A Botanical Beehive of poetry and belief in Philadelphian gardens. A radical refiguring of garden culture in colonial Pennsylvania before 1719

Abstract

AbstractBotanical Beehive describes and interprets an example of a relationship between belief, imagination, reading, writing, and the art of gardening in colonial Pennsylvania. The religious symbolism and poetic significance of a garden and plants in the day-to-day lives of many German and Dutch immigrants in Pennsylvania was distinct from English, Quaker, garden design. A poetic botanical language evolved from the confluence of multiple European languages, German early modern botany, and German Pietist beliefs of Germantown colonists. This language was a basis of an art of gardening that influenced the ordering and meaning of ornamental and productive garden culture in Germantown. Evidence of this art can be found in the writings and botanical illuminations of Germantown settler Francis Pastorius. His writing documents a garden of over two hundred and twenty species of exotic, ornamental, culinary, and medicinal plants that he cultivated in his garden, orchard, vineyard, and fields. This art influenced the development of the botanical fractur typography and illuminations of the monastic brothers and sisters of Ephrata Cloister. What you will find in this art is an imaginative and productive relationship with plants and language that formed a foundation of Philadelphia’s 18th-century transatlantic horticultural influence.Keywords: Botanypoetrynature printingpietism AcknowledgmentsI would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of many people in the development of this this article: Sonja Dümpelmann, Chantel White, Meredith Hacking, John Pollack, Peter Stallybrass, James Duffin, Joel Fry, and Mandy Katz of Bartram’s Garden. The garden, which is the subject of this article, was made on traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape, called “Lenapehoking.” The Lenape People lived in harmony with one another upon Pennsylvania territory for thousands of years. During the colonial era and early federal period, many were removed west and north. I honor the Lenni-Lenape as the original people of Germantown and Pennsylvania, their continuing relationship with their territory, and everlasting presence and influence in the making of gardens in North America.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Pastorius, ‘Beehive, Bee-Stock’, 140–141, V1.2. His manuscripts and letters are held in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Library Company of Philadelphia and Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at University of Pennsylvania.3. Witt was Pastorius’ neighbor, a member of the Women of the Wilderness Pietist group, physician, and active gardener who regularly corresponded with John Bartram and Peter Collinson. Pastorius taught Zachary philosophy, language, and nature printing. Zachary later practiced as a physician and was a founder of Pennsylvania Hospital and University of Pennsylvania.4. For more about Witt, see: Hocker, Edward W. A Doctor of Colonial Germantown : Christopher Witt, Physician, Mystic and Seeker after the Truth. 8th ed. Vol. II. Germantown History. Philadelphia: Germantown Historical Society, 1948.5. For more about Kelpius and the Society of the Women of the Wilderness, see: Lehman, Christian, and Joseph Lehman. “An Explanation of the Original Location and General Plan or Draught of the Lands and Lots of Germantown and Creesam Townships Copied from Matthias Zimmerman’s Original of June 26th AD 1746 and of the Several Districts and Divisions Thereof Part Extracted from Original of Former Draughts & Part Done Utaken from Actual Mensuration Drawn.,” July 28, 1766. Germantown Historical Society.6. Marie Basile McDaniel, “Immigration and Migration (Colonial Era),” in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, 2014.7. Witt was an eccentric English resident in the Women of the Wilderness community of German Pietists and neighbor of Francis Pastorius. Witt also corresponded with Peter Collinson in England. Details of Witt’s garden are not fully understood but it is clear that he maintained a large garden and botanized throughout the mid-Atlantic region until the end of his life in 1765.8. Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, ed., “The Early Modern Period (1450-1720),” in The Cambridge History of German Literature (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 92–5. “Humanism” and “Lutheran Humanism” are historical terms used to characterize these cultural and intellectual movements.9. Melchior Adam Pastorius as a child, was a Roman Catholic, educated at Jesuit university in Rome, but converted to Lutheranism as a young adult. His conversion was likely political as it secured appointments in the town senates of Sommerhausen and Windsheim and a wealthy livelihood for himself and family.10. John David Weaver, “Franz Daniel Pastorius (1651-c. 1720): Early Life in Germany with Glimpses of His Removal to Pennsylvania (Colonial, Seventeenth-Century, German-American Pietism, Authoritarianism)” (University of California, Davis, 1985), 127, University of California, Davis, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1985.11. These notebooks were written in Pennsylvania before 1719 and survive at the Kislak Center at The University of Pennsylvania.12. Pastorius owned and cited Oeconomia ruralis et domestica : darin das gantz Ampt aller trewer Hauss-Vätter und Hauss-Mütter beständiges und allgemeines Hauss-Buch vom Hausshalten, Wein- Acker- Gärten- Blumen- und Feld-Bau begriffen, by Johann Coler, published in 1665. This is an example of a Lutheran morality applied in the maintenance of a household and community. Oeconomia here refers to household