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John Bartram

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: John Bartram
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(born March 23, 1699, Marple, Pa., U.S. — died Sept. 22, 1777, Kingsessing, Pa.) naturalist and explorer, considered the "father of American botany." Largely self-educated, he was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and the botanist for the American colonies to George III. He was the first North American experimenter to hybridize flowering plants, and he established near Philadelphia a botanical garden that became internationally famous. He explored the Alleghenies and the Carolinas and in 1743 was commissioned by the British crown to explore the wilderness north to Lake Ontario in Canada. In 1765 – 66 he explored extensively in Florida with his son William Bartram.

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Biography: John Bartram
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John Bartram (1699-1777) was the first native-born American botanist. He achieved considerable inter national fame as a collector of botanical specimens.

John Bartram was born on March 23, 1699, near Darby, Pa. He spent his youth farming, which may have sparked his interest in plants. His attempts to learn botany by purchasing books brought him to the attention of some Philadelphians, most notably James Logan, who encouraged him in the more systematic pursuit of that science. In 1728 Bartram purchased a plot of ground near Kingsessing, just below Philadelphia on the Schuylkill River, where he laid out a botanical garden and built a stone house. This garden, which survives in part to this day, was a mecca for visiting botanists throughout his lifetime and afterward.

Probably through Logan, who was William Penn's secretary, Bartram came into contact with a fellow Quaker, Peter Collinson, the London naturalist who acted as a patron to several American scientists. Their correspondence after 1733 provides many insights into the circumstances of the adoption of new plants in the respective countries. Collinson arranged for Bartram to collect specimens for him in America, providing partial support for the relatively poor American. The relationship between the two scientists was very close, and Collinson thought of Bartram as his pupil. Bartram's contact with Collinson brought him to the attention of Carl Linnaeus and other European naturalists, and Bartram established, through his collection of seeds and plant specimens, a substantial European reputation before he was well known in America.

Collecting New World Specimens

Bartram made several long-range collecting expeditions, some of them financed partly by European naturalists. He traveled 1100 miles across the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1738, explored the Catskill Mountains in 1755, and in 1760 traveled through the Carolinas. He was, however, forced to farm and to practice medicine locally in order to support his large family. Only in 1765, when Collinson got him an appointment as botanist to the king, was he assured of a steady income of any sort. Bartram was very honest and blunt, and he told Collinson that the £50 he was to receive for the post was not enough.

His European reputation brought Bartram to the notice of other American naturalists, particularly Cadwallader Colden of New York and Alexander Garden of South Carolina. Although some correspondence and cooperation occurred between these American botanists, Garden and especially Colden (who had mastered the Linnaean system of classification) felt that Bartram lacked the systematic skills to go beyond simple collecting. Bartram seems to have been attracted to the field by a love of plants and living, growing things, rather than from any abstract sense of scientific accomplishment. He possessed excellent powers of observation but never became a systematic specialist in the modern sense of the word. His interests ranged also to geology, and he suggested a geological survey of the country to determine the potential usefulness of various parts of the North American continent. He also suggested a general western exploration expedition similar to that later accomplished by Lewis and Clark.

Bartram regretted his lack of opportunity to further his education and training in the sciences in the New World, and he became one of the founding spirits of what developed into the American Philosophical Society, America's first scientific society. Disagreement over the founding of this organization in 1743 may have contributed to Bartram's estrangement from his onetime sponsor James Logan. The Philosophical Society was not permanently founded at this time, and most of the support for Bartram's work continued to come from Europe, indicating that the Colonies were not yet strong enough to support a scientific establishment on their own.

Bartram was a person of very independent character, a complete individualist who, though he was willing to carry out projects for Peter Collinson, took little direction from others. Read out of a Quaker meeting for his unwillingness to acknowledge the divinity of Christ, he nevertheless carried his deep convictions to the point of freeing his slaves and rehiring them as paid servants. As for Native Americans, however, a frightening experience near Pittsburgh made him less tolerant. Thus, his humanitarianism, like his career, was individualistic rather than consistent.

His Significance

Bartram published journals of his travels, the most important of which was Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, etc … Made by John Bartram in His Travels from Pennsylvania to … Lake Ontario (1751). The most significant part of his work was actual collecting of specimens for Collinson and others. In his celebrated garden he began some work with hybrid plants which, though not systematic, stimulated interest. The garden itself and Bartram's home became a focal point for botanical activity in the Colonies. His lack of knowledge of systematic classification seems, curiously, to have bothered his ambitious American friends more than it did the European scientists. Though some have suggested that he was in effect a "creation" of the gifted Londoner Collinson, at the time of his death, on Sept. 22, 1777, Bartram was regarded by Linnaeus as the greatest contemporary "natural botanist" in the world

Bartram married Mary Morris in 1723, by whom he had two sons. On her death in 1727, he married Ann Mendenhall, by whom he had five sons and four daughters. Much of his energy was devoted to supporting this large family.

