a hot house should be placed within a recessed
structure, filled with bark or other material that gave off hear as a result of decomposition, in order to keep the delicate
roots sufficiently warmed. As the mania for pine apples, peaches, oranges, and other more delicate fruits became
widespread in England in the second half of the 18th century, more and more hot houses…were added to existing
greenhouses or incorporated in new deigns.
53 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
54 Peter Hatch, “A Rich Spot of Earth”: Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello, (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2012), 72.
55 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
56 Ibid.
 142

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57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
63 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1808-1827; TFP, (Virginia Historical Society),
Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
64 Ibid.
65 Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” 92.
66 Martin, Pleasure Gardens, 121.
67 Kamoie, Irons in the Fire, 100.
68 Courts, “A ‘Quiet’ Legacy,” 4859.
69 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 John Rogers Williams, “Journal of Philip Fithian, Kept at Nomini Hall, Virginia, 1773-1774,” The American Historical
Review 5, no.2 (Dec., 1899): 307.
73 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.
79 Papers of the Carter and Welford Family of Sabine Hall, (UVA Special Collections), Mss 1959-c Box 1, Folder 7.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
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82 Papers of the Carter and Welford Family of Sabine Hall, (UVA Special Collections), Mss 1959-c Box 1, Folder 10.
83 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid.
87 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid.
92 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
93 Ibid.
94 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
100 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
101 Ibid.
102 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
103 Ibid.
104 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
105 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid.
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109 Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” 91.
110 Ibid.
111 Sale, Interiors of Virginia Houses, 149.
112 Ibid.
113 Barrows and Waterman, Domestic Colonial Architecture, 128.
114 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
115 Ibid.
116 Ibid.
117 Ibid.
118 Ibid.
119 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
120 William R. Hollomon, “Biennial Visit to Mount Airy “ Written Historical and Descriptive Data, Historic American
Buildings Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, November 10, 1966, page 71.
121 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
122 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
123 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
124 Ibid.
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid.
127 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
128 Ibid.
129 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
130 Ibid.
131 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
132 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 8, Minute Book, 1805.
133 Ibid.
134 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
 145

Coda - Endnotes
135 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
136 Ibid.
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid.
139 Ibid.
140 Ibid.
141 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
142 Ibid.
143 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
144 Ibid.
145 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
146 Ibid.
147 Ibid.
148 Ibid.
149 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
150 Ibid.
151 Ibid.
152 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7923, Diary, 1824-1831.
 146

Coda - Figures
Figures

Chapter One: Project Introduction

1.1 Arthur Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” The Architectural Review 6, no. 8 (Aug., 1899): 91.
1.2 Image taken by author, July 1, 2019.
1.3 Image taken by author, May 15, 2019.
1.4 Image taken by author, June 20, 2019.
Chapter Two: Historic Context
2.1 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
2.2 Graphic created by author.
2.3 Graphic created by author.
2.4 Graphic created by author.
2.5 Brendan Wolfe, Spotlight: Tobacco in Colonial Virginia, December 4, 2012, Project Blog Encyclopedia Virginia accessed
January 16, 2021, https://evblog.virginiahumanities.org/2012/12/spotlight-tobacco-in-colonial-virginia/.
2.6 Unknown Artist, John Tayloe I, 1715-1730, oil on canvas, 28.25 in. x 24.25 in., Museum of Early Southern Decorative
Arts, accessed January 11, 2021, https://mesda.org/item/object/painting/2130/.
2.7 Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, A Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia Containing the Whole Province of Maryland
with Part of Pensilvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina [map], 1751, 1:650,000, “The Library of Congress”, <https://
www.loc.gov/resource/g3880.ct000370/?r=0.254,0.31,0.483,0.234,0> (February 12, 2021).
2.8 John Wollaston, John Tayloe II, 1750-1760, oil on canvas, 49 in. x 39.375 in.,
National Portrait Gallery, accessed January 12, 2021, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_
VA 2 7 0 0 2 1 ? d e s t i n a t i o n = p o r t r a i t s / s e a r c h % 3 F p a g e % 3 D 5 % 2 6 e d a n _ q % 3 D A r t i s t s % 2 6 e d a n _
f q % 2 5 5 B 0 % 2 5 5 D % 3 D d a t e % 2 5 3 A % 2 5 2 2 1 7 6 0 s % 2 5 2 2 % 2 6 e d a n _
fq%255B1%255D%3Dtopic%253A%2522Portraits%2522%26edan_local%3D1.
2.9 Uknown Author, 079-0015 Sabine Hall, updated March 22, 2019, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, accessed
January 17, 2021, https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/079-0015/.
2.10 TFP, (UVA Special Collections), Mss 38-62-a, Inventory Book of Edward T. Tayloe: 17.
 147