management. See Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning, Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation, p. 118.13. Gerald Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning, Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 91–92.14. Christoph Vischer was a Lutheran ecclesiastic and published several education treatises. He believed that children in their natural state were wild and undisciplined and that Lutheran parents had a duty to mold and educate their children as pious Christians. See Strauss, pp. 62 and 96.15. Redemptive in that it healed his original sinful condition that Lutheran theology assumes in all people (the fall of Adam) and freed him from his ‘sinful’ life of privilege and wealth in Franconia, Germany.16. Pastorius attended various universities but finished at Altdorf University. Altdorf, although small, had the second largest botanical garden in northern Europe. It was a garden of scientific and poetic inquiry. See: Cooper, Alix. Inventing the Indigenous Local Knowledge and Natural History in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.17. Commonplacing was a common practice of Renaissance scholars. When Pastorius read a book, he would record passages and observations in his notebooks. He organized these notes based on an index of keywords, much like an encyclopedia. He had several of these notebooks, two of which survive.18. See: Henderich, Garret, derick up de graeff, Francis daniell Pastorius, and Abrahamup Den graef. “A Minute Against Slavery, Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting, 1688, This Is to Ye Monthly Meeting Held at Richard Worrell’s.” Présence Africaine 1, no. N 169 (2004): 105–9.19. Jennifer A. Herdt, Forming Humanity, Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 7.20. Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable, trans. Michael B. Smith, vol. One, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Chicago and London: THe University of Chicago Press, 1992), 5.21. John Joseph Stoudt, Pennsylvania German Folk Art (Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, 1966), See Chapter 2.22. Certeau, The Mystic Fable, One, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries:9–10.23. Francis Daniel Pastorius 1651-1719, “Deliciae Hortenses, or, Garden-Recreations, 1711” (n.d.), Title Page, German Amer. Col, Joseph Horner Memorial Library, German Society of Pennsylvania.24. Francis Daniel Pastorius 1651-1719 and Christoph E. Schweitzer, Deliciae Hortenses, or Garden-Recreations; and Voluptates Apianae, Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture v. 2 (Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1982), 73.25. Pastorius and Schweitzer, 91. Schweitzer translation of : « Non levis est Cespes, quin probet esse Deum. » found on page 58.26. See Andrew Weeks, German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Literary and Intellectual History (Albany N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993). and Grell, Ole Peter, and Andrew Cunningham, eds. Medicine and the Reformation. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.27. Pastorius and Schweitzer, Deliciae Hortenses, or Garden-Recreations; and Voluptates Apianae, 51.28. Pastorius, “Beehive, Bee-Stock,” 558 V. 2.29. Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe, New Approaches to European History (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 16.30. Douglas H. Shantz, An Introduction to German Pietism, Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe, Young Center Books in Anabaptist & Pietist Studies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 20.31. Jakob Böhme, Aurora : That Is, the Day-Spring or Dawning of the Day in the Orient or Morning-Rednesse in the Rising of the Sun. That Is, the Root of Mother of Philosophie, Astrologie and Theologie from the True Ground or a Description of Nature (London, n.d.).32. Weeks, German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Literary and Intellectual History, 179 & 183.33. Pastorius, “Beehive, Bee-Stock,” 168, V. 1.34. See Martin, Lucinda. “The ‘Language of Canaan’: Pietism’s Esoteric Sociolect.” ARIES 12 (2012): 237–53.35. His neighbors Christopher Witt and Johannes Kelpius and his following fully embraced the same imagery. See chapter 3.36. Stoudt, Pennsylvania German Folk Art, Chapter 4.37. I am referring her to Michel de Certeau’s theories of a mystical engagement with the world mentioned earlier.38. Pastorius considered the families of Isaac Norris, William Penn, and James Logan his friends. They corresponded about gardening and the business of settling Pennsylvania.39. Alex Preminger, ed., “Ut Pictura Poesis,” in Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012), 882.40. Logan (Stenton), Norris (Fairhill), and Penn (Pennsbury) are well known as they were avid gardeners engaged with the practical aspects of their gardens and plantations. All three aspired to Quaker aesthetics and the English Garden.41. Pastorius and Schweitzer, Deliciae Hortenses, or Garden-Recreations; and Voluptates Apianae, 43.42. Pastorius and Schweitzer, 87.43. H. Rushton Fairclouch and Horace, Satires, Epistles, The Art of Poetry, Loeb Classical Library 194 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), 453, lines 38–43.44. Fairclouch and Horace, 459–461. Schweitzer called attention to this citation, see Pastorius and Schweitzer, p. 87.45. Schweitzer suggested that Pastorius was a gentlman gardener, but my analysis of all of his garden writing suggests that he did labor in his fields, gardens, and vineyards. He likely hired paid labor to assist, but Pastorius and his family were primarily responsible for the productively of their six acres in Germantown.46. Pastorius and Schweitzer, Deliciae Hortenses, or Garden-Recreations; and Voluptates Apianae, 44.47. Pastorius and Schweitzer, 87. See Chapter