Frederick Law Olmsted
Born in Hartford in 1822, Frederick Law Olmsted was the premier landscape architect in the United States during the nineteenth century. In the early 1870s, the Trinity administration sought Olmsted's recommendations for the selection of the “new campus” location, layout, and landscape design.
After a sudden illness that kept him from continuing his studies at Yale College, Olmsted eschewed formal education in favor of extensive travel and the pursuit of a variety of business endeavors. After 20 years of working in positions such as businessman, farmer, and journalist, Olmsted became the superintendent and later the architect-in-chief of the Central Park project in New York City, begun in the mid-1850s. Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed a “Greensward Plan” for Central Park which emphasized curved walkways, picturesque vistas, and natural plantings. Olmsted left Central Park at the outbreak of the Civil War to become the first Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission (forerunner to the American Red Cross), where he was responsible for the oversight of medical supplies and camp sanitation for the Union Army troops. In 1863, Olmsted moved to California to oversee the Mariposa Estate and gold mines, where he wrote the Yosemite Report, which ultimately laid the foundation for the national parks system. Olmsted returned to the Central Park project in 1865 to oversee its completion, and for the next 30 years continued to design a variety of outdoor spaces until his retirement in 1895.
After the Trinity College Board of Trustees had voted in March 1872 to sell the bulk of its original campus property to the state of Connecticut, they searched for a new location to site the college. President Abner Jackson likely contacted Olmsted sometime in spring 1872 to discuss various sites within or near the built-up areas of Hartford. On May 15, 1872, Olmsted wrote and sent a report to Jackson in which he indicated his preferences and prognostications about each of 10 possible sites which Olmsted claimed to have personally visited. “Of these ten, seven are, in my judgment, at once ruled out,” Olmsted wrote, leaving the Blue Hills, Thrall property, and Rocky Hill as the top three options. Olmsted discussed the bucolic Rocky Hill site (the eventual site chosen by the Trustees), saying that “a neighborhood might soon be established about it in which a suburban character could be permanently maintained at the same time that the advantage of the city would be within convenient reach.” He advised that the College set aside 30 acres for college common and buildings, as well as another 30 acres for “villa residences,” with a stipulation that prevented “the construction upon it of buildings in blocks.” These residences would increase in “market value” and serve as a “stimulus to improvement.” At least one writer to the Hartford Courant in 1873 interpreted Olmsted to be in favor of a site between Farmington and Asylum avenues, but no such clear preference between the three sites can be read from Olmsted's May 1872 report. Ultimately, the Board of Trustees considered five separate locations which came on the market for purchase by the College.
In mid-May 1875, the Trinity Tablet reported that Frederick Law Olmsted toured the “new college site” with recently-installed Trinity College President, Thomas Pynchon. Two months later, on July 1, 1875, the ground-breaking ceremony which initiated the new Trinity College campus occurred on Rocky Ridge (later known as the Summit campus).
In 1883, the Trinity Tablet reported on campus improvements which included the planting of several rows of “young trees and evergreens,” attributed to Olmsted's landscape design plan for the campus grounds. In the 1890s, Olmsted was contracted to design a park-like area west of the Long Walk, extending along Summit Street in the area used as a quarry by the city of Hartford. Some of the Olmsted firm’s designs for this area are implemented there. Contrary to popular belief, there were no drawings or other evidence to show that Olmsted “designed the landscape” inside the Main Quad.
After his death in 1903, Olmsted was buried at Old North Cemetery in Hartford. The work of Olmsted and his firm may be found in over 500 commissioned projects which span the country and include landscape design for academic institutions, public parks and grounds, residential communities, and private estates.
Sources
National Park Service: Olmsted Archives
Olmsted Network: Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. by Charles E. Beveridge, June 22, 2023.
Library of Congress: Frederick Law Olmsted Papers: Subject File, 1857-1952; School buildings and grounds; Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1872, undated. Manuscript/Mixed Material.
"They Should Stand for Ages" William Burges, Francis Kimball, and Trinity’s Long Walk Buildings (2008) by Peter J. Knapp. Watkinson Library Publications.
Trinity Tablet, June 9, 1883.
Trinity Tablet, May 22, 1875.
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE: THE NEW COLLEGE SITE, Hartford Daily Courant, 22 Feb 1873.