Further Reading

A selection of writings by John and William Bartram is available in Helen Gere Cruickshank, ed., John and William Bartram's America: Selections from the Writings of the Philadelphia Naturalists (1957). The standard biography of Bartram is Ernest Earnest, John and William Bartram, Botanists and Explorers (1940), replacing the older William Darlington, Memorials of John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall: With Notices of Their Botanical Contemporaries (1849). A popular account can be found in Josephine Herbst, New Green World (1954). General background is in Brooke Hindle, The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, 1735-1789 (1956).

Additional Sources

Berkeley, Edmund, The life and travels of John Bartram from Lake Ontario to the River St. John, Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1982.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: John Bartram
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Bartram, John (bär'trəm), 1699-1777, pioneer American botanist, b. near Darby, Pa. He had no formal schooling but possessed a keen mind and a great interest in plants. In 1728 he purchased land along the banks of the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia and planted there the first botanical garden in the United States; it still exists as a part of the Philadelphia park system. He made journeys in the Alleghenies and the Catskills and in the Carolinas and Florida in search of new plants. Among his correspondents were nearly all the great European botanists of the day. By exchanging specimens with them, Bartram introduced many American plants into Europe and established some European species in the New World. To his home and gardens came the famous Americans of his day and many distinguished European travelers. His Observations (1751) records a trip to Lake Ontario, and the journal of his Florida trip (1765-66) was published in William Stork's Description of East Florida (3d ed. 1769). His name is commemorated in a genus of mosses, Bartramia.

Bibliography

See E. Earnest, John and William Bartram (1940); A. Sutton, Exploring with the Bartrams (1963); A. Wulf, The Brother Gardeners (2009).

Works: Works by John Bartram
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(1699-1777)

1751Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil... From Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario. A two-volume report discussing plants, animal life, insects, geology, and fossils of the region as studied by Bartram, "the father of American botany."
1769Description of Eastern Florida. Bartram, the leading American naturalist, makes a trip to Florida under his new appointment as botanist to the king. The book is based on his journal from his trip in 1765-1766.

Wikipedia: John Bartram
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John Bartram

John Bartram by Howard Pyle
Born May 23,[1] 1699
Darby, Pennsylvania
Died September 22, 1777
Philadelphia
Nationality American
Fields botanist

John Bartram (2 June [O.S. 23 May] 1699, Darby, Pennsylvania - September 22, 1777, Philadelphia) was an early American botanist, horticulturalist, and explorer. Carolus Linnaeus said he was the "greatest natural botanist in the world."[2]

Bartram was born into a Quaker farm family in colonial Pennsylvania. He considered himself a plain farmer, with no formal education beyond the local school, although he had a lifelong interest in medicine and medicinal plants, and read widely. His botanical career started with a small area of his farm devoted to growing plants he found interesting; later he made contact with European botanists and gardeners interested in North American plants, and developed his hobby into a thriving business. He came to travel extensively in the eastern American colonies collecting plants, from Lake Ontario in the north, to Florida in the south and the Ohio River in the west. Many of his acquisitions were transported to collectors in Europe.

Bartram is considered[by whom?] the "father of American Botany", and was one of the first practicing Linnaean botanists in North America. His plant specimens were forwarded to Linnaeus, Dillenius and Gronovius and he assisted Linnaeus' student Pehr Kalm during his extended collecting trip to North America in 1748-1750.

Bartram was aided in his collecting efforts by colonists. In Bartram's Diary of a Journey through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, a trip taken from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766, Bartram wrote of specimens he had collected. In the colony of British East Florida he was helped by Dr. David Yeats, Secretary of the colony.[3]

His 8 acre botanic garden, Bartram's Garden in Kingsessing on the west bank of the Schuylkill, about three miles (5 km) from the center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is frequently cited as the first true botanic collection in North America. He was one of the co-founders, with Benjamin Franklin, of the American Philosophical Society in 1743.[4]

