What began as an outlet for stress became history, and this summer we celebrate the 170th anniversary of Jackson's Garden, a uniquely beautiful spot on the Union campus. We also celebrate the life of Isaac Jackson, who graduated from Union 175 years
ago, in 1826.
The visitor with questions about
nineteenth-century names on campus will have little trouble finding information
about Nott or Arthur.
But what about the third name that almost every visitor will encounter – the Jackson of Jackson's Garden?
Who was Isaac Jackson, and why did he cultivate peace of mind through gardening?
According to Jonathan Pearson, who kept a diary at Union as a student in the nineteenth century, Professor of Mathematics Isaac Jackson was “a small excitable man, of tolerable health, and hard working and faithful in his duties ….”
“Captain Jack,” as his students affectionately called him, was, according to Pearson, “about 4 ft. 9 in, with a high receding forehead, sharp eyes and remarkably intelligent phiz …. With students he is remarkably familiar and jesting … enthusiastic in everything he undertakes – a great lover of gardening and mathematics of little dignity, great good sense, and a quick penetrating mind.”
Another view of Jackson came from President Eliphalet Nott Potter's Commencement address in 1878, the year after Jackson died: “Often in evenings, coming out of his study to the drawing-room, he contributed his share of entertainment by reading aloud or by his cheerful and instructive conversation .… In my childhood … I … often watched him wheeling along the garden-chair which he had devised for the comfort of his aging mother, delighting in her enjoyment of the scene and pointing out the beauties
of flower-bed, lawn or grove, which he kept dressed with unceasing care. He was
always neatly and simply attired, slight in form, well built and active, with clear, piecing eye looking out from under a large and prominent brow; his head finely developed, his voice frank and friendly as he welcomed one to his study or garden. And that garden played no small part in extending the reputation of the College.”
And a former student took a different perspective, anonymously writing a twenty-verse poem to Jackson (see
separate story), published in 1909.
Jackson's own journals give few insights into the man, although we do know that he was a man dedicated to his work and his students, and a man who tended toward overwork. He also suffered from depression and ill
health. But what he's best remembered for today is the hobby he pursued
enthusiastically and creatively – gardening and horticulture.
Jackson knew his gardens. So certain of this was President Eliphalet Nott that he encouraged Jackson to use as much land as he wanted around the brook or “kill” to make a garden. Nott, whose early vision for the Union campus included a garden, said, “Go on, Jackson, you can have all the ground you want.”
In 1831, the year Jackson was promoted to professor, he started cultivating a
triangle-shaped garden plot. When he started, he found a few beds of poor
flowers or vegetables and tangled vale. In his forty-six years as
“Superintendent of the College Garden,” he ended up shaping an 8 ½-acre
retreat. He designed and tended formal gardens, a ceremonial amphitheater,
fruit tree and shrub groves, walks, and woodland. The simplicity of design
reflects his Quaker roots.
He gave tours of the gardens to visitors, including architect Samuel Parsons, park-maker Frederick Law Olmsted, and John James Audubon, who, in a letter to his wife afterwards, said, “I was extremely kindly treated by that excellent man Jackson and his good wife; supped with them, and walked with him through the superb garden and grounds.”
Isaac Wilbur Jackson was the grandson of John Jackson, of Londongrove, Pa., whose garden was recognized by 1777 as an important national botanic collection. Isaac was born on Aug. 29, 1804, to William and Phebe Jackson, and he and his brother, William, were raised as Quakers in Canterbury (now
Cornwall-on-Hudson), N.Y. At seventeen, Isaac traveled north to attend the
Albany Academy, graduating in 1824 with distinction in mathematics and
classics. From there, he moved to Union, where he would stay for the rest of his life.
As a student, he served in the College Cadets, Company A, earning the rank of
“captain” as well as the nickname of Captain Jack. (A proponent of military
drill and physical fitness, he continued as captain long after he graduated, marshalling the students for Commencement processions each year.) He was also a founding member of Kappa Alpha Society, and he graduated with distinction in the classics and first honors in math and chemistry. Staying on as a math tutor after graduation, he was promoted in 1831 to professor of mathematics and philosophy.
