Samuel Parsons
Samuel Bowne Parsons Jr. (February 8, 1844 – February 3, 1923), was an American landscape architect. He is remembered as being a founder of the American Society of Landscape Architects, helping to establish the profession.
For the 18th-century lawyer and soldier, see Samuel Holden Parsons. For the 19th-century attorney, translator and banker, see Samuel Parsons Scott. For the American horticulturist, see Samuel Bowne Parsons.
Samuel Bowne Parsons Jr.
February 8, 1844
February 3, 1923
Yale University, Ph.B. (1862)
Early years[edit]
Parsons was born February 8, 1844, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Samuel Bowne Parsons (1819–1906) and Susan R. Howland (1824–1854). His father was the son of Samuel Parsons (1774–1841), who moved to Flushing from Manhattan around 1800 and married Mary Bowne (1784–1839). His father was an accomplished and well noted horticulturist, who was the first to import Japanese Maples and propagate rhododendrons. Parsons received his practical training and knowledge of landscaping and landscape materials working for J. R. Trumpy, the manager of his father’s nursery in Flushing, Queens.
Parsons then went to school at Yale University and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1862, after which he spent several years studying and practicing farming. When he returned home to the family nursery, it had started supplying Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, two famous designers responsible for the Greensward Plan for New York City's Central Park. The site of the nursery is within present-day Kissena Park, and Parsons Boulevard, which runs through much of the family nursery's land, is named after him.