John A. Yule garden journals and papers (PSNCA.H.033)

Biographical and Historical Note

John A. Yule served as the gardener at Champ Soleil mansion in Newport, Rhode Island for several decades during its ownership by artist, big game hunter, and adventure writer Russell Barnett Aitken (1910-2002) and his wife Annie-Laurie Crawford Aitken (1900-1984). Architects Henry M. Polhemus and Lewis Augustus Coffin, Jr. designed Champ Soleil for Lucy Wharton Drexel Dahlgren (1867-1943). The French XVIII-century manor style house was completed in 1929 and sits at 601 Bellevue Avenue in Newport.

Robert Goelet, son of Ochre Court’s owner Ogden Goelet, purchased the house from Dahlgren’s daughter Eva in 1946 and owned it until his death in 1967. James Gordon Douglas, Jr. purchased the house from Goelet’s estate, and in 1970 sold it to Russell and Annie-Laurie Crawford Aitken, around which time Yule became the estate’s gardener.

John Alexander “Jack” Yule was born August 9, 1936, son of Scottish immigrant Alexander Yule (ca. 1894-1957), and his wife Cecelia (b. ca. 1902). Alexander had immigrated with his family in 1899, and he too was a gardener by occupation. Alexander’s father, also John Yule, was superintendent of the Newport Golf Club grounds as of 1909. According to the 1940 Census, the Yules lived at 19 South Baptist Street. The Newport directory of 1956 gives the family’s address as 22 Dixon Street.

The 1959 Newport directory notes John Yule’s occupation as gardener for the Ledges on Ocean Avenue. Yule served in the National Guard in the 1960s and on the Aquidneck Island Project Area Committee, concerned with highway construction on the island. In October 1970, Yule purchased a home on Roy Avenue in Middletown, around the same time as he became the gardener at Champ Soleil. The 1985 Newport directory lists an additional address for him at 166 Coggeshall Avenue, likely the garden’s cottage for the estate. Yule died in 1998 and is buried at Saint Mary’s Episcopal Churchyard in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. His wife Shirley survived him, and she donated the collection to the Preservation Society the year after his death.