It was a beautiful day on August 1, 1782, when Prince William Henry, the third son of King George III, was received at the home and gardens of William Prince Sr. in Flushing Landing, New York. The American Revolutionary War had effectively ended the year before when the British surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown. Yet, the sixteen-year-old visitor, who would, in 1830, rise to the throne as King William IV, had come to present a stand of colors to the King’s American Dragoons, encamped three miles to the east of the Princes. The British soldiers were invited for a barbecue of a whole roasted ox at the Prince home, not the kind of warm reception that an American patriot would have given to a future British monarch and his troops.

Prince was a nursery owner, almost forty years older than William, and the visit suggests the prominence of both Prince and the nursery. During the visit, Prince and William discussed their shared interest in growing and breeding plums, a specialty of the nursery. Plums were a critical fruit crop because they could be dried and stored for long periods and used as a nutritious food by the British Navy. Prince had introduced new plum varieties to Long Island, observing the acclimatization of the green gage plum (a common form of Prunus domestica). He even developed new varieties of plums, including ‘Yellow Gage’, which he would officially introduce the year after William’s visit.

In 1789, another group of illustrious visitors stopped at Prince’s nursery: the newly elected president of the United States, George Washington, and his entourage of vice president John Adams, New York governor George Clinton, and the president of the Continental Congress, John Jay. Washington was less impressed with the nursery than William had been. He noted a large number of young fruit trees but described the shrubs as “trifling” and the flowers as “not numerous.” Flushing had been under British military occupation for the past seven years, and little plant material could be shipped during those long years of hostility. Nonetheless, by the 1790s, the Prince Nursery was likely the largest propagator of grafted fruit trees in the United States. It would grow to become even more: a center of horticultural learning.

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The Prince family’s horticultural enterprise originated with William Prince’s father, Robert, who was born in the 1690s. (His birth year has been variously presented as 1692 and 1699.) By 1723, Robert had begun collecting, growing, and propagating trees for his fruit farm. The plants included varieties of apples, pears, plums, nectarines, peaches, cherries, and small fruits. Throughout Robert’s life, the nursery slowly evolved into a vibrant commercial operation, occupying eight acres directly south of what is now Northern Boulevard. This first Prince homestead was a beautiful structure with rounded shingles, set in a bank of flowering shrubs on the western edge of his property, next to the Flushing Creek.

Flushing—in northern Queens County—was an ideal location for a nursery that would grow to become national in scope. It sits on the Long Island Sound, where winters are milder than most other parts of the state and where summers are cooler and less humid than colonial centers to the south. Flushing boasted high-quality topsoil, rich and fertile, with few stones. An underlying subsoil provided good water drainage while retaining sufficient moisture to allow plants to grow quickly. Flushing’s location relative to the Port of New York meant that plants could readily be shipped to other parts of the country and Europe. Moreover, Flushing benefited from the cultural and financial rise of New York City. These factors would, in the nineteenth century, induce many other prominent nurseries to establish operations in Flushing.

Robert and his wife, Mary Burgess, had six children. Their oldest son, William, took over the nursery by 1745, the year before Robert’s death. Under William’s leadership, the nursery ultimately expanded to twenty-four acres. The diversity of plants increased, as did the total sales. At the time, the standard American practice for propagating fruit trees, especially peaches (Prunus persica), was to grow seedlings and not to graft a tree to a suitable rootstock. Because of this seed-grown method, the quality of orchard trees was unknown until they came to maturity. Prince realized the commercial value of predictability and often budded or grafted his fruit trees to keep the variety true.

The nursery expanded quickly between 1750 and the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in 1776. William published his first-known notice of advertisement on September 21, 1767, which stated, “For sale at William Prince’s nursery, Flushing, a great variety of fruit trees, such as apple, plum, peach, nectarine, cherry, apricot and pear. They may be put up so as to be sent to Europe. Capt. Jeremiah Mitchell and Daniel Clements go to New York in passage boats Tuesdays and Fridays.”

The nursery’s first-known catalogue appeared in 1771, a single-page broadsheet. The list contained over 230 plant selections, which was sizable for a nursery in colonial America. In addition to fruit crops, the offerings included evergreen trees, timber trees, and shrubs. Among the ornamental selections, tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera) and lilacs (three varieties, presumably Syringa vulgaris) were among the most expensive. An advertisement published in the New York Mercury, dated March 14, 1774, stated that William Prince was selling more than one hundred Carolina magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) that were over four feet tall, raised from seed. He also advertised nine-foot-tall catalpas (Catalpa speciosa).

