Dr. Jacob Mulford Garden

Welcome to the Dr. Jacob Mulford botanic medicine garden located at the back of the Walton House Museum.  The garden was created from a list of herbs ordered by Dr. Mulford (but not paid for) at the time of his death in 1844.  The list is located in his estate packet.  This garden is tended by Martha Boice.

    The plants grown in the garden were used by doctors of botanic medicine, a system popular between 1820 and 1850.  The most important plants and herbal combinations were given numbers by the system's originator, Dr. Samuel Thomson.  Then a course of treatment was prescribed by designating various numerical combinations. Patients were often "steamed" as well.  Thomson lacked a formal education and could not read nor write.  He dictated his herbal treatments and received a patent from the federal government for his system.  All that was required to become a doctor of botanic medicine was to purchase his book.  Dr. Thomson's goal was to make a father capable of caring for his own family rather than depending on the "regular" doctors.

    Dr. Mulford was born in New Jersey and came to Montgomery County with his parents in 1799.  He married Jane Hole, the daughter of Dr. John Hole, the first physician in Cincinnati and later the first physician in Montgomery and the surrounding counties.  Mulford's primary occupation was that of a Baptist minister, but he purchased one of Dr. Thomson's books with a "patent," or right, in it and tried the system with great success.

    Many of the plants in the garden are examples of herbs which were harvested in the wild.  It is necessary to keep plants from going to seed.  Goldenseal and Ginseng present special cultural problems, needing deep shade and compost enriched soil.  They are placed behind the large senna plant.

Lobelia inflata was the most important plant in botanic medicine.  Called Puke weed or Emetic weed, you can guess how it was used.   Bayberry was used "to scour the stomach and remove the canker. (Canker was a cancer)  Evan root, Geum rivale, had astringent and tonic properties.  Thomson wrote of Horehound: "An infusion made of the leaves sweetened with honey is good for the asthma, and all complaints of the lungs." Cayenne was used to retain the internal heat of the system and cause a free perspiration.  (Warmth was equated with life, coldness with death.) Also called Horse heal, Elecampane root made a syrup good for cough.   Senna was a strong cathartic or purgative; a little went a long way!

Plant List