Museum Garden Book

The Wilhelmina Ann Arnold Barnhart Memorial Garden is the historic herb garden behind Haddam’s Thankful Arnold House and is an important part of the museum’s visitor experience.

Originally designed in 1973 and then redesigned in the late 1980s in the Colonial Revival style with granite-edged beds and gravel paths, the garden features over 50 varieties of herbs as well as a rotating collection of vegetables common in gardens in the early 1800s plus a few old-fashioned annuals. Many of the herbs are ones that Thankful Arnold would have used to care for her family as well as others that would have been grown in the lower Connecticut River Valley in about 1830.

The garden has been lovingly tended by volunteers for most of the past 50 years. However, many of the plants are unusual, so identifying the plants has always been a challenge for our volunteer gardeners. After discussing this problem with Arnold House lead garden volunteer coordinator Deb Rutter after a Master Gardener class at UCONN’s Haddam agricultural extension center in 2023, Bethany Naccarto came up with an idea for her Master Gardener certification volunteer project that led to the creation of a book showcasing the plants in the garden.  

Bethany photographed each plant in the garden throughout the growing season, researched its historical uses during the early 1800s, and created a book featuring the plants in the Thankful Arnold House garden. Originally intended to assist volunteers working in the garden to ascertain which plants were meant to be part of the garden, the book includes color photographs, sketches and detailed information on how each plant would have been used.  Many of our visitors and volunteers asked that the Society print the book and make copies available for purchase.

Limited copies are available for purchase at the below link.