Thomas Affleck

Thomas Affleck (July 13, 1812 – December 30, 1868) was a Scottish-American nurseryman, almanac editor, and agrarian writer and Southern planter. He published the Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar from 1851 to 1861. He and his wife, Anna M. Dunbar Smith, owned Ingleside, an estate in Washington, Mississippi, where he founded his Southern Nurseries, one of the earliest nurseries in the South. His wife also owned several plantations in Adams and Wilkinson Counties. In the mid-1850s, Affleck purchased Glenblythe Plantation in Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas, where he, his family, and enslaved people moved in 1860. Affleck also published Affleck's Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar from Ingleside, 1851 to 1859, and Glenblythe, 1860 to 1861. At Glenblythe, he established Central Nurseries. He was the first Southern writer whose work on plants was widely read; he also published two best-selling and pioneering guides for cotton and sugar plantation and farming accounting. Early life Thomas Affleck was born on July 13, 1812, in Dumfries, Scotland. His father was Thomas Affleck and his mother, Mary (Hannay) Affleck. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh, where he studied agriculture. Not yet 20, he immigrated to the United States, arriving on May 4, 1832. Career From 1832 to 1840, he worked as a clerk and merchant in New York City, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio. He served as the editor of the Western Farmer and Gardener in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1840 to 1842.