The Revolutionary War halted the shipment of Prince’s plants to most parts of the American colonies, except for areas under British control, such as Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, and parts of the South. These wartime closures hurt the business. Reports variously state that somewhere between three thousand to thirty thousand grafted cherry trees were either purchased or confiscated by the British, to be used as hoops for making barrels. Yet, the Princes were likely British Loyalists and benefited from military protection. In fact, William’s daughter Sarah married a British Army Major, Charles McNeill, who resigned from his military service after the war. And the British General Lord Howe ordered army units to guard the nursery, posting soldiers at the entrances.

When George Washington visited the Princes with his entourage in 1789, his assessment of the poor quality and low diversity of the ornamental plants may suggest that nursery was still recovering from the war. Yet, by the summer of 1791, secretary of state Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Democratic-Republican James Madison of Virginia visited the nursery and reported more favorably. The men were touring New York and New England to study botanical curiosities, wildlife, and historic battlefields. They maintained that the tour was for health reasons and scientific exploration. Yet, those versed in politics noted that the trip was conducted through the country’s Federalists strongholds of New York and New England instead of areas dominated by Jefferson’s political base of Democratic-Republican support.

Jefferson desired to improve domestic agriculture and arranged the nursery stop to discuss his ideas with William. Among the topics, they talked about Jefferson’s vision for promoting the cultivation of sugar maples (Acer saccharum) for syrup production. Jefferson also took the opportunity to order plants for himself: sugar maples, highbush cranberries (Viburnum trilobum), balsam poplars (Populus balsamifera), and Beurre Gris pears (a variety of Pyrus communis). Later, he expanded his order to include stone fruits and nut trees, along with an array of ornamental trees, shrubs, and roses.

~

As the United States grew towards the close of the century, so did the Prince Nursery. By 1793, William Prince, at the age of sixty-eight, turned over operations to his sons Benjamin and William Jr. Benjamin maintained the original family nursery for many years, calling it the Old American Nursery, but it was William Jr. who became the primary mover of the family business in the third generation. In 1793, he purchased twenty-four acres directly northeast of the original nursery. There, on the banks of Flushing Creek, he established his Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery. He designed it as a showplace to educate the public on botanical matters, including native plants, new varieties bred in the United States, and plants imported from Europe and farther afield.

Map of land plots in Flushing, NY.

In 1793, William Prince Jr. purchased twenty-four acres alongside the original nursery, naming the new property the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery. In the decades to come, a cohort of nurseries would open in Flushing, including Parsons Nursery and Bloodgood Nursery, both mapped nearby in 1841.  Smith, 1841/Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

William Jr. and his son William Robert Prince took up the cause of identifying and describing plant material so that it could be offered to the public—and they were highly invested in acquiring newly introduced species. In 1804, for instance, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked upon the Missouri River to explore the recently acquired Louisiana Purchase. The expedition had been commissioned at Jefferson’s request, and when the explorers returned east, they came bearing seeds and other botanical collections. The Princes were among the first nursery operators to grow and distribute plants from the expedition, and the Oregon grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium) became one of their most successful new products. The Princes were also among the first American nurseries to offer ornamental species from East Asia, like the golden rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), lacebark elm (Ulmus parvifolia), and Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis).

By the mid-1830s, William Jr. had ten nursery outbuildings, of which several were greenhouses that contained tropical and subtropical plants from Africa and Asia. Visitors could pay an admission fee to experience the warmth and humidity of the greenhouse—a rewarding respite to escape the dark, cold New York winter. The nursery catalogue listed ten tropical hibiscuses (Hibiscus) and two gardenias (Gardenia) that bloomed in their greenhouses. Prince grew tropical fruits and flowers specifically for winter viewing. For variety, they also exhibited insectivorous plants such as sundew (Drosera), pitcher plant (Sarracenia), and Venus flytrap (Dionaea). Moreover, in 1833, The New-York Annual Register reported that the gardens and nursery covered up to forty acres and contained approximately ten thousand species of trees and plants, with particular attention devoted to grapes and mulberry trees. Visitors had free access to the outdoor gardens every day, except for Sundays.