Coda - Figures
2.11 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118b 5, Account Book of John Tayloe, 1749-1768.
2.12 Philip Miller, Gardeners Dictionary, 1735, (London: Bible and Crown, 1735), 4-5.
Chapter Three: Physical Landscape
3.1 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
3.2 Graphic created by author.
3.3 Image taken by author, May 18, 2019.
3.4 U.S. Department of the Interior, Tappahannock Quadrangle [map], 1:24,000, Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey,
National Center, 2016.
3.5 Bryan Wright, Gunter’s Chain: Early Surveying in America, Colonial Sense accessed March 21, 2021, http://www.
colonialsense.com/Society-Lifestyle/Signs_of_the_Times/Gunter%27s_Chain.php.
3.6 Erin Holmes, A Few Technical Items: Questions about 18th Century Surveying Instruments Answered (Part I), December
12, 2019, American Philisophical Society accessed March 27, 2021, https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/few-technical-
items-questions-about-18th-century-surveying-instruments-answered-part-i.
3.7 Unknown Artist, The Plantation, 1825, oil on wood, 19.125 in. x 29.5 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed
January 21, 2021, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/12968.
3.8 U.S. Department of the Interior, Geologic Map and Generalized Cross Sections of the Coastal Plain and Adjacent Parts
of the Piedmont, Virginia [map], 1:250,000, Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, National Center, 1989.
3.9 Image taken by author, June 14, 2019.
3.10 Image taken by author, June 27, 2019.
3.11 Image taken by author, July 4, 2019.
3.12 Image taken by author, July 4, 2019.
3.13 Image taken by author, July 4, 2019.
3.14 Unknown Author, Sabine Hall, Warsaw Virginia, July 28,2016 Historic Structures accessed March 27, 2021, http://
www.historic-structures.com/va/warsaw/sabine_hall.php.
3.15 C. Allan Brown, “Eighteenth-Century Virginia Plantation Gardens: Translating an Ancient Idyll,” in Regional Garden
Design in the United States, eds. Therese O’Malley and Marc Treib (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for
Harvard University, 1995): 153.
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Coda - Figures
3.16 Graphic created by author.
3.17 Model created by author. Image taken by author, February 1, 2020.
3.18 Graphic created by author.
3.19 Graphic created by author.
3.20 Graphic created by author.
3.21 Eric Sloane, Our Vanishing Landscape, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974): 33.
3.22 Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service, Album 06991, Photo 13.
3.23 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 1, 2019.
3.24 Image taken by author, February 1, 2020.
3.25 Graphic created by author.
3.26 Image taken by author, May 14, 2019.
3.27 Graphic created by author.
3.28 Image taken by author, May 14, 2019.
3.29 Image taken by author, June 3, 2019.
3.30 Graphic created by author.
3.31 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 1, 2019.
3.32 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 1, 2019.
Chapter Four: Cultural Landscape
4.1 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.2 Image taken by author, July 4, 2019.
4.3 Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Mémin, John Tayloe III, head-and-shoulders portrait, right profile, 1806, “The
Library of Congress”, <https://www.loc.gov/item/2007676872/> (November 7, 2021).
4.4 Graphic created by author.
4.5 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1808-1827.
4.6 Mount Airy Declaration of Assurance, Mutual Assurance Society, September 18, 1805.
4.7 Anthony St. John Baker, Southwest Front as Viewed from the Bowling Green, 1827, The National Gallery of Art, accessed
 149

