The Garden

Liberty Hall Historic Site's grounds include an extensive boxwood and perennial garden that is located between the houses and the banks of the Kentucky River. Rather than being a reproduction of the original garden at Liberty Hall, today's version reflects the garden as it evolved through four generations of Brown ownership into fully decorative gardens.

From the beginning, flowers were an important part of the garden. Traveling as a young bride from her home in New York, Senator Brown's wife Margaretta brought with her a Polish rose. In addition, many other varieties of pillar and climbing roses, as well as perennials, decorated the garden. References to the first garden in letters between Senator Brown and Margaretta in 1802 reveal its utilitarian nature (vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees), and Margaretta's desire to protect it with a fence. Her evident pleasure in the success of the garden, particularly in the orchard where she held Sunday School classes, is shown in an 1819 letter to Orlando, her youngest son.

When the original four acre plot was divided in half between John and Margaretta's sons Mason and Orlando, the garden began to acquire its present form.

A sketch made by Mary Mason Scott, of the fourth and last generation of Senator and Mrs. Brown's descendants to live at Liberty Hall, illustrates a more ornamental garden with expanded varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowers. Other documents available include the garden plan drawn of the Liberty Hall garden by Mrs. S.I.M. Major, the garden plan of 1935 executed by Arthur Shurcliff of Boston, and the landscape plans for renovation in 1987.

This sketch was made by Miss Mary Mason Scott, former owner of Liberty Hall, and Elizabeth Petterson Thomas, from old plans retained by the family. It represents the garden as it was during the past two generations. It is not drawn according to scale. "Old Kentucky Homes and Gardens"' Elizabeth Patterson Thomas, 1939