Read Online The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Gilbert
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immensely competent young washbasin of a woman named Hanneke de Groot. She also procured from her father’s library a 1665 edition of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia , and a most valuable compendium of LeonhartFuchs’s botanical illustrations. She sewed dozens of pockets into her traveling dress, and filled each pocket with the Hortus’s rarest tulip bulbs, all swaddled protectively in moss. She brought along, as well, several dozen blank accounting ledgers.
She was already planning her library, her garden, and—it would appear—her fortune.
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B eatrix and Henry Whittaker arrived in Philadelphia in early 1793. The city, unprotected by walls or other fortifications, consisted at that time of a busy port, a few blocks of commercial and political interests, a conglomerate of farming homesteads, and some fine new estates. It was a place of expansive, generative possibility—a veritable alluvial bed of potential growth. The First Bank of the United States had opened there just the year before. The entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was at war with its forests—and its denizens, armed with axes, oxen, and ambition, were winning. Henry bought 350 acres of sloping pastures and unmolested woodland along the west bank of the Schuylkill River, with the intention to add more land as soon as he could acquire it.
Henry had originally planned to be rich by the age of forty, but he had driven his horses so hard, as the expression went, that he had arrived at his destination early. He was only thirty-two years old, and already had money banked up in pounds, florins, guineas, and even Russian kopecks. He aimed to become even wealthier still. But for now, upon his arrival in Philadelphia, it was time to put on a display.
Henry Whittaker named his property White Acre, a play on his own name, and immediately set to work building a Palladian mansion of lordly dimensions, far more beautiful than any private structure the city had yet seen. The house would be stone, vast, and well balanced—graced with fine east and west pavilions, a columned portico to the south, and a broad terrace to the north. He also built a grand carriage house, a large forge, and a whimsical gatehouse, as well as several botanical structures—including the first of what would eventually be many freestanding hothouses, an orangery modeled after the famous structure at Kew, and the beginnings of a glasshouse of staggering scope. Along the muddy bank of the Schuylkill—where only fifty years earlier Indians had gathered wild onions—he built his own private barge dock, just like the ones at the fine old estates along the Thames.
The city of Philadelphia was, for the most part, still living frugally in those days, but Henry designed White Acre as a brazen affront to the very notion of thrift. He wanted the place to pulse with extravagance. He was not afraid to be envied. Indeed, he found it bloody good sport to be envied, and good business, too, for envy drew people near. His home was designed not only to appear grand from a distance—easily seen from the river, sitting lofty and high upon its promontory, coolly overlooking the city on the other side—but also to express richness with every minute detail. Each doorknob would be brass, and all the brass would gleam. The furniture came straight from Seddon’s of London, the walls were hung with Belgian paper, the china plate was Cantonese, the cellar was stocked with Jamaican rum and French claret, the lamps were hand-blown in Venice, and the lilacs around the property had first bloomed in the Ottoman Empire.
He allowed rumors of his wealth to spread unchecked. As rich as he was, it did not hurt for people to imagine him even richer. When neighbors started whispering that Henry Whittaker’s horses had their hooves shod in silver, he permitted them to continue believing it. In fact, his horses’ hooves were not shod in silver; they were shod in iron, just like everyone else’s horses, and what’s more, Henry
She was already planning her library, her garden, and—it would appear—her fortune.
----
B eatrix and Henry Whittaker arrived in Philadelphia in early 1793. The city, unprotected by walls or other fortifications, consisted at that time of a busy port, a few blocks of commercial and political interests, a conglomerate of farming homesteads, and some fine new estates. It was a place of expansive, generative possibility—a veritable alluvial bed of potential growth. The First Bank of the United States had opened there just the year before. The entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was at war with its forests—and its denizens, armed with axes, oxen, and ambition, were winning. Henry bought 350 acres of sloping pastures and unmolested woodland along the west bank of the Schuylkill River, with the intention to add more land as soon as he could acquire it.
Henry had originally planned to be rich by the age of forty, but he had driven his horses so hard, as the expression went, that he had arrived at his destination early. He was only thirty-two years old, and already had money banked up in pounds, florins, guineas, and even Russian kopecks. He aimed to become even wealthier still. But for now, upon his arrival in Philadelphia, it was time to put on a display.
Henry Whittaker named his property White Acre, a play on his own name, and immediately set to work building a Palladian mansion of lordly dimensions, far more beautiful than any private structure the city had yet seen. The house would be stone, vast, and well balanced—graced with fine east and west pavilions, a columned portico to the south, and a broad terrace to the north. He also built a grand carriage house, a large forge, and a whimsical gatehouse, as well as several botanical structures—including the first of what would eventually be many freestanding hothouses, an orangery modeled after the famous structure at Kew, and the beginnings of a glasshouse of staggering scope. Along the muddy bank of the Schuylkill—where only fifty years earlier Indians had gathered wild onions—he built his own private barge dock, just like the ones at the fine old estates along the Thames.
The city of Philadelphia was, for the most part, still living frugally in those days, but Henry designed White Acre as a brazen affront to the very notion of thrift. He wanted the place to pulse with extravagance. He was not afraid to be envied. Indeed, he found it bloody good sport to be envied, and good business, too, for envy drew people near. His home was designed not only to appear grand from a distance—easily seen from the river, sitting lofty and high upon its promontory, coolly overlooking the city on the other side—but also to express richness with every minute detail. Each doorknob would be brass, and all the brass would gleam. The furniture came straight from Seddon’s of London, the walls were hung with Belgian paper, the china plate was Cantonese, the cellar was stocked with Jamaican rum and French claret, the lamps were hand-blown in Venice, and the lilacs around the property had first bloomed in the Ottoman Empire.
He allowed rumors of his wealth to spread unchecked. As rich as he was, it did not hurt for people to imagine him even richer. When neighbors started whispering that Henry Whittaker’s horses had their hooves shod in silver, he permitted them to continue believing it. In fact, his horses’ hooves were not shod in silver; they were shod in iron, just like everyone else’s horses, and what’s more, Henry
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