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THE MEADOWS O be real a garden must be secluded, it must be fragrant, and it must be ripened by years of close association with the people who made and loved it. In the year 1817, Captain Francis Smith and his Yai wife bought an estate of three thousand acres near i the town of Abingdon, Virginia, and named it Mary’s Meadows in honor of their only child, Mary, who was then only five years old. The Bloor Crown Derby china made for them at this time has an S, with ‘‘Mary’s Meadows” in gold, ornamenting each piece. The name of the place was changed later to ‘“The Meadows.” When Mary Smith married Wyndham Robertson, at one time Governor of Virginia, the family lived in Richmond, only returning to their place in the mountains for part of the year. After the War Between the States, however, the Robertsons made The Meadows their permanent home. The grandson of Francis Smith, Captain Frank S. Robertson, inherited ‘“The Meadows.” As a student at the University in 1861 he was one of the “‘Sons of Liberty” that aided in the capture of Harper’s Ferry after the John Brown raid. After Virginia seceded he was lieutenant of engineers on General J. E. B. Stuart’s staff until General Stuart was killed. [hen he served as engineer officer on the staff of General W. H. F. Lee until the close of the war in 1865. Since that time he has made ‘“The Meadows” his home. | The Meadows is far from Tidewater Virginia; twenty-three hundred feet above sea level, and in the midst of the Alleghany Mountains. It was almost on the frontier in the year 1819, when the big garden, covering two acres, was planned and most of its trees and shrubs planted. This garden was surrounded by a paling 1349]
