This was not the first American silk that had graced the person of English royalty. In 1734 the first windings of Georgia silk had been taken from the filature to England, and the queen wore a dress made thereof at the king’s next birthday. Still earlier in the field Virginia had sent its silken tribute to royalty. In the college library at Williamsburg, Va., may be seen a letter signed “Charles R.”—his most Gracious Majesty Charles the Second. It was written by his Majesty’s private secretary, and addressed to Governor Berkeley for the king’s loyal subjects in Virginia. It reads thus:—
Trusty and Well beloved, We Greet you Well. Wee have received wᵗʰ much content ye dutifull respects of Our Colony in ye present lately made us by you & ye councill there, of ye first product of ye new Manufacture of Silke, which as a marke of Our Princely acceptation of yoʳ duteys & for yoʳ particular encouragement, etc. Wee have been commanded to be wrought up for ye use of Our Owne Person.
And earliest of all is the tradition, dear to the hearts of Virginians, that Charles I. was crowned in 1625 in a robe woven of Virginia silk. The Queen of George III. was the last English royalty to be similarly honored, for the next attack of the silk fever produced a suit for an American ruler, George Washington.
The culture of silk in America was an industry calculated to attract the attention of women, and indeed was suited to them, but men were not exempt from the fever; and the history of the manifold and undaunted efforts of governor’s councils, parliaments, noblemen, philosophers, and kings to force silk culture in America forms one of the most curious examples extant of persistent and futile efforts to run counter to positive economic conditions, for certainly physical conditions are fairly favorable.
South Carolina women devoted themselves with much success to agricultural experiments. Henry Laurens brought from Italy and naturalized the olive-tree, and his daughter, Martha Laurens Ramsay, experimented with the preservation of the fruit until her productions equalled the imported olives. Catharine Laurens Ramsay manufactured opium of the first quality. In 1755 Henry Laurens’ garden in Ansonborough was enriched with every curious vegetable product from remote quarters of the world that his extensive mercantile connections enabled him to procure, and the soil and climate of South Carolina to cherish. He introduced besides olives, capers, limes, ginger, guinea grass, Alpine strawberries (bearing nine months in the year), and many choice varieties of fruits. This garden was superintended by his wife, Mrs. Elinor Laurens.
Mrs. Martha Logan was a famous botanist and florist. She was born in 1702, and was the daughter of Robert Daniel, one of the last proprietary governors of South Carolina. When fourteen years old, she married George Logan, and all her life treasured a beautiful and remarkable garden. When seventy years old, she compiled from her knowledge and experience a regular treatise on gardening, which was published after her death, with the title The Garden’s Kalendar. It was for many years the standard work on gardening in that locality.
Mrs. Hopton and Mrs. Lamboll were early and assiduous flower-raisers and experimenters in the eighteenth century, and Miss Maria Drayton, of Drayton Hall, a skilled botanist.
The most distinguished female botanist of colonial days was Jane Colden, the daughter of Governor Cadwallader Colden, of New York. Her love of the science was inherited from her father, the friend and correspondent of Linnæus, Collinson, and other botanists. She learned a method of taking leaf-impressions in printers’ ink, and sent careful impressions of American plants and leaves to the European collectors. John Ellis wrote of her to Linnæus in April, 1758:—
This young lady merits your esteem, and does honor to your system. She has drawn and described four hundred plants in your method. Her father has a plant called after her Coldenia. Suppose you should call this new genus Coldenella or any other name which might distinguish her.
Peter Collinson said also that she was the first lady to study the Linnæan system, and deserved to be celebrated. Another tribute to her may be found in a letter of Walter Rutherford’s:—