Genius of Place (9 page)

Olmsted could picture various places throughout the state—the sites of his boyhood wanderings—and had formed a very clear idea of the kind of farm he wanted. As he spelled out in a letter written from Fairmount, the fields should be situated right on the ocean. A seaside farm in Connecticut—it was a picturesque notion and also very specific.

What he lacked was money. But his father agreed to buy him such a farm, even to stake him to the funds necessary to purchase tools, seed, and other necessities. John Senior's dry goods store continued to be highly profitable, and he could afford to help out. Olmsted had tried out so many different lines of work. Buying a farm was a worthwhile expenditure, if only it would help get his son settled, at last.

The farm Olmsted chose was on Sachem's Head, a little spit of land that juts out into Long Island Sound. It was only about fifteen miles from New Haven, where John was finishing up his final year at Yale. Charley Brace had just started Yale Divinity School, and Fred Kingsbury had just
entered the law school. His home in Hartford was just a couple hours away on horseback. Olmsted would be in easy range of his “uncommon set” of friends and his family as well.

But the farm itself was a less attractive proposition. It cost $4,000, hardly cheap, and only a fraction of the 60 acres was even usable, with much of it given over to rocky coastline. Where actual farming was possible, Ebenezer Bartlett, the previous owner, had been completely unimaginative, alternating corn and potatoes year after year. By the time Olmsted took over, the soil was much abused and depleted of nutrients.

There was a modest little clapboard farmhouse, unpainted and riddled with cracks and holes. Drainage was terrible, and run-off water from the fields flowed right past the front door on its way to the sea. When it rained hard, the house sat in a swamp. “Real juicy” is how Olmsted described his new living conditions. The barn was on the verge of collapse.

Still, from the highest point on the property, the view across Long Island Sound was breathtaking. Olmsted had grand plans for the little farm. Olmsted hired a man named Henry Davis to serve as his helper, paying him one dollar a day. Davis had a wife and a small baby. Because even a small farm requires ample work, Olmsted also brought in a field hand and a maidservant, who worked in exchange for board. These five people and Olmsted were now all packed into the cramped farmhouse. As part of that modest one-dollar fee, Davis's wife agreed to do the cooking for the household. Olmsted and his help set to fixing up the farm, as much as that was possible.

John came down from New Haven late in the spring of 1847 to visit Fred. While the Sachem's Head spread was anything but a model farm, he was immediately struck by how his older brother seemed to have taken to the agrarian life. Olmsted had grown deeply tanned from working long hours in the sun. And his conversation was full of references to the price of potatoes and the best method of turning a furrow. Olmsted had even gone and bought the perfect farm dog, a big Newfoundland that he'd named “Neptune”—“Nep” for short.

At the same time, John couldn't contain his amusement at Fred's newly adopted sartorial air. When not working the fields, Olmsted went
in for a tweedy, country-squire look that included a nice jacket, a cap even. In a letter to their mutual Yale friend Kingsbury, John described the scene as his brother loaded a cart in preparation to travel to the nearby town of Guilford on some farm business. He recounted what Fred was wearing, before offering slyly, “I don't believe there is much danger of his losing his dignity.”

In another letter to Kingsbury, John pondered whether Fred should have devoted more effort to college. Perhaps he should have spent more than three months at Yale. Maybe farming was a poor choice, given his brother's admittedly “fine capabilities.” Then again, Fred seemed capable only of pursuing interests that engaged his passions. These were so fickle. In still another letter John wrote, “I hope the present object of his affections i.e. the farm will not be as ephemeral as most of them seem to have been.”

Here, John was talking about his brother's professional life, but he might as well have been talking about his love life. Olmsted was an intriguing character, no question. His foibles, his quirky behavior, his wild notions—all provided rich fodder for discussions behind his back among the uncommon set of friends. In this flurry of letters to Kingsbury, in the sheer amount of ink John devoted to his brother and the new farm, one also detects the hint of something else—sibling rivalry, the illicit thrill of feeling superior to another person, maybe both.

