Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set ForthEarle, Alice Morse
History
Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
Earle, Alice Morse
Gardens; Landscape gardening
In this book are three other sun-dials associated with George
Washington. At Mount Vernon there stands at the front of the entrance
door a modern sun-dial. The fine old metal dial-face, about ten inches
in diameter, which in Washington's day was placed on the same site, is
now the property of Mr. William F. Havemeyer, Jr., of New York. It was
given to him by Mr. Custis; a picture of it is shown on page 368. This
dial-face is a splendid relic; one closely associated with Washington's
everyday life, and full of suggestion and sentiment to every thoughtful
beholder. The sun-dial which stood in the old Fredericksburg garden of
Mary Washington, the mother of George Washington, still stands in
Fredericksburg, in the grounds of Mr. Doswell. A photograph of it is
reproduced on page 369. The fourth historic dial is on page 371. It is
the one at Kenmore, the home built by Fielding Lewis for his bride,
Betty Washington, the sister of George Washington, on ground adjoining
her mother's home. A part of the garden which connected these two
Washington homes is shown on page 228. These three American sun-dials
afford an interesting proof of the universal presence of sun-dials in
Virginian homes of wealth, and they also show the kind of dial-face
which was generally used. Another ancient dial (page 350) at Travellers'
Rest, a near-by Virginian country seat, is similar in shape to these
three, and differs but little in mounting.
In Pennsylvania and Virginia sun-dials have lingered in use in front of
court-houses, on churches, and in a few old garden dials. In New England
I scarcely know an old garden dial still standing in its original place
on its original pedestal. Four old ones of brass or pewter are shown in
the illustration on page 379. These once stood in New England gardens or
on the window sills of old houses; one was taken from a sunny window
ledge to give to me.
Perhaps the attention paid the doings of the American Philosophical
Society, and the number of scientists living near Philadelphia, may
account for the many sun-dials set up in the vicinity of the town.
Godfrey, the maker of Godfrey's Quadrant, was one of those scientific
investigators, and must have been a famous "dialler."
[Illustration: Kenmore, the Home of Betty Washington Lewis.]
On page 373 is shown an ancient sun-dial in the garden of Charles F.
Jenkins, Esq., in Germantown, Pennsylvania. This sun-dial originally
belonged to Nathan Spencer, who lived in Germantown prior to and during
the Revolutionary War. Hepzibah Spencer, his daughter, married, and took
the sun-dial to Byberry. Her daughter carried the sun-dial to Gwynedd
when her name was changed to Jenkins; and their grandson, the present
owner, rescued it from the chicken house with the gnomon missing, which
was afterward found. Its inscription, "Time waits for No Man," is an old
punning device on the word gnomon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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