Pierre-Paul Saunier
Encyclopedia
Montbard
Montbard is a commune and subprefecture of the Côte-d'Or department in the Bourgogne region in eastern France.Montbard is a small industrial town on the river Brenne. The Forges de Buffon, ironworks established by Buffon, are located in the nearby village of Buffon...
in Eastern France, and then at the Jardin du Roi in Paris where he was a protégé of head gardener André Thouin
André Thouin
André Thouin was a French botanist who was born in Paris. He studied botany under Bernard de Jussieu . In 1793 Thouin attained the chair of horticulture at Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. Thouin was a good friend of U.S...
(1746–1824). In 1785 Thouin selected him to accompany the botanist André Michaux
André Michaux
André Michaux was a French botanist and explorer.-Biography:Michaux was born in Satory, now part of Versailles, Yvelines. After the death of his wife within a year of their marriage he took up the study of botany and was a student of Bernard de Jussieu...
(1746–1803) to North America where he was to assist in the establishment of a royal garden for the French crown.
Saunier was one of a number of gardener-botanists (see also Félix Delahaye
Félix Delahaye
Félix Delahaye Félix's surname is variously presented as de Lahaie, Delahaie, de Lahaye, de La Haye, and Lahaie. was a French gardener who served on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage that was sent by the French National Assembly to search for the missing explorer Jean-François La Perouse.Delahaye...
(1767–1829), Anselme Riedlé
Anselme Riedlé
Anselme Riedlé was gardener at the Jardin des Plantes who was invited to join the Nicolas Baudin scientific expedition in the corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste to chart the coast of New Holland , make scientific observations and collect natural history specimens...
(1775–1801), Antoine Guichenot
Antoine Guichenot
Antoine Guichenot or Guichenault was "gardener's boy" on the 1801—1803 French scientific voyage to Australia under Nicolas Baudin, and the 1817 voyage under Louis de Freycinet...
(fl. 1801–1817), Jean Nicolas Collignon
Jean Nicolas Collignon
Jean Nicolas Collignon was a gardener and botanist from the Jardin du Roi who served on the La Pérouse expedition to the South Seas ....
(1762–?1788), and Antoine Sautier
Antoine Sautier
Antoine Sautier was a student gardener who was invited to join the Baudin scientific expedition in the corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste to chart the coast of New Holland , make scientific observations and collect natural history specimens...
(?–1801) sent by Thouin from the Jardin du Roi on voyages of exploration to procure plants and plant products for the benefit of the French nation and to assist botanists in the collection, transport and preservation of botanical specimens.
Saunier’s life story has been assembled by William Robbins and Mary Howson of the New York Botanical Garden and Department of Botany, Columbia University: their account includes lists of seeds and plants sent by Saunier to France in 1788, 1790 and 1791 together with literature and letters relating to his life.
Historical context
The Age of DiscoveryAge of Discovery
The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration and the Great Navigations , was a period in history starting in the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with...
and Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
from the 16th to 18th centuries resulted in European colonial expansion and the search for new commodities, including plant trophies and curiosities. This enterprise was centred in the tropics, but by the 18th century the European desire for plants and seeds had extended to temperate North America. Although captains of vessels, American residents and plant people of the New World were encouraged to exchange plants it was considered desirable to set of gardens specifically for this purpose. It was in this context that King Louis XVI of France appointed botanist and naturalist André Michaux from the Jardin du Roi in Paris (later the Jardin des Plantes
Jardin des Plantes
The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. It is situated in the 5ème arrondissement, Paris, on the left bank of the river Seine and covers 28 hectares .- Garden plan :The grounds of the Jardin des...
) to establish a royal garden in North America to facilitate the accumulation of seeds and plants for shipment to France. The main purpose was to obtain plants useful for building and carpentry, forage and medicine; ornamental plants were of secondary importance. In the course of his 11 year stay, from 1785 to 1796, Michaux established two gardens, one in New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York, the other in Charleston, Carolina.He also sent back about 90 cases of seeds and 60,000 plants. Accompanying Michaux was the promising young gardener from the Jardin du Roi in Paris, Pierre-Paul Saunier, sometimes referred to as a journeyman gardener or élève du museum.
Early history
Pierre-Paul Sautier was born at St Aubin in Gaillon, Bishopric of Evrena in Normandy, becoming an apprentice gardener at the Jardin du Roi in Paris.Arrival in America and establishment of gardens
comte d'Angiviller
Charles-Claude Flahaut de la Billaderie, comte d'Angiviller
Charles-Claude Flahaut de la Billaderie, comte d'Angiviller was the director of the Bâtiments du Roi, a forerunner of a minister of fine arts in charge of the royal building works, under Louis XVI of France, from 1775...
(1730–1810) who had been appointed Director of the Jardin du Roi on the death of the famous naturalist Comte de Buffon
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author.His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier...
