65 Jefferson, Railroad Towns, and the Singular Plan Of

Peer Reviewed Title: Jefferson, Railroad Towns, and the Singular Plan of Aiken [Research and Debate] Journal Issue: Places, 20(3) Author: Anderson, Stanford Publication Date: 2008 Publication Info: Places Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/00r959tc Acknowledgements: This article was originally produced in Places Journal. To subscribe, visit www.places-journal.org. For reprint information, contact [email protected]. Keywords: places, placemaking, architecture, environment, landscape, urban design, public realm, planning, design, volume 20, issue 3, 2008, EDRA, awards, Jefferson, railroad, towns, singular, Aiken, Stanford, Anderson Copyright Information: All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the author or original publisher for any necessary permissions. eScholarship is not the copyright owner for deposited works. Learn more at http://www.escholarship.org/help_copyright.html#reuse eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. Research and Debate Jefferson, Railroad Towns, and the Singular Plan of Aiken Stanford Anderson The town of Aiken, South Carolina, Aiken Web site wonders only about its Charleston to Hamburg, South Caro- has charmed residents and visitors for broad streets, venturing that they may lina, on the left bank of the Savannah more than a century. One reason is have been born of concern with sani- River, opposite Augusta, Georgia.4 its singular plan: a regular rectangular tation, or for convenience in turning The motivation of the railroad’s grid of broad boulevards running in horse-drawn vehicles.3 trustees was to capture the trade of both directions, creating a park-like The story is far richer and more the Carolina hinterland for their city. environment throughout—even in the satisfying than that. But to understand Produce from this region had been center of intersections.1 This special, it requires returning to the founding of moved more easily until then along adaptable feature of Aiken has served the South Carolina Canal and Railroad the Savannah River, to the competing it well since the town was founded, in Company, and even to the town-plan- city of Savannah, Georgia. 1834. Remarkably, it is also the result ning thought of Thomas Jefferson. Plans for the railroad progressed of Aiken’s having been an early “rail- in the months that followed. And road town”—a term that has come The South Carolina Railroad and in September 1829 Horatio Allen to imply the simplest of plans, undif- the Founding of Summerville arrived in Charleston to be its chief ferentiated grids set down with little In December 1827 a group of engineer. Earlier that year he had more purpose than the crudest forms Charleston citizens organized and supervised the development of a of land speculation.2 chartered the South Carolina Canal How did Aiken come into being? and Rail Road Company. The second Even the present city government can railroad to be built in the United Above: Recent map of Aiken showing its grid of offer no adequate explanation for its States, and the first one with a long historic boulevards. MIT Urban Morphology Group, distinctive qualities. And the current line, it was to extend 136 miles, from 1980. Places 20.3 65 short-line railroad for the Delaware community of Summerville as a place to and Hudson Canal Company, over- develop a sizable tract of their own: an seen the assembly of locomotives agreeable town called New Summer- he had procured in England, and ville, with a rail station at its center. even become the first person in the In 1831, New Summerville was western hemisphere to drive a loco- established, set out as shown in the C. motive.5 Next, in March 1830, E. L. E. Detmold plan of March 1832 (but Miller, a merchant and SCC&RRCo better revealed in the Mellard plan trustee, signed a contract for the of 1850).6 This version of Summer- company’s first locomotive. And ville was planned as a checkerboard, in October of that year the “Best a square grid with broad streets, one Friend” arrived from the West Point hundred feet wide. Every other square Foundry in New York, the first loco- of land was designated as parkland—so motive built in America. that only 33 percent of the land would As plans for the railroad moved ahead, so did plans for real estate be available for development. Each of speculation. Some Charleston citizens the “black squares” for development of means had already chosen a site in was in turn divided in four lots of one Middle: Route of the South Carolina Railroad from the piney woods 28 miles to the west acre each (210 feet square). Charleston to Hamburg (on the Savannah River, for a summer retreat, a place to escape This was railroad land speculation, opposite Augusta, Georgia). Ink on linen, ca. 1835. the heat and “miasma” of the city. The indeed—but with extraordinary quali- Southern Railway archive. railroad trustees recognized the nascent ties and extremely low density. 