Williamsburg's Joseph Prentis

Williamsburg's Joseph Prentis

Author: Joseph Prentis

Publisher: Colonial Williamsburg

Published: 2011-01-01

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 0879352507

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The personal garden book and garden calendar of Joseph Prentis, an attorney in Williamsburg, Virginia. Prentis's garden directions and advice provide us with an interesting and useful garden record. These manuscripts from eighteenth-century tidewater Virginia are a welcome addition to kitchen garden literature.


The Pleasure Gardens of Virginia

The Pleasure Gardens of Virginia

Author: Peter Martin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1400887097

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Using a rich assortment of illustrations and biographical sketches, Peter Martin relates the experiences of colonial gardeners who shaped the natural beauty of Virginia's wilderness into varied displays of elegance. He shows that ornamental gardening was a scientific, aesthetic, and cultural enterprise that thoroughly engaged some of the leading figures of the period, including the British governors at Williamsburg and the great plantation owners George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, William Byrd, and John Custis. In presenting accounts of their gardening efforts, Martin reveals the intricacies of colonial garden design, plant searches, experimentation, and the problems in adapting European landscaping ideas to local climate. These writings also bring to life the social and commercial interaction between Williamsburg and the plantations, together with early American ideas about cultured living. While placing Virginia's gardening in the larger context of the colonial South, Martin tells a very human story of how this art both influenced and reflected the quality of colonial life. As Virginia grew economically and culturally, the garden became a projection of the gardener's personal identity, as exemplified by the endeavors of Washington and Jefferson at Mount Vernon and Monticello. In order to recapture the gardens as they existed in colonial times, Martin brings together paintings, drawings, and the findings of modern archaeological excavations. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The American Dreams of John B. Prentis, Slave Trader

The American Dreams of John B. Prentis, Slave Trader

Author: Kari J. Winter

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0820339539

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As a young man, John B. Prentis (1788-1848) expressed outrage over slavery, but by the end of his life he had transported thousands of enslaved persons from the upper to the lower South. Kari J. Winter's life-and-times portrayal of a slave trader illuminates the clash between two American dreams: one of wealth, the other of equality. Prentis was born into a prominent Virginia family. His grandfather, William Prentis, emigrated from London to Williamsburg in 1715 as an indentured servant and rose to become the major shareholder in colonial Virginia's most successful store. William's son Joseph became a Revolutionary judge and legislator who served alongside Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison. Joseph Jr. followed his father's legal career, whereas John was drawn to commerce. To finance his early business ventures, he began trading in slaves. In time he grew besotted with the high-stakes trade, appeasing his conscience with the populist platitudes of Jacksonian democracy, which aggressively promoted white male democracy in conjunction with white male supremacy. Prentis's life illuminates the intertwined politics of labor, race, class, and gender in the young American nation. Participating in a revolution in the ethics of labor that upheld Benjamin Franklin as its icon, he rejected the gentility of his upbringing to embrace solidarity with "mechanicks," white working-class men. His capacity for admirable thoughts and actions complicates images drawn by elite slaveholders, who projected the worst aspects of slavery onto traders while imagining themselves as benign patriarchs. This is an absorbing story of a man who betrayed his innate sense of justice to pursue wealth through the most vicious forms of human exploitation.


Bible Records of Suffolk and Nansemond County, Virginia

Bible Records of Suffolk and Nansemond County, Virginia

Author: Fillmore Norfleet

Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com

Published: 2009-06

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0806346221

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Inasmuch as Nansemond County's official records were totally destroyed by fires in 1734, 1779, and 1866, the work at hand, originally published in 1963 and itself now quite scarce, represents a valiant effort to reconstruct something of Nansemond's genealogical heritage from the records of its surrounding counties. The core of the book consists of the contents of nearly 100 Bibles arranged alphabetically according to the surname of the book's owner, and, thereunder, in progressions of marriages, births, and deaths. In all, more than 1,000 mostly 18th- and 19th-century inhabitants of Suffolk and Nansemond are here rescued from obscurity and further made accessible in the index to Bible records at the back. Also includes transcriptions of marriage records and several other miscellaneous lists.


"A Rich Spot of Earth"

Author: Peter J. Hatch

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0300171145

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Featuring more than 150 stunning full-color illustrations, this volume traces the history of Jefferson's unique vegetable garden, which has been painstakingly restored by the author, from the artichokes and asparagus first planted in 1770 through the horticultural experiments of Jefferson's retirement years.


Plants of Colonial Williamsburg

Plants of Colonial Williamsburg

Author: Joan Parry Dutton

Publisher: Colonial Williamsburg

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780879350420

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Offers a guide to over 200 species of trees, flowers, and herbs from colonial Williamsburg


Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way

Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way

Author: Wesley Greene

Publisher: Rodale Books

Published: 2012-02-14

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1609611632

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From the nation's foremost historical preservation site comes a guide to traditional—and still relevant—methods and advice for planting and tending a productive vegetable garden In a colonial-style garden, the broccoli is purple and "turkey" cucumbers grow to three feet long; oiled paper predates plastic for sheltering spring plants; and fermenting manure warms the seedlings. Finding inspiration and value in 18th-century plants, tools, and techniques, the gardeners at Colonial Williamsburg have discovered that these traditional vegetable-growing methods are perfectly at home in today's modern organic gardens. After all, in the 18th century, organic gardening was the only type of gardening and local produce the only produce available. Author Wesley Greene founded the Colonial Garden in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area in 1996. He and his colleagues have painstakingly researched the ways the colonists planted and tended their vegetable and herb beds, most of which are more relevant than ever. Along with historical commentary and complete growing instructions for 50 delicious vegetables, including colonial varieties still available today, gardeners and folklorists will find weather-watching guidelines, planting techniques, and seedsaving advice for legumes, brassicas, alliums, root crops, nightshades, melons, squash, greens, and other curious and tender produce.


Williamsburg Wills, Being Transcriptions from the Original Files at the Chancery Court of Williamsburg

Williamsburg Wills, Being Transcriptions from the Original Files at the Chancery Court of Williamsburg

Author: William Armstrong Crozier

Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com

Published: 1954

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 0806305673

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Since Williamsburg was the site of a colonial chancery court, the town retained copies of depositions, court orders, and wills from various Virginia counties. Although most of the early records were destroyed in various fires, all the wills of the chancery court had already been abstracted, and it is these will abstracts which comprise this volume. Williamsburg Wills consists of abstracts of 350 wills from the chancery court, containing information not to be found anywhere else. Arranged alphabetically according to the name of the testator, the abstracts, typically, furnish the date of the will and the date of probate, the name of the county, and the names, with relationships, of all heirs.