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Prosper Jules Alphonse Berckmans landscape architectural drawings

 Collection
Collection number: ahc.VIS278

Scope and Content

This collection contains drawings that provide details of the land owned by the Berckmans family in both Belgium and Augusta, Georgia. Also part of the collection is a landscape drawing by P. J. Berckmans Company for an estate in Eatonton, Georgia and color landscape plans produced by the lawn and garden fertilizer company Vigoro.

Dates

  • 1852-approximately 1920

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use

This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.

Administrative/Biographical History

Prosper Jules Alphonse Berckmans, Sr. (1830-1910) was born near Brussels, Belgium, to Louis Edouard Mathieu Berckmans (1801-1883), a distinguished horticulturist. P.J.A. Berckmans was educated in France, later returning to Belgium in 1847 to work on his father's estates and to study botany at the Botanical Gardens of Brussels. In 1850, P.J.A. Berckmans moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, followed by his father in 1851. Later, the Berckmans moved to Augusta, Georgia, to run a nursery on a property known as "Pearmont," which they purchased from Benjamin Warren in 1857. In 1858, they purchased an adjacent property and nursery, "Fruitland," from horticulturist Dennis Redmond. The Berckmans combined Pearmont and Fruitland to create the expanded Fruitland Nurseries. One of the first commercial nurseries in the South, Fruitland Nurseries was a world-class experimental station and botanical garden, growing numerous varieties of fruit trees and ornamentals and disseminating them throughout the United Statess. P.J.A. Berckmans founded the Georgia Horticultural Society in 1876, serving as the organization's president until 1910. Berckmans was a lifetime member of the American Pomological Society and served as editor of Farmer and Gardener, a horticultural journal, for several years. When P.J.A. Berckmans died in 1910, his three sons continued to manage the business until the late 1910s. The trade name was sold to Bailie and Gwin in the early 1920s and continued to operate until the 1960s. In 1931, the Fruitland Nurseries' property was sold and later established as the site of the Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters Golf Tournament.

Extent

3 set(s) of landscape drawing(s) (three sets of landscape drawings, one map, and one digital image)

Language

English

System of Arrangement

This collection is arranged alphabetically according to titles supplied by staff.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift, 1992

Description Control

This collection was processed in 2018.

Title
Prosper Jules Alphonse Berckmans landscape architectural drawings
Author
Jennie Oldfield
Date
February 2018
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Kenan Research Center at Atlanta History Center Repository

Contact:
130 West Paces Ferry Road
Atlanta GA 30305
404-814-4040