This beautiful statue is remarkably the product of two descendants of two of the most prominent 18th century residents of Brandywine Village and some might say of Wilmington and beyond.
In 1929 Josephine Tatnall Smith, namesake of Joseph Tatnall (1740-1813) and whose original residence still stands at 1803 North Market St. and her husband General Joshua Ernest Smith, who lived near Brandywine Park, donated a plantation of cherry trees to the park – 114 trees were planted along the river’s edge. And while Washington didn’t sleep there (he preferred to be camped by the Brandywine with his troops) he did eat and drink there as he and General Anthony Wayne schemed on how to deal with the British on their way from Elkton to Chadds Ford for the historic Battle of the Brandwine on 9/11 – 1777.
Upon Josephine’s death in 1931, her husband General Smith commissioned a fountain and sculpture in her memory modeled after the work of a leading Italian Renaissance sculptor at the time. Anyone know who ???
The Fountain took nearly two years to design and build and was installed on ancestral Tatnall land dating back to the 1740s. The statue is modeled after a fountain from a villa just outside of Florence, Italy. The original fountain’s statue of a nude maiden at the top represented Florence. In the original statue, the woman is squeezing her long hair, with water flowing from the ends of her long locks.
This was a bit risqué for Wilmington in the 1930s. Probably still is. So enters the scene, architect Edward Canby May, descendent of another prominent Brandywine Villager Oliver Canby(1710-1748) who  Built the first flower mill at 1742 at the foot of French Street. Oliver died young and unexpectedly, but he inspired a generation of entrepreneurs to build over 130 mills and make the Brandywine Valley into an economic powerhouse.
Oliver worked with John Brookhouse, the sculptor, to carve a statue of a woman wearing a short gown and clutching a cornucopia like a baby, gaining the approval of Wilmington elites.
Photo Credit: Tami Shanahan