Coda - Figures
November 13, 2021, https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Anthony_St._John_Baker.
4.8 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, HABS VA,80-WAR.V,4E-.
4.9 Graphic created by author.
4.10 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.11 Image taken by author, June 14, 2019.
4.12 Image taken by Joni Hammons, June 23, 2019.
4.13 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 4, 2019.
4.14 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 4, 2019.
4.15 Graphic created by author.
4.16 Graphic created by author.
4.17 Arthur Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” The Architectural Review 6, no. 8 (Aug., 1899): 94.
4.18 Architects’ Emergency Committee, Great Georgian Houses of America, Vol. 1, (New York: The Kalkhoff Press, Inc.,
1933): 53.
4.19 Image taken by author, June 3, 2019.
4.20 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.21 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.22 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 1, 2019.
4.23 Graphic created by author.
4.24 Graphic created by author.
4.25 Graphic created by author.
4.26 Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” 94.
4.27 Brooke, “A Colonial Mansion of Virginia,” 94.
4.28 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, HABS VA,80-WAR.V,4--10.
4.29 Barrows and Waterman, Domestic Colonial Architecture, 136.
4.30 Image taken by Joni Hammons, July 1, 2019.
4.31 Image taken by author, May 14, 2019.
4.32 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
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Coda - Figures
4.33 Image taken by author, June 3, 2019.
4.34 National Gallery of Art, Deer Park, History of Early American Landscape Design, accessed November 25, 2021, https://
heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Deer_park.
4.35 Graphic created by author.
4.36 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.37 Image taken by author, June 11, 2019.
4.38 Image taken by author, June 11, 2019.
4.39 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.40 Image taken by author, May 14, 2019.
4.41 Image taken by author, June 29, 2019.
4.42 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
4.43 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 10, Minute Book, 1811-1812.
4.44 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
4.45 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 7293, Minute Book, 1824-1830.
4.46 Teal Brooks, Megan Cantwell, and Eve Otmar, Five of Our Favorite Garden Tools, Colonial Williamsburg accessed
November 27, 2021, https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/living-history/five-our-favorite-garden-tools/.
4.47 Teal Brooks, Megan Cantwell, and Eve Otmar, Five of Our Favorite Garden Tools, Colonial Williamsburg accessed
November 27, 2021, https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/living-history/five-our-favorite-garden-tools/.
4.48 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118d 538, Inventory Book, 1808-1827.
4.49 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, HABS VA,80-WAR.V,4--44 (CT).
4.50 Graphic created by author.
4.51 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, HABS VA,80-WAR.V,4--23.
4.52 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, HABS VA,80-WAR.V,4--24.
4.53 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.54 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.55 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.56 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
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4.57 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.58 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.59 Graphic created by author.
4.60 Arthur A. Shurcliff, “Landscape Plan of Mount Airy,” Warsaw, Virginia, June 1931, Southern Colonial Places
Architectural Drawings Collections, image # S-1223.
4.61 Image taken by author, June 11, 2019.
4.62 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.63 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.64 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.65 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.66 Image taken by author, May 13, 2019.
4.67 Arthur A. Shurcliff, “Landscape Plan of Mount Airy,” Warsaw, Virginia, June 1931, Southern Colonial Places
Architectural Drawings Collections, image # S-1223.
4.68 TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
4.69 Graphic created by author; TFP, (Virginia Historical Society), Mss1 T2118a 11, Minute Book, 1813-1818.
4.70 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, HABS VA,80-WAR.V,4D-.
Chapter Five: Coda
5.1 Image taken by author, June 3, 2019.
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Coda - Selected Bibliography

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