“It is pretty much all true what you say about Fred,” Kingsbury replied. “But living and growing and experience will have to answer for him instead of college discipline. He is an enthusiast by nature though, and all the Greek and Latin in the world wouldn't have driven that out of him.”

Olmsted dove into farm life with aplomb. He put all his effort into making a success of the farm at Sachem's Head. To go along with the staple potatoes, he planted new crops such as onions and turnips. He even wrote letters to various publications seeking advice on farming. These letters are the very first published works by Olmsted. There's one to the
Boston Cultivator
from a “young farmer” inquiring about the merits of using seaweed and fish as fertilizer. And there's another to the
Horticulturist
, a new publication run by Andrew Jackson Downing, a celebrated
arbiter of rural style and taste. The
Horticulturist
letter asks advice about planting fruit trees in a coastal setting. Signed: “F. L. Olmsted, Sachem's Head, Guilford, CT.” Downing responded by suggesting some varieties of apples that might be appropriate.

During this time, Olmsted also wrote a letter to Brace, exhorting him, “There's a great
work
wants doing in this our generation, Charley, let us off jacket and go about it.” It's a high-flown sentiment, a call to action. It also has clear echoes of the personal resolve Olmsted had formed while apprenticing with Geddes and reading that strange novel,
Sartor Resartus
. He was laying down a challenge for Charley and a challenge to himself: They must embark on great works for the benefit of others.

Even so, Olmsted had spent precious little time on his own as a farmer at this point. He was hardly in a position to do any noble outreach to the surrounding community. He'd barely made the acquaintance of any of his fellow farmers. Those few he'd met, he found clannish and close-minded.

Fortunately, Sachem's Head House was within walking distance of his farm. Head House, as it was known, was the finest resort along the Connecticut coast, a place frequented by well-to-do lawyers and merchants. Olmsted was familiar with the place, having gone there as a boy on family trips to the shore. Head House held regular afternoon tea and formal evening dances. Olmsted became a frequent attendee. He began spending time in the company of Ellen Day, an eighteen-year-old woman who was visiting the resort with her family. But he wasn't so certain that his infatuation wasn't instead with her big sister, Mary Day.

 

Then autumn set in. The Head House closed, and the summer visitors scattered, returning to their lives.

Olmsted, stuck on the farm, grew terribly lonely. The hired help was pleasant enough, but he had nothing in common with any of them. Davis's wife was an atrocious cook who prepared the same meal of cold potatoes and cold pork again and again. Evenings, they all sat around in the cramped little farmhouse, made still more cramped by the presence of Nep, the dog, and Minna, Olmsted's cat, and her litter of kittens. The cold sea winds whipped through the cracks between the clapboards. The Davis infant shrieked, and the cats yowled.

Earlier, Olmsted had told Brace that his farming career was off to a rollicking start. He'd bragged that his crops “so far look bountifully,” and he was in proud possession of a barn full of hay. Come harvest time, he'd been forced to reevaluate this optimism. Olmsted had invested $1,000 of his father's money in seed and tools and other costs, to see only a $200 return. The farm was really only the thinnest reed, Olmsted was now forced to admit, on which to hang his newfound idealism about agriculture. Sporting a fancy jacket and cap was all well and good. The truth was undeniable: Sachem's Head was no Fairmount.

But here's another passage from Kingsbury's earlier letter to John Olmsted: “Well, the world needs such men [as Fred], and one thing is curious, disappointments never seem to trouble them.... Many of his favorite schemes will go to naught but he'll throw it aside and try another and spoil that and forget them while you or I might have been blubbering over the ruins of the first.” This comment is especially discerning. Kingsbury perceived that Olmsted was one of those people who simply keep going. If one thing didn't work out, he'd be on to the next. And the next after that.

At Thanksgiving, Olmsted paid a visit home to Hartford to spend time with his family. His father was distressed at the fate of the Sachem's Head farm. He recognized that drastic measures were needed, ones in the opposite direction from where his son was headed.