At the same time, the commercial operations of the nursery expanded rapidly, as evidenced by William Jr.’s increasingly thicker plant catalogues. He also began to subdivide the products among smaller specialized catalogues. In addition to his standard Annual Catalogue for Fruit and Ornamental Trees and Plants, which covered his earlier offerings, he began to issue catalogues that focused on items such as bulbous flowers and tubers, greenhouse plants, chrysanthemums, and vegetable and flower seeds.

William Jr. attracted additional attention in 1828 when he published one of the first strictly horticultural books to come from the United States: A Short Treatise on Horticulture: Embracing Descriptions of a Great Variety of Fruit and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs, Grape Vines, Bulbous Flowers, Green-House Trees and Plants, &c. The book described all the plant offerings at the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nursery, in some sense serving as an extended advertisement. The treatise also comprehensively covered horticultural topics, such as planting, pruning, and propagation. It even included information about soil preferences and methods for fungal disease control.

Photo of grape vine alongside photo of William Robert Prince.
William Prince Jr. and his son William Robert Prince (above) authored seminal American horticultural manuals. In A Treatise on the Vine, published in 1830, they promoted new grape varieties, including ‘Isabella’, which became a favorite of American viticulturists. Hedrick, 1908 and 1911/Archive of the Arnold Arboretum

Over the next three years, William Jr. worked with his son, William Robert, on two additional books, for which his son was the primary author. The first, A Treatise on the Vine, was published in 1830 and was the first significant book written in America on grape cultivation. The Princes had systematically tested scores of European grape varieties (Vitis vinifera), along with improved varieties of native North American grapes (like V. labrusca and V. riparia), and interspecific hybrids. The book described over two hundred European grape varieties and eighty American. This work helped to establish viticulture as a full-fledged branch of American horticulture, and for William Robert, grape breeding and cultivation remained a lifelong interest.

The second book, The Pomological Manual, published in 1831, was a two-volume cyclopedia that attempted to catalogue all fruit varieties cultivated in America, other than apples. (While the father and son intended to treat apple cultivation with a third volume, the work was never published.) Like A Short Treatise on Horticulture, this book was widely read in America and became influential among aspiring horticulturalists. Moreover, the Princes paid particular attention to the nomenclature of the fruits covered in all of the publications, untangling confusion occurring in the field. This interest in the accurate classification of horticultural plants began with the work of William Sr., and it was among the family’s most significant contributions to American horticulture.

As a testament to William Jr.’s interest in classification, he displayed in his home a bust of Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who formalized the modern system of botanical nomenclature. William Jr. received the statue in a presentation by New York governor DeWitt Clinton at a meeting of European and American scientists to honor Linnaeus’s birthday in 1823. A simultaneous celebration in Virginia was officiated by Thomas Jefferson, an honorary member of the Linnaean Society of Paris.

~

By the time William Jr. died in 1842, Flushing had become a vibrant center for American horticulture. Bloodgood Nursery had been established there in 1798 and would become known as a specialist in maples. (A common Japanese maple even bears the name of the nursery: Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’.) G. R. Garretson Nursery, a seed company specializing in flowers and vegetables, was established in 1836 and would grow to cover one hundred acres, supplying wholesale seeds to nurseries across the United States and offering retail via mail order. But the most famous of these newer operations was Parsons Nursery, established in 1838; the Parsons family would later play a central role in introducing plants from East Asia, especially Japan.

Meanwhile, William Robert had been assuming increasing responsibility for the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries. In the 1820s, he expanded the nursery, purchasing three large parcels so that his land holdings may have totaled up to 113 acres. These properties were located adjacent to a house he bought for himself in 1827. The home had a wide center hall, with two solid Dutch doors on either end and a bust of Linnaeus (likely from his father) on a bracket against the wall. The house’s formal gardens contained two ginkgos (Ginkgo biloba), which were among the oldest in the country, and an old cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) that the Princes had imported from France.

Under William Robert’s leadership, however, the business began to struggle. In the 1830s, he speculated heavily in the domestic silk industry and may have been a key contributor to the skyrocketing prices for mulberry trees (Morus alba), the food source for silkworms. He imported more than one million mulberry trees from France in 1839, and shortly afterward, the price for mulberry trees crashed. When this venture failed, the Princes could not keep up with mortgage payments on the nursery, and by 1841, they lost the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries in foreclosure. These events spawned a bitter controversy with the property’s new owner, Gabriel Winter, who was married to one of William Jr.’s cousins. Although William Robert continued to raise and sell plants from an adjacent nursery property, he and Winter competed in horticultural publications over the right to sell plants as the Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries. Ultimately, the Princes kept the name, and Winter sold the remaining plant inventory and subdivided the original property for housing development.

