News from Cellar Door Books

FREDERICK TUDOR SOWS
HIS MANIFEST DESTINY AT NAHANT

Tasha Tudor often spoke of her desire - indeed her intent to go right back to the 1830s when she died. Intrigued by her often repeated comments, your intrepid reporter decided to get a closer look at just what she might be talking about.   We went looking for Tudors in the 1830s. What we found was amazing in its similarity to Tasha's own garden endeavors and personal pleasures. We found her great-grandfather acquiring land, building stone walls and planting trees in the 1830s.

Much has been written of Frederick Tudor, Tasha's great-grandfather. Born in 1783 and son of William Tudor, George Washington's aide, he was the first of several Fredericks in the family. This is the "Ice King" who girdled the earth in business adventures. He's the one who shipped New England ice to Cuba and the Carolinas and India. His financial chart rose and fell with some regularity. And he perfected and developed all those matters as a single man in his first 50 years.   A singularly impressive gentleman, he did not marry Euphemia "Effie" Fenno until he was 50, fathered his first child at the age of 54, and his sixth at 71 ! The first child, also Euphemia, became a French citizen and carried the title Countess Kleezkowska.

His second child, also Frederick, father of Rosamund the portraitist, and Tasha's grandfather was born in 1845.   This Frederick was one of the first boys to enroll at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, where Tasha would also spend time in her mid-life. See The Dolls' Christmas.

This great-grandfather was also a man devoted to the soil and plants in his mid-life. Tasha Tudor (Starling Burgess McCready Woods) came by her penchant for plants quite naturally. These two Tudors were four generations apart, but both were infatuated with the soil and making things grow.

As he stepped back from business obligations, Frederick Tudor turned his passions to working with horticulture for the public good. The proof lies in the history of Nahant, Ma., a rocky peninsula dropping south into Boston harbor; it was previously a part of the town of Lynn. In the first years of the 19th century, Nahant was already being promoted as a place of retreat for Boston families. It was one of many coastal spots in the tradition of going to the beach house for the summer. The appeal extended to southern families coming north for the cooler summer weather; it was not restricted to Massachusetts residents alone. But it was rocky and initially uninviting.

We consulted the History of Essex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men by D. Hamilton Hurd (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1888). From vol. ii, pages 1420-1421:   "Mrs. Delia Tudor, in or before 1820, was a frequent visitor and resident at Nahant. She built the stone house in the eighth range, which, in 1824, was purchased by her son Frederick Tudor, who made this for many years his summer residence, purchasing adjoining lands, building a stable and additions to the house, and in many other ways improving the estate.   In the early days, he and his brother frequently traveled on foot from Boston to Nahant. [A distance of about 12 miles. - Ed.] Mr. Tudor's first effort towards public improvement was in the planting of two rows of Balm of Gilead tress, on each side of the main road, from the hill near Short Beach to Summer Street.   Prior to this, William Wood and Thomas H. Perkins had planted a row of elms from Summer Street to the Breed house [an early hotel]. Mr. Tudor did not allow this much-needed improvement to suffer any neglect, and from the earliest planting of trees, through his many years of residence here, he caused this work to be continued every spring and autumn. Nearly all the beautiful elms, maples and other varieties of shade-trees that now grow along our streets were planted by him.   He once remarked that every tree he planted was as much of a benefit to the citizens of any State, Georgia for instance, as to the citizens of Nahant, since, in time, both would enjoy them jointly, thus anticipating for Nahant a more prosperous future than any one has as yet realized."

Mr. Tudor's gardens were described in an 1849 article quoted in the same history.

