From the Gardener's Cottage to Head Gardener: Jackson Thornton Dawson
The Arnold Arboretum's first Head Gardener got his start in Andover.
Did you know that the first employee of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum was from Andover? Jackson Thornton Dawson came to Andover as a child and lived there as a young man. He was interested in botany and horticulture from a young age, and became quickly adept at identifying and caring for plants. Later, he became the first gardener for the Arnold Arboretum.
Dawson’s Young Life
Jackson Thornton Dawson was born in Yorkshire, but came to Andover with his mother, Elizabeth Thornton Dawson, in 1846. They settled in New York for only a few years, since a cholera epidemic convinced them that it was time to move on. Finally, Elizabeth brought them to Andover, Massachusetts, to live with Elizabeth’s brother George.1
George Thornton lived at 45 Cheever Circle.2 The property hosted greenhouses and a garden, so young Jackson Thornton Dawson learned to garden when he was only eight or nine. He might have had access to botany books created for young readers, like Familiar lectures on botany, practical, elementary and physiological, also called Mrs. Lincoln’s Botany, a beginner’s textbook on how to study plants.
Dawson left Andover as a teenager and worked for a plant nursery in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. He was apparently quite successful at C. H. Hovey and Co., and created bouquets and other floral decorations for the nursery. At this time, he also attended business school. Dawson continued to work at the nursery and attend school until the Civil War broke out — he served as a Union soldier but was injured and discharged.
After he had healed from his war injury and spent another year or two working for C. H. Hovey, Dawson couldn’t stay away from Andover. He returned to marry Mary McKenna, and the two settled into the gardener’s cottage on John Dove’s estate.
Gardening for Dove
Dawson was already a noted botanist by the time the Arboretum was founded. In 1861, he discovered wild heather growing on a Tewksbury farm and submitted it to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. At first, fellow botanists were suspicious, since heather had never been found growing like this in the United States. It’s likely the seeds were mixed from imported seeds, but many other botanists at the time believed the discovery to be true.
You can read more about John Dove in this History Buzz article here! Dove’s large estate at 276 North Main Street had a beautiful view of the Shawsheen River and all of Dove’s pastures and fields.3 Dove was one of the mill owners, who founded Smith & Dove Mills with his friends, John Smith and Peter Smith. Since Dove loved gardening, he created a series of large greenhouses and built a Gardener’s Cottage on the North end of the property.4
In 1868, John Dove hired Jackson Thornton Dawson to be his gardener. Dawson and his new wife moved into the Cottage and began to care for Dove’s land. Dawson’s two sons were born in the Cottage, William Francis on February 10, 1868, and George Walter on March 16, 1870.5 The land was extensive, and it seems that Dawson had his work cut out for him — but his employment at the Dove estate was short.
Perhaps the position on Dove’s estate helped him gain greater notoriety in the botanist community, since he was soon offered a position at the brand new Bussey Institution at Harvard. This was dedicated to growing and researching plants. Dawson was hired as the Head Gardener at the Bussey Institution, which put him in the prime position to take on the first-ever Gardener position at the new Arnold Arboretum.
Founding the Arboretum
In 1872, the benefactor of the Arboretum, James Arnold, donated money to Harvard University to create an Arboretum dedicated to gathering and preserving tree specimens from around the world. He hoped it would contain trees and other plans that would thrive outdoors. Harvard University worked closely with the city to create an unusual lease for the land. While Harvard continues to own the land that the Arboretum was founded on, it has become part of the city park system, connected to the Emerald Necklace.6
At the new Arboretum, Dawson was in charge of collecting and propagating plants. He set out across Western Massachusetts with a wagon in town, meticulously collecting plants and seeds. Dawson’s detailed accession books, which are still at the Arboretum’s Archives, show his careful attention to each plant’s official classifications.
Dawson would have had an nearly encyclopedic knowledge of plants to be able to record his findings with such precision. He was also extremely skilled at cultivating plants. The Arnold Arboretum website writes that “in total he raised 450,718 plants and distributed 47,993 seed packets during his 43 years as Arboretum Propagator.”7 And he continued to give back to the botanical community, participating in the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Gardeners' and Florists’ Club, the Society of American Florists, and the Boston Florists’ Club. He also gave many lectures on propagation and proper cultivation.
Have you ever been to the Arnold Arboretum? Perhaps like me, you can still imagine Jackson Thornton Dawson among the lush plants, coaxing those first seeds into blooming…
Thank you for reading! Comment below with your questions, thoughts, and experiences.
Plus, click here to open a free Substack account, so you can like, share, and comment.
— Toni
To learn more about Dawson’s story, read Sheila Connor Geary and B. June Hutchinson, “Mr. Dawson, Plantsman,” Arnoldia 40(2), March/April 1980.
Connor Geary and Hutchinson, “Mr. Dawson, Plantsman,” Arnoldia, p. 55.