By 1846, the finances at the new Prince nursery began to stabilize, and William Robert published Prince’s Manual of Roses, his third and final significant contribution to horticultural literature. At his new botanic garden, William Robert grew over seven hundred rose varieties, and the book provided detailed descriptions of varieties and featured many roses from China. He also included information about horticultural care and propagation. It was one of the very best works on this subject. Still, it was eclipsed in popularity by Samuel B. Parsons’s book published the following year: The Rose: Its History, Poetry, Culture, and Classification. Parsons—the proprietor of Parsons Nursery in Flushing—ultimately revised his book as Parsons on the Rose: A Treatise on the Propagation, Culture, and History of the Rose. The competition between these books suggests the horticultural foment that was occurring in Flushing during this period.

Later, William Robert went on two extended botanical expeditions, to California (in 1849) and Mexico (in 1850). While these trips suggest that the business was doing reasonably well, William Robert began to gradually withdraw from the day-to-day management of the nursery around 1855, at the age of sixty. Instead, he devoted his energy to other botanical interests, including research on botanical medicinal remedies. He also continued to breed and evaluate new varieties of fruits and ornamental plants, especially grapes, strawberries, and roses. His oldest son, William III, meanwhile assumed increasing responsibility for the enterprise.

William Robert’s career reflected the changes that were going on in the American horticultural community. His father had been a founding member of the New York Horticultural Society in 1818 and joined the Massachusetts Horticultural Society after it was established in 1829, but he was also a member of the Linnaean Society of Paris, the Horticultural Society of London and Paris, and the Academy of Georgofili, based in Florence, Italy. William Robert invested his energy into the increasingly sophisticated American horticultural societies rather than those in Europe. He contributed many articles to the leading American agricultural magazines of the day, such as The Rural New Yorker and Gardener’s Monthly. Moreover, he was a member of the American Institute of the City of New York and the American Pomological Society.

On March 28, 1869, William Robert died at his home in Flushing, and as it turned out, the esteemed business died with him. William III had enlisted for the United States Army during the Civil War, and he chose to remain in the military. William Robert’s second son, LeBaron Bradford, pursued a career in law and politics. Gardener’s Monthly printed a two-page obituary for William Robert. It was a sad and respectful tribute to his horticultural brilliance while nonetheless remarking on his combative personality. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society issued a full resolution commemorating his life as a “pioneer in the field of horticulture,” a title that seems equally appropriate for the three generations of Princes that came before him.

~

In 1939, efforts were made to move William Robert’s house to the site of the New York World’s Fair, to demonstrate a historic colonial homestead, but the campaign came to no avail. Later, New York City park commissioner Robert Moses rejected a proposal to move the structure to Flushing Meadow Park. Moses’s vision for a “modern city” had little space for old wooden buildings. In its last few years of use, the structure served as a rooming house and a club. The shabby, unpainted building was then boarded up and surrounded by billboards and a gas station. The house was torn down in 1942. Of course, by that point, the lush greenhouses that once welcomed winter visitors had long ago disappeared, and the nursery property had been subdivided and sold for development.

Yet, the 150-year story of the Prince family lives on today. The family built a foundation for commercial horticulture in the United States. They championed the cultivation of plants from across the country and around the world, and their publications promoted best practices in horticulture. They even helped with establishing a more systematic approach for horticultural nomenclature. Moreover, the success of the Prince nurseries is inextricably linked to the subsequent generation of horticulturists who established businesses in Flushing. This expanding group of nursery owners became leaders in their own right. In this way, a horticultural legacy that began with one family who lived on the edge of Flushing Creek became a national and international story.

Acknowledgment

I’m grateful for the support of Susan Lacerte, who recently retired as executive director at the Queens Botanical Garden, located near the former Prince Nurseries. Susan’s knowledge of horticulture in Flushing, both present and historical, has been an inspiration.