(1707 – 1788). By January 1786 Michaux wrote to Count d’Angiviller that a further shipment of 12 boxes of trees had been sent and that a 29-acre plot had been selected for the royal garden in the vicinity of New York and the Hudson River adjacent to extensive woods where seeds and young trees could be obtained. A house of 4 rooms was constructed, Michaux purchasing 2 horses and a cart together with tools and Saunier was placed in charge. His pay was meagre and requests, including one by Thouin, were made that he be allowed to cultivate parts of the garden for himself and this was granted.
The New Jersey garden was essentially utilitarian, a temporary storehouse for material on its way to France. It was set out out in beds with the plants ready for transplanting. Near the house was a nursery and vegetable garden. Local shrubs were planted in rows, more distant plants in small groups or singly. A large part of the garden was a cedar swamp where there was the Chinquapin and plantings of Kalmia and Magnolia.
Michaux went south in 1786 to find stock and gain advice but was disappointed by the lack of knowledge and interest in horticulture. He visited George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
(1732–1799), William Bartram
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...
(1739–1823) eminent American botanist and naturalist, the son of John Bartram
John Bartram
*Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. ....
(1699-1777), who founded he Philadelphia Botanical Garden in 1728, and lumber baron William Hamilton
William Hamilton (lumber baron)
William Hamilton was a lumber merchant and political figure in Upper Canada.He was born in Ireland and came to Quebec City with his brother George sometime before 1807. They were originally in the business of importing goods but later became involved in the timber trade...
(?-1822). By September 1786 he had selected a site for a second garden of 111 acres in Charleston, Carolina and here he stayed, with occasional visits to Saunier in New York, until departing for France in August 1796. In 1802 Michaux joined, as botanist, the Baudin
Baudin
-People:* Auguste Baudin, French admiral and colonial governor* Charles Baudin, French admiral* François-André Baudin, French admiral* Nicolas Baudin, French explorer* Robert Baudin, American counterfeiter...
expedition charged with charting the coast of New Holland, but he quarelled with Baudin, leaving the ship at Mauritius and dying of a tropical fever while botanising in Madagascar in 1802.
Closure of gardens
During the French Revolution the New York garden was ignored and in 1791 the French Government decided to close the two gardens and in 1792 Michaux settled accounts for the garden. Saunier made no shipments of either seed or plants from 1792 to 1802, he did not communicate with the French government and his salary was stopped: the garden at Charleston was abandoned. Michaux returned to America from France in 1801 arranging immediately for the sale of the Charleston garden. The potential sale of the New Jersey Garden disturbed Saunier who managed to prevent its occurrence and there was some contretemps between Saunier, André Michaux and his son Francois-André Michaux over both the sale and Saunier’s back-pay. Eventually the garden was owned by Saunier because it was part of a larger area owned by his son Michael. Saunier continued making shipments to France for the rest of his life and this was continued by Michael, but decreasing until 1830 when they ceased with a final shipment of three small boxes and its nursery functions ceased. The garden had disappeared as a government institution in about 1807.Family
In the late 1780s or early 1790s Saunier had married Margaret Ackerman from a prominent Dutch-American maily in Bergen and Hudson County. They had two sons, Michael (b.1794) and Abraham (b.1797) and two daughters, Angelick and Margaret Saunier made 5 land purchases to add to the garden. Horticultural knowledge Saunier had gained at the Jardin des Plantes and in America was willingly passed on to the locals. Saunier died in 1818 aged 67 and after his death son Michael took over the nursery business and farm continuing to purchase land for the estate, the land in 1841 consisting of about 137 acres. However, the estate did not last much beyond the death of Michael in 1844 as it was split into small land holdings. Today the site consist of the Hoboken cemetery, warehouses, railroad and marshes along Cromahill Creek. Nothing marks the spot of the Jersey garden, although Michaux's garden at Charleston has a commemoration plaque. Great-great grandchildren were alive when the account on which this article is based was written.Plant introductions
To Michaux, and a much lesser extent Saunier, is attributed the first introduction of trees and shrubs from eastern North America. To Saunier in particular is attributed the introduction to cultivation of the Chinquapin, Castanea pumila, and Bean Tree Catalpa bignonioides although William Jackson BeanWilliam Jackson Bean
William Jackson Bean was a British botanist and plantsman, who was curator of Kew Gardens from 1922 to 1929. He was responsible for some of the present collections of trees and woody plants there....
in his Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles refers to its introduction to cultivation, at least in the British Isles, in 1729. In Volume One of the same work Bean notes that, at that time of his writing, some of the trees raised from the seed of Michaux's collections in America could still be seen in the gardens of Petit Trianon
Petit Trianon
The Petit Trianon is a small château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France.-Design and construction:...
and Arboretum de Balaine
Arboretum de Balaine
The Arboretum de Balaine is a historic arboretum located in Villeneuve-sur-Allier, Allier, Auvergne, France. It is open daily in the warmer months; an admission fee is charged....
.
See Also
- List of gardener-botanist explorers of the Enlightenment
- European and American voyages of scientific explorationEuropean and American voyages of scientific explorationThe era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment...