ca. 1829 Formerly enslaved, James F. Brown becomes Master Gardener at Mount Gulian in Fishkill, New York

By 1829, James F. Brown, a manumitted enslaved person from Maryland, finds work as a Master Gardener at Mount Gulian, the Verplanck’s estate in Fishkill Landing, New York. Brown kept diaries of his daily life and was very active in the 19^th century horticulture movement. He attended meetings and corresponded with important horticulturists of the day such as Andrew Jackson Downing and Henry Winthrop Sargent.

Armstead, Myra B. Young. Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America. (New York: New York University Press, 2013).

See also the James F. Brown Papers, 1827-1866 at The New-York Historical Society.