John Hennessy Saul

John Hennessy Saul was born in County Cork, Ireland, the son of James Saul (1779-1869) and Mary Hennessy (1790-1880), both also born in County Cork. His surname is of Norman-Irish origin being a corruption of DeSalle. Saul worked in various nurseries in the British Isles, assisting his father, eventually becoming a manager of several nurseries.[1] In 1841 he was recorded as working as a gardener at Llantarnam Abbey whilst the rest of his family were with their father who was working on the estate at East Cowes Castle.[2]

A plaque on E Street NW southeast of the White House

In 1851, he emigrated to the US preceded by his brother, also a horticulturalist, who had emigrated in 1849, to work for noted landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing.[1][3][4] From 1851 to 1853, he was responsible along with William Dunlop Brackenridge for improving the National Mall, Lafayette Square, and the Smithsonian Museum grounds.[1][5]

In 1852, he started a seed business. In 1854, Saul became the first Chairman of Washington’s Parks commission, the forerunner of the Park and Planning Commission for the city.[6] In 1854, he purchased his first nursery and in 1872, he purchased his second. He operated twenty greenhouses using his horticultural skills to create numerous new varieties of plants. He was a member of the American Society of Florists and was a frequent contributor to the journal The Horticulturalist.[1]

He married Rosina Mary Lawley, daughter of a German clockmaker, Josef Laule, later anglicised to Joseph Lawley. She was born in Bath, Somerset, England in 1825 and they married in a Catholic ceremony in Bath in 1850.[1][2] He died on May 11, 1897.[1] His son, Bernard Francis Saul (January 16, 1872 - February 1, 1931) was the founder Washington D.C.'s first mortgage bank, the B. F. Saul Company.