References

  • Cornett, P. 2004, January. Encounters with America’s premier nursery and botanic garden. Twinleaf: 1–12.
  • Downing, A. J. 1845. The fruits and fruit trees of America: Or the culture, propagation and management in the garden and orchard of fruit trees generally; with descriptions of all the finest varieties of fruit, native and foreign in this country. New York: Wiley and Putnam.
  • Gager, C. S. 1912, October. The first botanic garden on Long Island. Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record, 1(4): 97–99.
  • Hedrick, U. P. 1911. The plums of New York (Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station). Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Company.
  • Hedrick, U. P. 1908. The grapes of New York (Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station). Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Company.
  • Hedrick, U. P. 1925. The small fruits of New York (Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station). Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Company.
  • Hedrick, U.P. 1933. A history of agriculture in the State of New York. Printed for the New York State Agricultural Society, Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Company.
  • Hotchkiss, T. W. 1934. Prince house, Lawrence Street & Northern Boulevard, photographs, written historical and descriptive data. Dist. No. 4, Southern New York State, Historic American Building Survey, HABS No. 4–19.
  • Jacobsen, A. and Williams, J. D. 2009. Prince family nurseries (ca. 1737- post- 1851). Bulletin of the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation, 21(1): 4–7.
  • Johnson, J. 1887. The village of Flushing, map of desirable building lots, Flushing: A historical sketch. New York: John P. Stock, Printer.
  • Manks, D. S. 1967. How the American nursery trade began. Plants & Gardens, 23(2).
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  • Munsell, W. W. 1882. History of Queens County, New York, with illustrations, portraits, & sketches of prominent families and individuals. New York: Press of George MacNamara.
  • Prince, B. and Mills, S. F. 1823. A treatise and catalogue of fruit and ornamental trees, shrubs, &c., cultivated at the Old American Nursery. New York: Wm. Grattan.
  • Prince, W. 1771. To be sold, by William Prince, at Flushing-Landing, on Long-Island, near New-York, a large collection of fruit trees, as follows. New York: H. Gaine.
  • Prince, W. 1790. To be sold, by William Prince, at Flushing-Landing, on Long-Island, near New-York, a large collection, as follow, of fruit trees and shrubs. New York: H. Gaine.
  • Prince, W. 1825. Annual catalogue of fruit and ornamental trees and plants, bulbous flower roots, green-house plants, &c. &c., cultivated at the Linnaean Botanic Garden, William Prince, proprietor. New York: T. and J. Swords.
  • Prince, W. 1828. A short treatise on horticulture: Embracing descriptions of a great variety of fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs, grape vines, bulbous flowers, green-house trees and plants. New York: T. and J. Swords.
  • Prince, W. R. and Prince, W. 1830. A treatise on the vine; Embracing it history from the earliest ages to the present day, with descriptions of above two hundred foreign, and eighty American varieties, together with a complete dissertation of the established culture, and management of vineyards. New York: T. & J. Swords.
  • Prince, W. R. and Prince, W. 1831. The pomological manual; or a treatise on fruits: containing descriptions of a great number of the most valuable varieties for the orchard and garden. New York: T. & J. Swords.
  • Prince, W. R. 1846. Princes’ Manual of roses: Comprising the most complete history of the rose, including every class, and all the most admirable varieties that have appeared in Europe and America, together with ample information on their culture and propagation. New York: Clark & Austen, Saxton & Miles, Wiley & Putnam, and Stanford & Swords.
  • Ross, P. 1902. A history of Long Island: From its earliest settlement to the present time. New York: Lewis Publishing Co.
  • Smith, E. A. and Hayward, G. 1841. The village of Flushing, Queens County, L.I.: nine miles east of the city of New York: lat. 40° 45′ 1″N, lon. 73° 09′ 58″W. [Flushing?: s.n., ?] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2008620796
  • St. George’s Episcopal Church, Baptismal Records, 1800–1840, Flushing, N.Y., 135-32 38th Avenue, Flushing, N.Y., Rev. Wilfredo Benitez, Rector.
  • Trebor, H. (Ed.) 1938, October. Garden center: The four Princes—William of America. So This is Flushing. Flushing, N.Y.: Halleran.
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture. 1976. The Prince family manuscript collection: A register of their papers, in the National Agricultural Library (Library list 101). Beltsville, MD: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.
  • Waldron, R. K. 1958. Prince’s plants. The Call Number, 20(1).

J. Stephen Casscles is an attorney, winemaker, and horticultural writer living in the Hudson Valley. His publications include Grapes of the Hudson Valley and Other Cool Climate Regions of the United States and Canada, published by Flint Mine Press.


Citation: Casscles, J. S. 2021. The Prince family: pioneers of American horticulture. Arnoldia, 78(5-6): 16–23.


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