Oldal 570 [570]
THE MEADOWS
O be real a garden must be secluded, it must be
fragrant, and it must be ripened by years of close
association with the people who made and loved it.
In the year 1817, Captain Francis Smith and his
Yai wife bought an estate of three thousand acres near
i the town of Abingdon, Virginia, and named it
Mary’s Meadows in honor of their only child, Mary, who was
then only five years old. The Bloor Crown Derby china made for
them at this time has an S, with ‘‘Mary’s Meadows” in gold, orna¬
menting each piece. The name of the place was changed later to
‘“The Meadows.”
When Mary Smith married Wyndham Robertson, at one time
Governor of Virginia, the family lived in Richmond, only returning
to their place in the mountains for part of the year. After the
War Between the States, however, the Robertsons made The
Meadows their permanent home.
The grandson of Francis Smith, Captain Frank S. Robertson,
inherited ‘“The Meadows.” As a student at the University in
1861 he was one of the “‘Sons of Liberty” that aided in the capture
of Harper’s Ferry after the John Brown raid. After Virginia
seceded he was lieutenant of engineers on General J. E. B.
Stuart’s staff until General Stuart was killed. [hen he served as
engineer officer on the staff of General W. H. F. Lee until the close
of the war in 1865. Since that time he has made ‘“The Meadows”
his home. |
The Meadows is far from Tidewater Virginia; twenty-three
hundred feet above sea level, and in the midst of the Alleghany
Mountains. It was almost on the frontier in the year 1819, when
the big garden, covering two acres, was planned and most of its
trees and shrubs planted. This garden was surrounded by a paling
1349]