Thomas Affleck (planter)

For the cabinetmaker, see Thomas Affleck (cabinetmaker).
Thomas Affleck
BornJuly 13, 1812
Dumfries, Scotland
DiedDecember 30, 1868 (1868-12-31) (aged 56)
Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas
NationalityScottish-American
Occupation(s)Planter, editor, writer
SpouseAnna Dunbar Smith
Children1
RelativesMary Hunt Affleck (daughter-in-law)

Thomas Affleck (July 13, 1812 – December 30, 1868) was a Scottish-American nurseryman, almanac editor, and agrarian writer and Southern plantation owner. He published the Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar from 1851 to 1861.

The front façade of Affleck's "Ingleside," from 1936. The house was built on two acres in the town of Washington, Adams County, Mississippi, by Affleck's wife, Anna M. Dunbar Smith, from 1839 to 1840. The Greek Revival-style house is built in the traditional Mississippi Cottage form. Affleck founded his famous Southern Nurseries at "Ingleside" and published his famous agricultural journals, newspaper articles, and plantation account books from the house. After the Affleck family left the area for Texas in 1860, the house was sold and had various owners until after the Civil War. In 1885, Allen Duckett Rawlings purchased the property as an investment. He died in 1887. The house and small acreage remained in the Rawlings family until 2018. The images is from the Historic American Buildings Survey, by James Butters, Photographer, April 15, 1936, entitled "FRONT MAIN ENTRANCE (SOUTH ELEVATION) - Rawlings House, Washington, Adams County, MS."
Ingleside in Washington, Mississippi

He and his wife, Anna M. Dunbar Smith, owned Ingleside, an estate in Washington, Mississippi, where he founded his Southern Nurseries, one of the earliest nurseries in the South. His wife also owned several plantations and enslaved people in Adams and Wilkinson Counties.[1] In the mid-1850s, Affleck purchased Glenblythe Plantation in Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas, where he, his family, and enslaved people moved in 1860. Affleck also published Affleck's Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar from Ingleside, 1851 to 1859, and Glenblythe, 1860 to 1861. At Glenblythe, he established Central Nurseries.[1] He was the first Southern writer whose work on plants was widely read; he also published two best-selling guides for cotton and sugar plantation and farming accounting.[2]

  1. ^ a b Fabiani Giannetto, Raffaella (February 8, 2017). Foreign Trends in American Gardens: A History of Exchange, Adaptation, and Reception. Charlottesville And London: University of Virginia Press. pp. 196–209. ISBN 978-0813939292.
  2. ^ Naithani, Sushma (2021-06-08). "Colonial Agriculture". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)