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Everyone asks, "What's it mean? Why name your place at all?" Longwood Gardens,
a very large and very famous horticultural attraction, is an hour away from
us. Besides the little word play that we used to think was cute, this is the story.
Smallwood Garden is located in southern New Jersey. The house was constructed circa 1870 by a Mr.
Linton Silver. It is not known how long the Silver family owned it, and it may
have been sold a few times before 1900. It was one of the original homes built
during the heyday of glass manufacturing in the area. The Moore Brothers Glass
Factory was located nearby, and it is rumored that the "factory doctor" lived
here. The Smallwood family bought the property sometime around 1900 and maintained
it as their home until the 1960's. The last Mrs. Smallwood, either a
daughter or granddaughter of the original Smallwood, had a special fondness for
gardening, evidenced by some of the older trees, shrubs and flowers found on
the site. When we moved here in 1976, drifts of daffodils greeted us in the spring. They were packed so tight that we had to
dig down a foot to find the bulbs to separate them. She also left us an antique
thornless rose that blooms each Memorial Day. As present custodians of the property,
we have endeavored to return the home to its original beauty inside and
reestablish as much of the the original "cottage type" garden as possible. Oh,
we've added a lot of things, but we like to think that all of the Mrs. Smallwoods
would approve.
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