66 Anderson / Jefferson, Railroad Towns, and the Singular Plan of Aiken Research and Debate Jefferson and the Checkerboard Plan the miasmata which produce yellow the middle of every street. It would In 1805, concerned about yellow fever. I have accordingly proposed that have been easy to have made no lots of fever in Washington and other Ameri- the enlargements of the city of New less size than half an acre, and by law can cities, Thomas Jefferson had Orleans, which must immediately to have prevented their subdivision.8 written: take place, shall be on this plan. But it is only in case of enlargements to be Praising the later foundation of Such a constitution of atmosphere made, or of cities to be built, that this Columbia, South Carolina, Ramsay being requisite to originate this disease means of prevention can be employed.7 noted that there were no lots of less as is generated only in low, close, and than half an acre, that the two main ill-cleansed parts of a town, I have Similar thoughts are recorded in crossing streets were 150 feet wide, and supposed it practicable to prevent its Charleston during this period. In his no streets were less than 60 feet wide. generation by building our cities on a history of South Carolina, of 1809, Nevertheless, “it is to be regretted that more open plan. Take, for instance, the David Ramsay yearned that the origi- the lots were not by the original terms chequer board for a plan. Let the black nal settlers of Charleston had planned of sale made indivisible, and their squares only be building squares, and differently: owners restrained from building more the white ones be left open, in turf and than one dwelling house on each.”9 trees. Every square of houses will be It would then have been nearly as easy surrounded by four open squares, and to have made the streets 100 feet wide every house will front an open square. as any inferior number. In that case Above and opposite: Street intersection views in The atmosphere of such a town would they would have admitted three rows Aiken. A “square” is created at each intersection as part be like of the country, insusceptible of of trees, one at each side, and one in of its boulevard plan. Photos by author. Places 20.3 67 Summerville The railroad trustees sought to make such thought operative in their plans for a low-density village in the forest. These are revealed in the plot plan of Summerville, and, more explicitly, in the indenture, with a remarkable set of rules, that would need to be signed by each person pur- chasing a lot there. State of South-Carolina District of Charleston This indenture, made the [seven- teenth] day of [August] in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and [thirty one] between the South-Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, of the one part: and [R. J. Mosser] of the other part. not less that [fifteen] pine trees, indenture quoted here was signed, the Whereas the South-Carolina Canal measuring not less than [ten] inches Charleston Courier of August 20, 1831, and Rail Road Company have at the height of [three feet] above the predicted that the open squares of agreed to lay out a tract or parcel natural surface of the ground. And if Summerville would not survive. Their of land, of which they are seized in any lot owner shall suffer the trees on logic seems to have been that a village St. George’s Parish, in village lots; his lot to be cut or destroyed, so that of such low density, where parklands and to encourage the building of a there should not be found as many as were wholly undifferentiated from village near Summerville in the said [fifteen] pine trees of the dimensions development blocks, could not survive Parish: and for the promotion of the aforesaid in his Lot, his title to said real estate speculation. common good, have laid down and Lot shall be forfeited, and the fee- Apparently, that process of specu- determined on certain rules or regu- simple and inheritance of the said Lot lation began early. A map of about lations, and the said [R. J. Mosser] shall vest in the said South-Carolina 1860 in the Southern Railway archive has agreed to purchase the Lot here- Canal and Rail Road Company. One recording ownership of Summerville inafter mentioned, and to hold the dwelling house and all sorts of out- lots shows many of the “open” squares same on the condition of observing houses in the owners discretion may occupied, and one of those with the and abiding by the said rules: which be built on one Lot; but no tenant notation of a sale date in 1851.

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