six and Appendix E.48. Fairclouch and Horace, Satires, Epistles, The Art of Poetry, 477, lines 309–310 & 317–318.49. Pastorius, “Beehive, Bee-Stock,” 178–179 (V. 1).50. Pastorius, 178–79, V1.51. F. D. Pastorius, “A Monthly Monitor Briefly Showing When Our Works Ought to Be Done in Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, Fields, Meadows, and Woods”” (1701), 21, Francis Daniel Pastorius papers 1683–1719, Collection 0475, V. 7, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.52. ‘Closet’ to Pastorius could mean a closet or cabinet in a room inside his house, but it could also mean an entire room in the garden, perhaps an outbuilding in his garden. Isaac Norris’s son used ‘Closet’ to refer to his library in an outbuilding in his garden. See, Reinberger, Mark, and Elizabeth McLean. “Isaac Norris’s Fairhill: Architecture, Landscape, and Quaker Ideals in a Philadelphia Colonial Country Seat.” Winterthur Portfolio 32, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 243–274.53. Pastorius, “A Monthly Monitor Briefly Showing When Our Works Ought to Be Done in Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, Fields, Meadows, and Woods”,” 85.54. Pastorius, “Beehive, Bee-Stock,” 191 (V1).55. Anthony Grafton, “The Republic of Letters in the American Colonies: Francis Daniel Pastorius Makes a Notebook, Presidential Address,” The American Historical Review 117, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 25.56. Grafton, 25.57. Pastorius and Schweitzer, Deliciae Hortenses, or Garden-Recreations; and Voluptates Apianae, 61 and 93. This transcription is taken from Christoph Schweitzer’s edited publication of Pastorius’ Garden Recreations poems. I have used his notations and partial translations found in his footnotes as well as Patrick Erben’s translation of Poem 15 found in Erben, Patrick, Alfred L. Brophy, and Margo M. Lambert, eds. The Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader, Writings by an Early American Polymath. Max Kade Research Institute Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, pp. 250–251.58. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments Newly Translated out of the Original Tongues : And with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised, by His Majesty’s Special Command (Oxford: Printed by the University printers, 1706).59. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments [Electronic Resource] (Oxford: Printed by John Baskett, 1719), http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/159988.60. Weeks, German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Literary and Intellectual History, 125.61. Weeks, 129.62. Weeks, 130.63. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments Newly Translated out of the Original Tongues : And with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised, by His Majesty’s Special Command., Genesis 3:19. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”64. a handful.65. Francis Daniel Pastorius, “Francis Daniel Pastorius Papers 1683–1719” (n.d.), Vol. 5, Collection No. 0475, Pennsylvania Historical Society.66. Stoudt, Pennsylvania German Folk Art, 133.67. Stoudt, 140.68. Therese O’Malley, Keywords in American Landscape Design (Washington, [D.C.] : Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art ; New Haven, [Conn.] : in association with Yale University Press, c2010., n.d.), 370.69. Brandt, “Perplexion and Pleasure: The Geistlicher Irrgarten Broadsides in the German American Printshop, Home, and Mind,” 14–15.70. Brandt, 17.71. Trevor Carl Brandt, “Perplexion and Pleasure: The Geistlicher Irrgarten Broadsides in the German American Printshop, Home, and Mind” (Master Thesis, University of Delaware, 2017).72. This conclusion is based on Brandt but also my own experience setting type. To set type as a labyrinth using traditional methods required careful planning, calibration, experience and skill to achieve alignments and legibility in multiple orientations. Those that printed textual labyrinths were master printers.73. Brandt, 116.74. Oskar Kilian and Wittrud Sittig Cornish, “Konrad Beisel (1691-1768): Founder of the Ephrata Cloister in Pennsylvania, Part 1,” Bach 7, no. 3 (July 1976): 27–28.75. Oskar Kilian, “Konrad Beisel (1691-1768): Founder of the Cloister in Pennsylvania, Part II,” Bach 7, no. 4 (October 1976): 34.76. Henrich Otto, “Spiritual Labyrinth (Geistlicher Irrgarten)” (Letterpress Print, Ephrata, PA, 1785). Translation, Free Library of Philadelphia.77. Brandt, “Perplexion and Pleasure: The Geistlicher Irrgarten Broadsides in the German American Printshop, Home, and Mind,” 2.78. Erben, Brophy, and Lambert, The Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader, Writings by an Early American Polymath, 300.79. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments [Electronic Resource] (Oxford: Printed by John Baskett, 1719), Isa. 58:11, http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/159988.80. Brandt, “Perplexion and Pleasure: The Geistlicher Irrgarten Broadsides in the German American Printshop, Home, and Mind,” 3.81. Brandt, 3–4.82. Penelope Reed Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages (Ithica, London: Cornell University Press, 1990), Chapter 2.83. Doob, Chapter 2.84. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments [Electronic Resource], Genesis 3:19.85. Erben, Brophy, and Lambert, The Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader, Writings by an Early American Polymath, 300.86. “Climacteric, Adj. and n.,” in Oxford Online (Oxford University Press, June 2020), https://www-oed-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/view/Entry/34310?redirectedFrom=climacterick (accessed June 12, 2020). A ‘climacteric’ in this use can be understood as “a critical period or moment in history, a person’s life or career.”