He moved into the North College faculty residence with his wife, the former
Elizabeth Pomeroy, of Pittsfield, Mass., and there they raised five children. Jackson was an active mentor and disciplinarian of residence hall students, and he was known to have treated students “like family.”
He was well recognized in his academic field, writing several textbooks, including Elements of Conic Sections, An Elementary Treatise on Optics, An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics, and Elements of Trigonometry, Plane
and Spherical, and he received an honorary degree from Hobart College.
Much of what we know about Jackson's Garden is through his extensive garden
journals, describing garden space names, construction techniques, plant and seed sources, and material and labor expenses. Some entries record the receipt of species from national horticulture centers. He liked the exotic, procuring from Japan a small ginkgo tree, and from China a root of Japanese tree peonies. Gardening so defined Isaac Jackson that a former student wrote, “To really know
him one must know his garden for in its beauty was portrayed the beauty of his
character.”
In 1876, a celebration of his fiftieth anniversary of teaching at Union brought
many former students back to campus. A year later, he died of a stroke. His
funeral services were, fittingly, conducted in the garden, under the historic Nott Elm, and he was buried in the family plot in Vale Cemetery in Schenectady. His daughter, Julia Jackson Benedict, took over care of the garden. When she died in 1925, Union's garden had benefited from nearly a century of loving attention from the Jackson family.
The Garden
Joseph Jacques Ramee's 1813 plans for the Union campus included the first landscape gardening plan at a North
American college. Although there is no record of any gardens constructed
according to his designs, he did specify gardens for the site where Isaac
Jackson began tilling the soil in 1831.
Today, Jackson's Garden is the oldest continuously cultivated garden on a college or university campus in the United States, and one of only a few public gardens in the country established by 1850 that has survived in its original location.
The eight-and-a-half-acre garden, home to ninety-three species of shrubs and trees, is built along Hans Groot's Kill, the stream that runs through the Union campus and empties into the Mohawk River near the former American Locomotive Works. The gardens feature perennials with open plots of grass and shrubs bounded by tree-lined paths.
Just step inside Jackson's Garden and see Isaac Jackson's legacy for yourself.
Secluded and peaceful, his garden today still calms and lifts the spirits of
the most anxious college student or professor.
Intersections with history
1804
Isaac Jackson born; Thomas Jefferson elected U.S. president; Eliphalet Nott named Union College president; running time of stage line between Albany and New York reduced to three days, fare fixed at eight dollars.
1826
Jackson graduates from Union; Erie Canal is one year old; Mohawk and Hudson River Railroad chartered;
Americans celebrate fiftieth anniversary of Declaration of Independence; Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die.
1831
Jackson becomes professor of mathematics and philosophy, begins gardens; Nat Turner's slave rebellion takes place; James Monroe dies; “DeWitt Clinton,” first steam locomotive, makes initial trip over first passenger line in U.S. from Crane Street Hill, Schenectady, to Lydius Street, Albany (taking one hour and forty-five minutes to cover the twelve and one-half miles).
1877
Jackson dies of a stroke; Schenectady-Saratoga steam railroad line becomes part of D & H system; Union College begins publishing the student newspaper Concordiensis.
Isaac Jackson's Journals
Jackson's journals are, for the most part, impersonal, cataloging annuals, biennials, shrubs, must-procure lists, horticultural experiments, I-have-for-exchange lists, and accounts. But
a closer look through more than 1,100 pages yields other items:
— A draft reference for a former student:
“This is to certify that the Rev. John J. Van Antwerp whilst an undergraduate of this institution published with me an extensive course of elementary math, and was distinguished for the accuracy and extent of his acquirements in that
department. Since he was graduated, I have repeatedly examined his pupils in
mathematics for admission to Union. I have invariably found them unusually well qualified, exhibiting the most marked indications of having been thoroughly drilled and instructed. …I believe him to be an able and accomplished teacher of youth.”