Earlier in the autumn, Olmsted had actually taken the extraordinary step of contacting Alexander Jackson Davis about designing a new farmhouse at Sachem's Head. Davis was one of the few people in America involved in the rarefied field of architecture. He was known for his country houses; his creations dotted the Hudson River Valley. A decade hence, he would win acclaim as designer of Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, one of the first planned communities in the United States.

Nothing had come of the consultation ... yet. John Olmsted recognized—as a practical businessman—that the time had arrived to cut and run. Fred's farm was a dismal little place with no hope of profits, and an architecturally notable house wasn't going to change that. As a father, however, he was considerably less practical. He had a soft spot for Fred and his schemes. As it happened, the senior Olmsted had learned that a
farm was for sale on Staten Island. Maybe his son could become a successful farmer on a better piece of land in a more suitable location. He told Fred to go take a look. Inspect the foundations of any buildings, he urged him. Find out what is included in the price. Would various tools and implements be thrown into the deal? Only look at the property, he concluded. Don't make any kind of commitment. Just to be certain, he sent younger brother John to accompany Fred on the trip.

 

Predictably, Olmsted returned from the scouting expedition with a glowing report. This was the perfect farm! Had he once insisted that he could live only in Connecticut? Nonsense. Staten Island was the place for him! So his father made a trip himself to pursue the matter further. It turned out that the farm had belonged to Dr. Samuel Akerly, onetime superintendent of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in New York City. He had died two years earlier after enjoying a working retirement on the farm. Now, his relatives were trying to unload the place. They were asking $12,000, the same price Dr. Akerly had paid back in 1837. The property was somewhat dilapidated, the result of being unoccupied for two years, but otherwise appeared sound—a pretty good deal, all in all.

On January 1, 1848, John Olmsted completed the purchase, though this time he took out a mortgage on the property. And this time, he required his son to sign a note laying out terms for reimbursing him over time. He simply put Fred's Connecticut farm on the market and was eventually able to sell it for $4,000, the price he'd paid earlier.

The new farm was situated on the south shore of Staten Island and, at 125 acres, was more than twice the size of Olmsted's previous spread. The farmhouse was quirky but spacious. The original structure, a little Dutch cottage with thick stone walls, made up the ground floor. Dr. Akerly had built a modern wooden addition on top of this stone house, completely throwing off the proportions of the place. But the addition featured nine bedrooms. Olmsted would have ample space to put up visiting friends and family. He would have ample space if he chose to start a family of his own.

Once again, Olmsted's farm commanded a splendid view. From the farmhouse, the land traveled in a steady, gentle slope down to the bay.
Looking out across the water, the Sandy Hook lighthouse was visible in the distance as well as Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, where explorer Henry Hudson had once anchored the
Half Moon
.

A farm such as his demanded a proud name like Fairmount. Olmsted considered “Entepfuhl,” after the village where Teufelsdröckh, hero of
Sartor Resartus
, passed his idyllic boyhood. He also briefly toyed with “Hartford” and with “Connecticut” as well. “Here I am now, actually obliged to feel myself at home out of Connecticut,” wrote Olmsted to Kingsbury. “Do you believe it? No Sir-ey.”

Ultimately, Olmsted decided to call the place Tosomock Farm. This was a corruption of Tesschenmakr, as in Petrus Tesschenmakr, the farm's first occupant who had moved there in 1685. According to local legend, during a later incarnation of the farm, George Washington had stayed in the little stone house while examining fortifications for Staten Island. This place had so much history. And it had so much more promise than Sachem's Head. “One thing, Fred will become a real farmer,” his brother wrote to Kingsbury with unconcealed amazement.

Olmsted hired several Irish hands to help out on the farm, and his spinster aunt Maria came down from Hartford to serve as a live-in housekeeper. Nep and Minna, the dog and cat, joined him as well. Olmsted immediately set to work transforming the property from a wheat farm into one devoted to fruits and vegetables.

This was a crucial step. The 1840s were a time of cutthroat competition in the agricultural economy. Much of this was driven by transportation innovations such as railroads and canals. This broadened the market for nonperishables such as wheat. It meant that a Pennsylvania wheat farmer might face competition in the Philadelphia market from wheat transported in from Ohio.