"Among the many beautiful features of Nahant, one of the most beautiful is the residence of Mr. Tudor... The cottage and garden of Mr. Tudor are well worth a visit. ... Mr. Tudor's garden contains over two acres, and is inclosed [sic] by a very substantial fence, about seventeen feet high, which not only protects it from intruders, but prevents in a great measure the effects of the violent wind. He has a large collection of very fine fruit-trees, many of them beautifully trained on fences, giving them a very tasteful and ornamental appearance. One cherry tree, with its branches trained horizontally, covers a space of over five hundred square feet; some of the branches are about twenty feet in length, extending each side of the trunk perfectly straight. The pear-trees look exceedingly well, considering that it is an unfavorable season for the pear crop in this vicinity, owing to the late frost in the spring.

"His plums are worthy of notice, all looking finely, and, notwithstanding the depredations of the curculio, many of these trees are loaded with the finest plums.

"There are many interesting experiments in shading trees from the sun in the hottest part of the day, which have proven quite successful. All his experiments are tried in the most thorough manner. Among the many experiments is one quite novel of capturing insects; he has suspended in his trees between two and three hundred small bottles, partly filled with sweetened water, into which all flys, bugs and moths are inticed and are drowned.

"Great quantities have been drowned in this way. During two weeks of the dry weather in June there were captured about five hundred thousand bugs, and in thirty-six hours on the nineteenth and twentieth of June, one hundred and eight thousand were taken, - thus, besides destroying the effects of the insects, preventing an immense increase by propagation. [Was this an early economic stimulus job? Hiring the unemployed to count beetles? -Ed.]

"Although his principal interest is in trees, yet he has a portion of his grounds dedicated to Flora and a beautiful marble figure of the goddess is in the centre of this department.

"When we take into consideration the fact that one-half the community think that nothing can be grown successfully in Nahant, and twelve years ago not one in a hundred could be found that believed it, no one will deny that Mr. Tudor is entitled to a great deal of credit for his persevering efforts, for by them he has established the fact that the barren soil of Nahant will yield to the industry of man as well as other places. And quite an interest has been aroused in many of the inhabitants of Nahant, which it may not be improper to attribute to the example of Mr. Tudor.

"Besides the gardens, Mr. Tudor has quite a farm, raising large quantities of beets and carrots.   He has harvested the past season about fifty tons of hay; although he has never devoted his attention personally to that branch, yet there is no reason why he cannot have one of the finest farms in the country. In addition to gratifying his own private taste, Mr. Tudor has not neglected the public, as anyone who resides in Nahant cannot fail to observe.

"The many fine trees on each side of the road are living witness to the fact, and the many hundreds of trees scattered about on the hills. It must have required an unusual degree of care and expense to have brought them to their present thriving condition.

"In short, the entire appearance of the peninsula has been changed, and the beautiful contrast between the green trees and the wild ocean make the spot doubly interesting to the lover of nature or the seeker of pleasure, for all of which the future generations cannot fail to be unmindful, and to remember him with gratitude. [Google Nahant road map look for Tudor Road and Fenno Way off Ocean Street. Then click on the Satellite button]

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Not quoted here from the same history is another lengthy description from a newspaper of 1858 describing "Cider and Perry-making at Nahant" - more of Mr. Tudor's doings. Perry was a drink made from pears. The article goes on to attest to Tudor's other civic contributions: the church, creating the first bounty for volunteers to the Civil War, establishing the Maolis Gardens in Nahant, the hotel next door, "with the swings and "shades" and the substantial sea wall and the road along the north shore." But time takes its toll and when the history was published in 1888, the editors could already attest that "all that seems to remain are the lofty elm trees and granite sea walls beside his stone cottage."

"After the death of Mr. Tudor, his wife, Mrs. Fenno Tudor, with the same spirit, continued the improvements Mr. Tudor had begun. She purchased the old landing-place, Nipper Stage, and land adjoining, on which she built the new wharf, the present steamboat landing." The Nahant Country Club is now [2009] the centerpiece of what was once the substantial lands of Frederick Tudor.

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Frederic Tudor died in Boston at his house on the northwest corner of Beacon and Joy Streets on Saturday, February 6, 1864. He is buried in the King's Chapel cemetery on Tremont Street in the Tudor family tomb (number thirteen).