Eyla Mermer

Many of us soon learned, however, that living alone or living among our old drinking companions made it more difficult to practice the principles necessary for continued sobriety. A number of surviving eighteenth-century maps have verified the layout and growth of the town. The most useful has been the circa 1782 “Frenchman’s Map,” apparently drawn by a French officer for the purpose of billeting troops after the victory at Yorktown. In addition to showing streets and buildings accurately, this document provided detailed information about fence lines and delineates what appear to be trees at several locations. Chapters are important links in the effective democratic system of operation guiding Oxford House as a whole. They are one way to solve the problem of keeping combined groups of houses small enough to permit each house to share its experiences, strengths and hopes with other houses.

Restoration of Williamsburg’s gardens

In the eighteenth century, Williamsburg was the capital of the largest, wealthiest, and most populous of the colonies and the center of cultural life in Virginia. But compared to Philadelphia or Charleston, Williamsburg remained a small, but beautiful, green country town. During the Revolution, the Virginia capital was moved to Richmond because it was felt that Williamsburg was too vulnerable to attacks from the British.

Self-run, Self-supported Recovery Houses

The opportunity for a house to democratically function requires periodic meetings within the house — at least once a week. Such meetings should be used to resolve any operational or personality problems facing the house. By and large, the plants found in the gardens of Colonial Williamsburg are those native to the tidewater area or those introductions made by 1780.

Oxford Houses of South Carolina

Sauthier’s plans included detailed renderings of intricate urban garden layouts, and established that their designs followed similar schemes and patterns typically seen in seventeenth-century English gardens. The style and pattern of these North Carolina gardens were Shurcliff’s inspiration for several of Colonial Williamsburg’s colonial revival gardens. When the restoration of Williamsburg began, there was little physical evidence remaining of eighteenth-century gardens.

History.org: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Official History and Citizenship Website

Secondary in importance and position to the kitchen yard, the garden was usually midway between the yard and the stable and paddock at the back of the property. As a general rule, service walks were laid to connect work areas in the most direct fashion, while the layout of walks in the gardens was typically geometric and balanced. “Necessary” houses, or privies, were usually located on a boundary of the garden–at the side or rear.

Historic sites and house museums followed this trend, combining a unique blend of historical evidence and nostalgia to make the colonial past more appealing and attractive. This period has become known as “colonial revival” in the preservation movement as well as in decorative arts and design. Thus, these period gardens are considered to be colonial revival since they present a 1930s and 1940s view of our past created in spite of mounting evidence that most colonial gardens were simple, functional, and even somewhat bare. Through his research into colonial garden design, Shurcliff came to realize the value of the surviving eighteenth-century plans drawn by Claude Joseph Sauthier of North Carolina colonial towns and their gardens. Sauthier, a French landscape gardener who came to North Carolina in 1767, surveyed and drew plans for several of that colony’s towns.

For those of us who had been in institutions or half-way houses, resentments against authority were common. The plants and re-created gardens in Williamsburg reflect the legacy of the early plantsmen. These colonial revival gardens, an important chapter in American garden history, have been enormously influential on garden design since the 1930s. These gardens capture the spirit and character of the finest eighteenth-century colonial gardens. Today, we face a reevaluation of many of these gardens, based on new research findings and techniques. Colonial Williamsburg’s educational mission advocates that we go even further in re-creating noteworthy early gardens as more details become available.

• With well-considered changes, we can depict more realistically what current research suggests is historically accurate.
• It is inconsistent with the Oxford House system of democratic rule to have a professional manager of Oxford House.
• The kitchen and each domestic service was usually given its own separate building with its own outside work space.
• It has been the experience of Oxford House that participation in AA and NA is extremely high in an environment where one individual can see another individual, with the same disease, reaping great benefits from AA and/or NA participation.
• Weekly business meetings are mandatory to discuss any issues that the house may be facing.

Garden features and details

• New information continues to surface, often prompting a reconsideration of features of the town and its gardens.
• Later, some of us were to move into half-way houses which provided shelter, food, and supervision.
• Outbuildings seldom were connected to the house in this region where the winters are mild, and where the warm, humid summers make ample air circulation vital.
• Often several members of an existing House will move into the new House to provide a core group of new members who already know how an Oxford House works.

This principle contrasts sharply with the principle of providing the alcoholic or drug addict with assistance for a limited time period in order to make room for a more recently recovering alcoholic or drug addict. During early recovery for alcoholism and drug addiction, some members had to leave an institution in order to make room for an alcoholic or drug addict just beginning the recovery process. Other members were asked to leave half-way houses in order to oxford house sober living make room for a recovering alcoholic or recovering drug addict who was ready to move into a half-way house. All too often, an abrupt transition from a protected environment to an environment which places considerable glamour on the use of alcohol and drugs causes a return to alcoholic drinking or addictive drug use. In fact, Oxford House creates an environment whereby each member can more fully realize the benefits available from active AA or NA membership.

Plants in colonial gardens

• The real greening of Williamsburg began when Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood arrived in 1710.
• The colonists tended to create the gardens they remembered, or their parents remembered, in the England of William and Mary.
• An underlying principle of Oxford House is that each individual member has the ability to be responsible for himself.

Therefore, it is important that each Oxford House meet these minimum responsibilities in order for its charter to be continued. All Oxford Houses have been careful to avoid undo dependence on government or other outside funds. Every Oxford House member attributes his sobriety to Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous. Each Oxford House member, as an individual, considers himself a member of AA and/or NA. By running Oxford House on a democratic basis, members of Oxford House become able to accept the authority of the group because the group is a peer group. Each member has an equal voice in the group and each has an opportunity to relearn responsibility and to accept decisions once they are made.