Welcome - Mission Statement - History
The land which supports the biosystem of the Botanic Garden and the Arboretum was molded during the age of the last glaciers. After 1650, Native American Algonquins made it their home. Colonists later converted the land into farms and grazing fields.
Wellesley College was founded on 500 acres of this bucolic earth in 1875. In 1920-1921, The College's Trustees set aside a portion of the campus for study as a botanic garden.
In addition to the Severances' donation, funds for the Arboretum came from Isabella Hunnewell Shaw in memory of her father, Horatio. Mrs. Shaw wished to share her own delightful childhood enjoyment of the woods with the students of the College.
Botany Professor Margaret C. Ferguson, for whom Wellesley College's Greenhouses are named, was instrumental in securing donations from the Severances and from Mrs. Shaw. Another Botany Professor, Helen Davis, of the Class of 1912, worked out the ground plan for the Botanic Garden and the Arboretum. She also established a nursery on College grounds for trees and shrubs which were donated from the Hunnewell Estate, the Arnold Arboretum, the Case Estates and elsewhere.
As the Botanic Garden and Arboretum evolved, they hewed closely to the vision of the founders of Wellesley College, Henry and Pauline Durant, who wanted women to gain an experience of and an appreciation for the landscape and the environment. From the beginning, Wellesley College had respect for the land on which the campus was placed.
Alexandra Botanic Garden and Hunnewell Arboretum
Alexandra Severance
This beautiful child, for whom the Botanic Garden was named, was the beloved daughter of Cordenio and Mary Severance, a member of the College's class of 1885. Alexandra had died at the age of six, and her parents wished to memorialize her with a garden at Wellesley College which would perpetually bear the little girl's name. Its beauty was to reflect Alexandra's own. Accordingly, in 1906, the Severances donated funds to establish the Botanic Garden.
Horatio Hollis Hunnewell
The Hunnewell Arboretum takes its name from this prominent member of the philanthropic Hunnewell family. His estate on Lake Waban, dating from 1852, is home to world-famous gardens of his creation, including a Pinetum of rare evergreen trees. Mr. Hunnewell and his family have been ardent supporters of Wellesley College through the years. His wife was Isabella Pratt Welles, for whose family the college and town were named. Trees and shrubs from his estate are part of the Arboretum's bounty of beauty for visitors to enjoy today.
Margaret C. Ferguson Greenhouses
Margaret C. Ferguson
The designer of the greenhouses, Miss Margaret C. Ferguson, was a pre-eminent member of the Wellesley College faculty in the first half of the 20th century. She first came to Wellesley in 1888 as a Teacher Special, in a non-degree granting program designed to bolster the education of women already engaged in the teaching profession. After spending some years as an Instructor of Botany at Wellesley, Miss Ferguson went on to receive her B.S. and Ph.D. at Cornell, where her mentor wrote that she had "completed a larger amount of research work, and of a higher character, than any other candidate under my direction in the past." She returned to Wellesley in 1901, where over the next 37 years she advanced from Instructor of Botany to Associate Professor, Professor, Head of Department and Director of Botany. During this time she researched and published many scientific papers, including a classic study on the life history of pine. In 1930, she became the first woman president of the Botanical Society of America. Because of the vision of Miss Ferguson and her tenacity in advocating for the best facilities for the teaching of plant science, in 1946 the Department of Botany and the Trustees of Wellesley College agreed to name the greenhouses in her honor.
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