Contents

Contact with other botanists

House of John Bartram located in Philadelphia, PA, circa 1919

Bartram was particularly instrumental in sending seeds from the New World to European gardeners: many North American trees and flowers were first introduced into cultivation in Europe by this route. Beginning ca. 1733, Bartram's work was assisted by his association with the English merchant Peter Collinson. Collinson, himself a lover of plants, was a fellow Quaker, and a member of the Royal Society, with a familiar relationship with its president, Sir Hans Sloane. Collinson shared Bartram's new plants with friends and fellow gardeners. Early Bartram collections went to Lord Petre, Philip Miller at the Chelsea Physic Garden, Mark Catesby, the Duke of Richmond, and the Duke of Norfolk. In the 1730s, Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre of Thorndon Hall, Essex was the foremost collector of North American trees and shrubs in Europe. Earl Petre's untimely death in 1743 led to his American tree collection being auctioned off to Woburn, Goodwood and other large English country estates; and thereafter Collinson became Bartram's chief London agent.

Bartram's Boxes as they then became known, were regularly sent to Peter Collinson every fall for distribution in England to a wide list of clients, including the Duke of Argyll, James Gordon, James Lee, and John Busch, progenitor of the exotic Loddiges nursery in London. The boxes generally contained 100 or more varieities of seeds, and sometimes included dried plant specimens and natural history curiosities as well. Live plants were more difficult and expensive to send and were reserved for Collinson and a few special correspondents.

In 1765 after lobbying by Collinson and Benjamin Franklin in London, George III rewarded Bartram a pension of £50 per year as King's Botanist for North America, a post he held until his death. With this position, Bartram's seeds and plants also went to the royal collection at Kew Gardens. Bartram also contributed seeds to the Oxford and Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm in 1769.

Most of John Bartram's many plant discoveries were named by botanists in Europe. He is best known today for the discovery and introduction of a wide range of North American flowering trees and shrubs, including Kalmia and Rhododendron, and Magnolia species, for introducing the Dionaea muscipulia or Venus flytrap to cultivation, and the discovery of the Franklin Tree, Franklinia alatamaha in southeastern Georgia in 1765, later named by his son William Bartram. Bartram's name is remembered in the genera of mosses, Bartramia, and in plants such the North American service berry, Amelanchier bartramiana, and the subtropical tree Commersonia bartramia (Christmas Kurrajong) growing from the Bellinger River in coastal eastern Australia to Cape York, Vanuatu and Malaysia.

Family

Bartram was married twice, firstly in 1723 to Mary Maris (d. 1727), who bore him two sons, Richard and Isaac, and after her death, in 1729 to Ann Mendenhall (1703-1789), who gave birth to five boys and four girls. His third son, William Bartram (1739-1823) was to become a famous botanist, natural history artist, and ornithologist in his own right, and the author of Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida,…. Philadelphia, James & Johnson, 1791.

The family business in North American plants was continued by Bartram's sons John Bartram, Jr. and William Bartram after the American Revolution, and the botanic garden grew through three generations of the Bartram family. Bartram's Garden remained the major botanic garden in Philadelphia until the last Bartram heirs sold out in 1850.

John Bartram High School in Philadelphia is named after him.

The standard author abbreviation Bartram is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ John Bartram of Pennsylvania at freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com
  2. ^ Duyker, Edward, Nature's Argonaut. Daniel Solander 1733-1782, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 1988, p66
  3. ^ Diary of a Journey through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, John Bartram, annotated by Francis Harper, The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, December 1942, JSTOR
  4. ^ Bell, Whitfield J., Jr., Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 1, 1743-1768. APS: Philadelphia, 1997, p. 3-4.
  5. ^ "Author Query". International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearchpage.do. 
  • Bell, Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., Patriort Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 1, 1743-1768. (Philadelphia: APS, 1997), "John Bartram (1699-1777), p. 48-62.
  • Berkeley, Edmund and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, The Life and Travels of John Bartram: From Lake Ontario to the River St. John. (Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1982).
  • Berkeley, Edmund and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, eds., The Correspondence of John Bartram 1734-1777. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992).
  • Darlington, William, ed., Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall. (Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1849).
  • Hobbs, Christopher (1991), "The medical botany of John Bartram.", Pharmacy in history 33 (4): 181–9, PMID 11612729 
  • Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. (Philadelphia: APS, 2004).
  • Isely, Duane, One hundred and one botanists (Iowa State University Press, 1994), pp. 80–81.
  • O’Neill, Jean and Elizabeth P. McLean, Peter Collinson and the Eighteenth-Century Natural History Exchange. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 264. (Philadelphia: APS, 2008).
  • Wulf, Andrea, The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession. (London: William Heinemann, 2008).


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Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
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