104 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



JOHN CHARLES OLMSTED 



A MINUTE ON HIS LIFE AND SERVICE 



John Charles Olmsted, Landscape 

 Architect, senior member of the firm of 

 Olmsted Brothers, Brookline, Massa- 

 chusetts, and one of his profession's 

 ablest and most respected representa- 

 tives, died at his home in Brookline, after 

 a long illness, on February 25, 1920 ; his 

 wife, Sophia Buckland (White) Olmsted, 

 and his two daughters surviving him. 



He was born in Geneva, Switzerland, 

 September 14, 1852, the son of Dr. John 

 Hull and Mary Cleveland Bryant (Per- 

 kins) Olmsted. His father was the eldest 

 son of John Olmsted, a prosperous 

 merchant of Hartford, Connecticut, where 

 the family had Hved since the settlement 

 of the place in 1636, having come from 

 the County of Essex, England. John's 

 mother, after his father's death, married 

 his father's brother, Frederick Law Olm- 

 sted. John, thus originally the nephew, 

 became now the step-son of Frederick 

 Law Olmsted, and, in the course of time, 

 the half-brother, as well as the first 

 cousin, of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., 

 who, by John's death, now becomes the 

 senior member of the Olmsted firm. 



One experience of his boyhood is of 

 special interest in the light of his later 

 career. In 1864-5, with his parents, he 

 visited the Yosemite and made many 

 camping trips in that region, enjoying to 

 the full this outdoor life. This was three 

 or four years before the now famous first 

 visit of John Muir and twenty-five years 

 before Congress was led to set apart for 

 all time the Yosemite Valley with some- 



thing of the adjacent country as a Nation- 

 al Park. 



Owing to the travels of his parents, he 

 was largely privately taught. He gradu- 

 ated from Yale in 1875 with the degree 

 of Bachelor of Philosophy from the 

 Sheffield Scientific School. 



After graduation, he entered his uncle's 

 office, then at 209 W. 46th St., New York, 

 and in 1878 received an interest in the 

 business. In 1884, after the office was 

 moved to Brookline, he became a full 

 partner, and the firm became F. L. and 

 J. C. Olmsted. On the former's retire- 

 ment, about twenty years later, John be- 

 came senior partner of the firm, which 

 had meanwhile been enlarged by the ad- 

 mission of Henry Sargent Codman in 

 1889 (becoming then F. L. Olmsted & 

 Co.), and of Charles Eliot in 1893 (be- 

 coming then Olmsted, Olmsted and 

 Eliot). Codman died in 1893, Eliot in 

 1897, the firm for one year then becoming 

 again F. L. and J. C. Olmsted. In 1898, 

 Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., was admit- 

 ted, the firm became Olmsted Brothers, 

 and so remained until John's death*, and 

 at this writing continues under that 

 name. Owing to his uncle's condition, 

 John had been, in fact even for some 

 years before the latter's formal retire- 

 ment, the active senior member of the 

 firm. 



*James Frederick Dawson and Percival Gal- 

 lagher had been admitted to associate partner- 

 ship in 1906. 



