Stranica 137 [137]
AN OLD RICHMOND GARDEN
—IN the good old days of Richmond there stood on
| the square bounded by Franklin, Adams, Jefferson
1 and Main Streets, two large stucco houses sur¬
rounded by gardens. That nearest Adams Street
was owned by Dr. Robert Archer, and the other
by his son-in-law, General Joseph R. Anderson,
C.S. A. Dr. Archer’s house, somewhat changed, became later the
property of his grandson, Colonel Archer Anderson, whose wife
and children still own it.
Just half of the old garden remains, with its primeval trees;
its old brick walls covered with ivy, honeysuckle and Madeira vine.
There, every spring, come up afresh the lilies of the valley from
the garden of Edgar Allan Poe’s foster mother. There the cow¬
slips and peonies and Harrison roses bloom today as they did when
"old miss" (as Mrs. Harrison of Brandon was called by her
intimates) sent them with her own hands to my mother so many
years ago! There still are the circular benches around the
enormous trees; and there, too, bloom the honeysuckle, microphylla
roses, mimosa tree and so many shrubs from the beautiful old
garden at Fortsville, the John Y. Mason country home.
Fortsville, an estate of one thousand acres lying in Southampton
and Sussex Counties, came to Judge Mason through his wife, Miss
Fort (de Fort). The oldest part of the house was built of origi¬
nal timbers which were pegged together by wooden pins—having
been constructed before iron nails were used. Ihe garden, too, was
old and unique. A centre mound, on which was a small maze of large
box bushes and “grey man’s beard’’—I always likened it to Rosa¬
mond’s Bower—dominated the garden, which went from it like
the spokes of a wheel, in green sunken alleys and masses of flowers.
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