The Great Original Establishment, Prince's Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries

Abstract

The Prince Family Nursery was run by four generations of the Prince family. It is thought to be the first nursery in America and as time went on, it was often referred to as the “Old American Nursery”. Over the years, the Prince family separately and then jointly ran the nursery as, “The Great Original Establishment” and “Prince’s Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries”. The latter being a nod to the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus and his system of binomial nomenclature. The Prince Family Nursery was one of the most important American sources for fruit plants and ornamental trees from around 1730 through the Civil War. In addition to supplying farmers and home gardeners, the Prince Nursery provided plant material to other nurseries as Americans moved into the middle and western parts of the continent. The Prince family members were also prolific writers on a myriad of horticultural topics, including viticulture, roses, tree fruit production, and even hard cider apples. How the Prince Nursery influenced early American horticulture will be discussed in this paper.