BICENTENNIAL HERBS: Usage of healing, aromatic herbs dates back to 1824 in the Crossroads

Marcia Kauffman | Victoria County Master Gardener

March 17, 2024

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY CHRISTINE BERGLUND – Comfrey

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY CINDY MEREDITH – Soapwort

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY CINDY MEREDITH – Dill with butterfly.

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY CINDY MEREDITH – Chamomile

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY CINDY MEREDITH – Elderberry

I love history!

Someone once asked me why I love Victoria’s history since I am from Pittsburgh. I was quite taken aback. I just love history, even plant history.

Herb usage in the Crossroads can date back to 1824 as we celebrate Victoria’s bicentennial.

Imagine a young couple with a home in downtown Victoria in 1824. I can hear the chickens clucking and scratching as the lady of the house makes her way out to her herb garden. Her garden herbs may have been used in cooking, dying yarn, as well as treating colds and wounds and various other maladies.

The word herb comes from the Latin word “herb” meaning grass, green stalks or blades. Herbs can symbolize faithfulness, remembrance, devotion and love.

Herbs are seed-bearing plants that do not have woody stems and have savory or aromatic properties. Herbs are used for flavoring, garnishing food, medicinal purposes or creating fragrances.

The gardener of the 1824 home may have planted the following herbs. Comfrey, Symphytum officiante, is a perennial herb growing to a height of two feet when flowering. It may have been used in a medicinal salve to relieve pain or reduce swelling. The herb has large rough leaves with pink or lavender blooms. It can be invasive even if one tiny root is left behind.

If the family enjoyed pickles, the annual dill plant was grown when the temperatures were cooler. Dill also is used to flavor fish and vegetable. Dill, Anethum graveoleus, grows to a height of 36–40 inches in late spring. It is known as to attract pollinators that are so important to gardens.

Parsley, Petroselinum crispum, was grown for a flavoring in soups and stews. It can be a good addition to salads. Parsley grows to a height of 12-15” and blooms in the summer.

The elderberry shrub berries, Sambucus candensis, are used in making wines and jellies. A syrup made from the berries was used to relieve flu symptoms, just like today. The bush grows to a height of twelve feet producing white blooms in late spring, followed by clusters of small black, blue-black or red berries in summer.

Since there was no corner store in 1824 to find your supplies, Victoria residents had to make their own soap. Soapwort or Bouncing Bet, Saponario officinalis, was used in the making the family’s soap. The roots of this perennial herb were made into soap. Actually, Soapwort is still used today to clean antique lace. This herb grows to only two inches in height but it spreads wherever it wishes. Even though it dies in winter, it comes back in the spring with its pink blooms.

Several herbs were used medicinally such as chamomile, garlic and Echinacea. Chamomile in a tea form could help alleviate menstrual pain and sleeplessness. Garlic and Echinacea could have been used to treat the common cold.

As you picture homes of 200 years ago, imagine the ways they stored their herbs. Bunches of herbs could be hanging in the kitchen infusing the air with varied aromas. Maybe the lady of the house, waited for the herb to bolt, then saved the seeds. Saving seeds was a common practice.

No matter how herbs were used, each and every day there was always some form of work to be completed and some of it revolved around herbs. There was no alternative. Victorians valued and used what they grew in their herb gardens.

The Gardeners’ Dirt is written by members of the Victoria County Master Gardener Association, an educational outreach of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension – Victoria County. This article appeared in The Victoria Advocate.

REFERENCES:

Fewell, Amy, The Homesteaders Herbal Companion, Lyons Press, April 15, 2015, pages 100, 102

Interesting Facts About Herbs – Found at Just Fun Facts

List of Herbs from A to Z – from The Gardening Channel

Texas Parks & Wildlife Magaznine , Nov. 2010– (“Early Healers tapped Nature’s Pharmacy”)

Meredith, Cindy, Early Texas Homestead Gardener, Cindy Meredith, Publisher, 2016, pages 39, 41-42, 44-45.