Included in the collection are 27 volumes of garden diaries, one for each year from 1972 to 1998. Also present are .25 linear feet of papers: invoices, notes, correspondence, etc. related to purchases and maintenance of the Champ Soleil gardens.
All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the PSNC Archives and Special Collections are requested to contact the archivist, prior to reproducting, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although the Preservation Society has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim copyright ownership. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the copyright and to obtain any necessary permission from them.
The collection is open to the public, and there are no restrictions on access. However, the collection can only be seen by scheduled appointment.
Description or title of item, PSNCA.H.033: John A. Yule garden journals and papers, Box #, Folder #, Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, RI.
The collection is arranged in two series by material type. Garden diary volumes make up Series I and other papers make up Series II.
John A. Yule served as the gardener at Champ Soleil mansion in Newport, Rhode Island for several decades during its ownership by artist, big game hunter, and adventure writer Russell Barnett Aitken (1910-2002) and his wife Annie-Laurie Crawford Aitken (1900-1984). Architects Henry M. Polhemus and Lewis Augustus Coffin, Jr. designed Champ Soleil for Lucy Wharton Drexel Dahlgren (1867-1943). The French XVIII-century manor style house was completed in 1929 and sits at 601 Bellevue Avenue in Newport.
Robert Goelet, son of Ochre Court’s owner Ogden Goelet, purchased the house from Dahlgren’s daughter Eva in 1946 and owned it until his death in 1967. James Gordon Douglas, Jr. purchased the house from Goelet’s estate, and in 1970 sold it to Russell and Annie-Laurie Crawford Aitken, around which time Yule became the estate’s gardener.
John Alexander “Jack” Yule was born August 9, 1936, son of Scottish immigrant Alexander Yule (ca. 1894-1957), and his wife Cecelia (b. ca. 1902). Alexander had immigrated with his family in 1899, and he too was a gardener by occupation. Alexander’s father, also John Yule, was superintendent of the Newport Golf Club grounds as of 1909. According to the 1940 Census, the Yules lived at 19 South Baptist Street. The Newport directory of 1956 gives the family’s address as 22 Dixon Street.
The 1959 Newport directory notes John Yule’s occupation as gardener for the Ledges on Ocean Avenue. Yule served in the National Guard in the 1960s and on the Aquidneck Island Project Area Committee, concerned with highway construction on the island. In October 1970, Yule purchased a home on Roy Avenue in Middletown, around the same time as he became the gardener at Champ Soleil. The 1985 Newport directory lists an additional address for him at 166 Coggeshall Avenue, likely the garden’s cottage for the estate. Yule died in 1998 and is buried at Saint Mary’s Episcopal Churchyard in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. His wife Shirley survived him, and she donated the collection to the Preservation Society the year after his death.
Mrs. Shirley Yule donated the collection in March 1999 via Tim Brown.
Additional accruals are not expected.
Issues of The Rose Annual and 26 printed books and pamphlets on gardening and horticulture were added to the curatorial reference collection.