Site of James Burke's Garden

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Burke's Garden is named for James Burke who surveyed the region with James Patton by 1750. According to tradition, Burke buried some potato peelings in the region's fertile soil during a survey expedition. Sometime later another group camped at the same site and discovered the potatoes, resulting in the area becoming known as Burke's Garden. Burke built a cabin nearby and lived here from about 1753 until 1756 when hostilities began during the French and Indian War. Burke's Garden is a topographically rare elongated basin rimmed entirely by the Garden Mountain.

Department of Historic Resources, 2004

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Burke’s Garden Rural Historic District, National Register Of Historic Resources Archives File (92-20), Department of Historic Resources; Patricia Givens Johnson, Irish Burks of Colonial Virginia and New River (Blacksburg, Va.: Walpa Publishing, 1992), 107-117; Patricia Givens Johnson, James Patton and the Appalachian Colonists (Pulaski, Va.: Edmonds Printing, Inc., 1983), 71-73; Mary B. Kegley and F. B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters (Orange, Va.: Green Publishers, 1980- ), 1:8-9,56-57 Calder Loth, ed., The Virginia Landmarks Register, 4th. ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 525; Elizabeth Monk Melvin, “Burke’s Garden, Virginia: The Influence of Settlement Patterns on Transportation System Development, 1750-1975,” (Ma. Thes., East Tennessee State University 1975); 8-12; William Pendleton, History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia, 1748-1920 (Richmond: W.C. Hill Printing Company, 1920).