— A to-do list:
“Grocery Bill – Look well to it – let wine alone – manage wisely
Meat – must be very prudent – buy not much mutton or beef this winter – nor early in summer – let poultry quite alone….
Garden and house – be as economical as pos. – save by small things – purchase as few tools as possible….”
— A modern-sounding resolution to himself:
“Health miserable because I have eaten and drunken unwisely for some days past. Now I begin this very day and temperance shall reign. Make an entry in my book after each meal for a few days.”
— His own recipe for liquid manure:
“Put into a three-gallon tub ¼ of its contents of recent sheep or poultry dung, add a gallon of scalding water…and mash the mass till the chunks are broken up – and then fill the tub with cold rainwater – stir this mixture twice and let it settle, then clean liquor only is to be added/used? This must be used very sparingly, by the pint or quart, or for vines, by the gallon – and once or twice a week. It may be better to let it stand for several weeks and let it ferment.”
Other entries include payments received as an instructor at the African School,
probably the school established on White Street in 1833 by the Schenectady
African School Society. Teaching there would have combined a commitment to
public service with support of abolition and the religious tenets of the Society of Friends.
A Poem for Captain Jack
(Published anonymously in a 1909 edition of the Union Alumni monthly)
To Isaac W. Jackson
I
When poets sang, in days of yore,
We often see it stated,
To some illustrious conqueror,
Their odes were dedicated.
II
I have a right then, in these times,
When progress reigns, God bless her,
To sing, in ragged reckless rhymes,
To a beloved Professor.
III
You're not the largest man on earth,
Not do I love by weight, sir;
I like your noble soul, your worth,
Your mind and talent great, sir.
IV
I like your skillful reasoning powers,
And fine imagination;
For these, with judgments such as yours,
Would grace the highest station.
V
I like you for your language pure,
Your diagrams explicit,
You make your meaning too so sure,
The veriest fool can't miss it.
VI
I like your manly gentleness,
Your witticisms merry,
Your energetic earnestness,
Your tinge of military.
VII
Nor qualities alone I see,
I like your sunny smile, sir,
When, spite of class formality,
You act yourself, the while, sir.
VIII
I like you for your heart so true,
Your glance and lip expressive,
Your well-arranged “Mechanics” too,
But that would be digressive.
IX
I like you, that bold impudence
You dare to lay the lash on,
And, like a man of sterling sense,
Look down on foolish fashion.
X
I like you for the charity
You never fail to show, sir.
When students, from anxiety
Blunder in what they know, sir.
XI
I like you, that to you 'tis given,
Perhaps by inspiration,
To hear the harmony of heaven,
Attuned at the creation,
XII
When morning stars together sang
To see earth roll along,
And heaven's high vaults with echoes rang,
As angels caught the song.
XIII
And then again I like in you,
Those very speaking eyes, sir,
Grown, “deeply, beautifully blue,”
From thinking of the skies, sir.
XIV
And all who've your “Optics” say
With beauty they are fraught, sir;
Full of light and clear as day,
And eloquent with thought, sir.
XV
You breathe life through the ghastly pile
Of mouldy mathematics,
You kindle interest by your style
In “Statics” and “Dynamics.”
XVI
You take the student by the hand,
And spite of predilections,
He feels he treads a charmed land,
While conning “Conic Sections.”
XVII
I like in you that taste refined
For horticultural pleasures,
For it bespeaks a health mind
And body, priceless treasures.
XVIII
I like you, that when asked for aid,
You do not pause and waver,
And seem suspiciously afraid
To do a friend a favor.
XIX
But day departs, – the red light flows
Aslant the sheet I'm writing,
And round your name more radiance throws
Than the poor soul inditing.
XX
All virtues shine transcendently
In you, Professor Jackson,
And each of them I finally
Must be to put the “max.” on.