Hartford's Native Son
Olmsted's father John ran a successful dry-goods business on Main Street, right around the site of today's Gold building, Frederick didn't follow in the family business, and his career path was definitely a circuitous one. By the time he had reached his mid-20's, he had apprenticed first as a surveyor, then as a clerk for a New York import company, served as a merchant ship crewman on a year-long journey to China, and started a gentleman's farm and a fruit tree nursery business on Staten Island.
Still somewhat unfocused at that point, he travelled to Europe when he was 28 and spent six months roaming with his brother, much of it taking in the countryside and parks of England. The trip seemed to stimulate Olmsted's interest in the landscapes around him. His letters from that journey turned into a series of columns for The Horticulturist magazine and eventually his first book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England.
Back in the U.S., his writings led to a commission to travel through the pre-Civil War South and into Texas; his observations from that journey led to another book, A Journey Through Texas , as well as solidifying his staunch anti-slavery stance (CLICK HERE for a recent summary of that book).
In 1857, Olmsted was initially hired for the Central Park project strictly to fill in the role of overseeing the project's workforce, but he was soon approached by British architect Calvert Vaux to collaborate with him in the competition for the park's design. Their entry won out over 32 others, and construction began with Olmsted serving as designer and superintendent; the park opened in the winter of 1858-1859.
His undertakings over the next decade or so were as varied as those of his youth: first general secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission under President Lincoln during the Civil War, manager of the Mariposa gold mine in California (near what is now Yosemite National Park), writer for monthly periodicals, and founder of The Nation magazine.
It was in his 40's that Olmsted's life took a permanent turn towards landscaping and city planning: "Olmsted, Vaux & Company, Landscape Architects" was formed in 1865. Together, the two Central Park partners provided designs for parks in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, the University of California, Cornell University --- and even the Institute of Living in Hartford and little Walnut Hill Park in New Britain!
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| Walnut Hill Park, New Britain: one of Olmsted's lesser known achievements |
Their firm dissolved in 1872, but Olmsted's work continued with projects including Mount Royal Park in Montreal, the U.S. Capitol Grounds, the Back Bay Fens in Boston, the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, the National Zoo in Washington, Stanford University, Smith College, and ---- closer to home --- Trinity College.
As if those endeavors weren't enough to keep him busy, he also produced urban design plans for a number for cities. But one of his most interesting projects was for a "city" that was only meant to stand for a few months: the "White City" of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, also known as the Columbian Exposition (in honor of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the New World).
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| Chicago's "White City", 1893 |
Eventually, Olmsted's sons Frederick Jr. and John Charles joined their father's landscaping firm and developed an impressive resume of projects on their own: Mount Holyoke, Harvard Business School and other universities, as well as Hartford's Pope Park. They even had a hand in Springfield's Forest Park.
Olmsted moved to Brookline Massachusetts in 1881, and died there in 1903 at the age of 81. His Brookline home is now the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, but he is buried in his native Hartford, in the city's Old North Cemetery.
For more information about Olmsted, including the planned celebrations for this year, his bicentennial, go to this link: https://www.olmstedlegacytrail.com/
