Hutchinson Exhibit Honors Life Work of Milton Historian

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of the last royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson. To celebrate the life of this controversial and tragic figure, the has been offering a number of programs that investigate Hutchinson’s life.

The exhibit, The Governor’s Garden: A Life’s Work in Progress, showcases the work of local historian and scholar, Nina Graves. Graves has been studying the life and pursuits of Governor Hutchinson, for over twenty years. Her exhibit includes her own original architectural drawings of Hutchinson’s garden and a 3D model of his 95 acre, 18th century Milton Hill estate.

“On an individual level,” writes Graves, “the story of gardening and gardens is a tale of aspirations and self fulfillment… too much garden history has been concerned with when gardens were made, what they looked like, who made them and how they changed. More interesting by far is what the makers expected from the gardens, and how they and their successors evaluated their investment in gardening and the return it brought them.”
About Nina Graves:

In the early 1990s as a student taking landscape history and design courses at Radcliffe Seminars, Graves started researching Hutchinson’s estate. This came out of curiosity since her property was part of the estate during his ownership. She had also taken a course at Radcliffe on documenting the historic landscape and had researched the Royall estate in Medford as well as town properties of merchants in Boston.

In 1995, Graves received her certificate in landscape history from Radcliffe Seminars. This exhibit at the Forbes Museum showcases her "dissertation," called an Independent Project, which was a documentation of Hutchinson’s estate in Milton.

Her finding that Hutchinson’s estate, with neo-Palladian style house and garden layout, even with a ha-ha, was an early American rendition of contemporary English architecture and gardens is significant and to this time has never been written up in a journal or book.

The term “garden” in this quote has been chosen for its usage in English landscape history terminology, but equate it with the Italian term “villa.” Both refer not just to a garden area, or to a house, but to the estate or whole property. Hutchinson would have thought of the design of his house, the positioning of the barns and other farm buildings, the garden layout, the chosen plantings, the view or “prospect” toward Boston harbor as integral parts of the estate – his garden.

The Governor’s Garden: A Life’s Work in Progress, is on view at Forbes House Museum during its regular tour schedule on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 1pm and 3pm. Special group tours are available by appointment. The exhibit runs through 21 August 2011.

For more information, call the Museum at 617- 696- 1815. Visit www.forbeshousemuseum.org for more information, or visit then on Facebook.

The above release was submitted by Robin M. Tagliaferri, Executive Director, Forbes House Museum.