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422 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS November, 1909 
The Garden at Hamilton House 
By Louise Shelton 
(PRG) )) HE garden at Hamilton House is one of and grounds were passing into a state of decline, but in a 
e the most beautiful gardens in America,” short time the rich, though simple beauty, of the time-worn 
Thomas Nelson Page is quoted as having mansion was restored; some additions were necessary, and 
said; and Henry James remarked that while retaining all the old lines of its original style, the 
there is nothing like it in this country. house took a new lease of life. The dignified beauty of 
Once to have seen it, is to wish to be Colonial days adorns the interior, also even to the ancient 
again in that court of flowers. There are wall-paper in the main hall reproduced by an English firm. 
larger gardens, and gar- 
dens of more elaborate de- 
sign, but Hamilton House 
garden is the dream fulfilled 
of a nature-lover and artist, 
who, while living in the at- 
mosphere of an old mansion 
under the shade of ancient 
elms by the river, wove into 
the scheme a garden fash- 
ioned after the spirit of 
the place. 
In the year 1770, Colonel 
Hamilton, a prosperous 
West-Indian merchant, built 
his home here, _ possibly 
from the memory of some 
Colonial homestead in old 
Virginia, and Hamilton 
House on the Piscataqua 
River, nearly two miles 
from the nearest railroad 
station at South Berwick, 
Maine, still enjoys its happy 
seclusion. There is no 
habitation in sight other 
than the old house itself 
mirrored in the waters at 
the foot of the sloping 
lawn. The place suggests 
romance, and Miss Sarah 
Orne Jewett has depicted it 
in her ‘“Tory Lover.” Mr. 
Page wrote about it in 
“Miss Goodwin’s  Inheri- 
tance.” 
Ten years ago its present 
owner bought the estate 
covering two hundred and 
fifty acres of meadow and 
woodland through which . 
winds the river. House Hamilton House 
