Historical Archaeology of the Delaware Valley, 1600-1850

13. “He Will Be a Bourgeois American and Spend His Fortune in Making Gardens”: An Archaeological Examination of Joseph Bonaparte’s Point Breeze Estate

13 “He Will Be a Bourgeois American and spend His fortune in Making Gardens”: An Archaeological Examination of Joseph Bonaparte’s Point Breeze Estate Richard Veit and Michael J. Gall Introduction Joseph Bonaparte, the elder brother of napoleon Bonaparte and former King of naples and spain, fled from Europe following napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and sought refuge in America. Despite an attempt to conceal his true identity, Joseph was soon recognized and requested asylum in the United states. With some misgivings, President James Madison allowed him to remain in the country. Joseph would reside in north America, with short interregna, from 1815 until 1839. He divided his time between a townhouse he rented in Philadelphia and his country estate, Point Breeze in Bordentown, new Jersey. At Point Breeze, he constructed one of the first picturesque gardens in the U.s., a pair of grand houses, as well as numerous outbuildings (figure 13.1). During his American sojourn, Joseph, who styled himself the Count de survilliers, also became a major figure in the cultural life of the Delaware Valley. from 2005 to 2012, the former Point Breeze Estate, also known as Bonaparte’s Park, was the focus of Monmouth University’s annual field school in historical archaeology and volunteer excavations by members of the Archaeological society of new Jersey (figure 13.2). Through documentation of the former estate’s extensive above-ground remains and selective subsurface testing of the property, new information about the design, meaning, and function of the property has come to light. At Point Breeze, Joseph Bonaparte created an early American picturesque garden, which hearkened back to European antecedents, both English and french, and physically reproduced aspects of properties he had once owned in Europe (Weber 1986). The estate highlighted Joseph’s great wealth and unusual social position as an exiled king. The substantial houses he built and the carefully designed but natural appearing landscape that Joseph created served as a grand stage where he could play the role of king in exile for visiting dignitaries, impress local residents, and serve as a cultural attaché, fostering the growth of fine art and landscape design in America. furthermore, the lavish scale of Joseph’s projects meant that he needed to employ large numbers of craftsmen, farmers, laborers, and servants. in so doing, he created 298 Archaeological Examination of Bonaparte’s Point Breeze Estate a network of individuals financially tied to him and his estate. Both symbolically, and economically, the estate served to strengthen these bonds. We argue that Joseph Bonaparte’s Point Breeze estate was a multivocal landscape (Upton 1988), which embodied varying and indeed conflicting meanings for an assortment of individuals and disparate groups at different times. furthermore, Point Breeze continues to be an evocative landscape of memory and promise. Joseph Bonaparte at Point Breeze Almost immediately upon arriving in the U.s., Joseph began searching for an appropriate estate. The estate needed to be suitable for a country gentleman, embody the landscape features necessary for the creation of a grand picturesque garden similar to those with which he was acquainted in Europe, and be located between Philadelphia and new york, enabling him to rapidly communicate with both friends and family abroad. Most importantly, it needed to command attention and communicate to the public an impression of the owner’s wealth. in July 1816, Joseph found the property that he had longed for with the help of his land agent and interpreter James Carret. figure 13.1. Point Breeze on the Delaware, Thomas Birch, 1818. Courtesy of the newark Museum. Richard Veit and Michael Gall 299 Joseph’s initial purchase included an assemblage of seven contiguous tracts of land encompassing approximately 394.25 acres stretching 1.55 miles along the east side of the Crosswicks Creek in Chesterfield (now both Bordentown Township and Bordentown City), new Jersey (Burlington County Clerk’s Office 1817). The purchased property also included a small island of 3 rods and 21 perches on Crosswicks Creek in nottingham Township and a 3.5-acre town lot in Bordentown City containing a brick house. nearly half of the purchased tract was composed of a roughly 125acre estate called Point Breeze. Historically owned by the farnsworth and Douglas families and just prior to Joseph’s purchase by stephen sayre, former High sheriff of london and briefly Benjamin franklin’s personal secretary, Point Breeze was a fine property prominently sited on a high bluff...