It's hard to believe that this series has lasted nearly three years; when I started this series, I was not even halfway through my doctoral program; as of this past spring, I officially have my Ph.D.! My interest in the history of botany has only strengthened as I've sought out oft-forgotten dusty volumes from used book stores that have introduced me to these fascinating characters. Johannes Fleischer, John Bannister, Mark Catesby, John Clayton, and now John Bartram - a name that you might have heard of before!
Earlier this year I had the honor of being interviewed by Dr. Benjamin Franklin himself on the Let's Be Frank podcast about John Bartram, a good friend of Franklin's. Take a listen to that episode here (link also at the bottom of this article). I thought a corresponding blog article - in which I could share some additional Franklin and Bartram trivia - could be nice. So to Dr. Franklin and his followers, welcome and thank you for having me on the podcast! Enjoy below some additional information about your new favorite historical botanist. To my following, be sure to go check out Dr. Franklin and his podcast! It's amazing!
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John Bartram was born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1699. His parents and grandparents were Quakers, the latter having immigrated to William Penn's colony following religious persecution in England. However, tragedy and trial still followed the family in America. John's mother Elizah died in childbirth when John was but a toddler and his father William was killed by Native Americans when the boy was just beginning his teenage years. At 24, John married a fellow Quaker by the name of Mary Maris; within four years, she died, their son died, and John's grandmother died. It was not an easy life. At age 30, John married Ann Mendenhall, who the Lord graciously allowed to be John's partner for the rest of his life.
While later in life, John Bartram liked to weave the story that he rose from rags to riches, that's not exactly the case. Around the time he married Ann, he inherited an estate from his uncle which allowed him to purchase a farm along the Schuylkill River, just south of present-day Philadelphia. He was ambitious, yet cautious, cognizant of his lack of formal education. One author explained,
John was painfully conscious of the distance between his own education and that of men he knew, botanical scholars who wrote books and letters to him that he couldn't entirely comprehend. He wasn't a gentleman, nor was he university trained, which created a gulf that no amount of hard work, recognition, and accomplishment could fill for John. He feared, sometimes quite rightly, that the great men were laughing at him, making fun of his lack of manners, plain dress, and simple prose. He would have liked to turn his rusticity into a badge of superiority, as Franklin did so brilliantly in Europe's royal courts, but John lacked the confidence, genius, accomplishment, and rhetorical skill that enabled Franklin to make himself into a joke.” (Slaughter, p. 46)
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The name of John Bartram is inextricably linked to the name of Peter Collinson. Collinson was a fellow Quaker and worked as a cloth merchant in London. While his religion prevented him from attending university, he made up for this lack through reading and correspondence with a wide variety of contacts. Collinson was a man who had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. In 1728 and age 34, he became a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society led by Hans Sloane. On one occasion while they were dining together, Collinson inquired of Sloane the classification of fish they had eaten!
Curious about plants of America, Collinson volunteered to be the unpaid London agent for Franklin's Subscription Library Company in 1731. This curiosity may have been spurred on partially due to Mark Catesby, who returned from exploring the Carolinas, Florida, and the Bahamas in 1726. You may recall that the Natural History volume Catesby produced was the first detailed illustrations of North American flora and fauna. On the other hand, it may have just been because Collinson was insanely curious! At any rate, Collinson inquired of Library Company secretary Joseph Breintnall for advice regarding a North American plant consultant. Breintnall unhesitatingly recommended local farmer John Bartram. Thus began a friendship that lasted over three decades until Collinson's death.
Early on in their correspondence, Bartram was seeking more botanical books for his library. Collinson wrote:
I shall first take notice of thy request to buy Tournefort. I have inquired, and there are so many books, or parts, done, as come to fifty shillings. The first part may be got, perhaps, second hand ; but the others, are not yet to be expected. Now I shall be so friendly to tell thee, I think this is too much to lay out. Besides, now thee has got Parkinson and Miller, I would not have thee puzzle thyself with others; for they contain the ancient and modern knowledge of Botany. Remember Solomon's advice ; in reading (?) of books, there is no end. (MJB, p. 104)
Bartram refuted his friend's reluctance by writing: I take thy advice about books very kindly, although I love reading such dearly : and I believe, if Solomon had loved women less, and books more, he would have been a wiser and happier man than he was. (MJB, p. 119)
Humor - and ribbing - were often present. Almost as soon as the exchanges began, Collinson was requesting Bartram send him cuttings of plant specimens, such as red and white cedars. The first year, Collinson suggested he pay Bartram for his effort with a new set of clothes. The second year, 1734, Collinson mentioned that he had a friend who was also interested in plant specimens. The interest of English gentry in American plants only grew. Bartram and Collinson formally agreed on a joint business venture where Bartram would be paid an annual fee for every box of plant specimens he collected and sent to Europe. Bartram would collect plants in the fall and the boxes would arrive to London in the spring. The setup became known as "Bartram's Boxes"!
“John could be counted on as a collector…No one knew the botanical nature of North America’s forests better than him. Nobody could deliver more specimens than he could. When Benjamin Franklin sent John a list of ninety-nine plants that he wanted to purchase for a London friend, John had all but ten ready for immediate shipment. For five guineas, John sent subscribers a box containing the seeds of 105 trees and shrubs, each of which he identified for them.” (Slaughter, p. 97)
“Bartram was very active in supplying the new market he had created. Over the past decade he had streamlined his business by developing a standardised packing method order to supply more customers. Whereas in the early years Collinson had sorted and distributed the contents of the boxes to his friends, now each box was identical, which saved a great deal of time, allowing Collinson to send the boxes to the recipients without even lifting the lid. Each box was priced at five guineas and contained seeds of 105 species, which were kept separate cloth bags labelled with a number that referred to the enclosed list.” (Wulf, p. 137)
While the greater Philadelphia region was rich with plant species, it was inevitable for his business that Bartram would need to go farther afield. Collinson, living in Britain proper, felt quite superior to his colonist friend and was at liberty to tell Bartram how he ought to travel and what to bring along: spare horse, baskets, coverings of skin for baskets, insect nets, and boxes among other items. Collinson instructed Bartram to visit Virginia, but added a warning:
One thing I must desire of thee, and do insist that thee oblige me therein : that thou make up that drugget clothes, to go to Virginia in, and not appear to disgrace thyself or me ; for though I should not esteem thee the less, to come to me in what dress thou will, yet these Virginians are a very gentle, well-dressed people and look, perhaps, more at a man's outside than his inside. For these and other reasons, pray go very clean, neat, and handsomely dressed, to Virginia. Never mind thy clothes : I will send more another year. (MJB, p. 89)
At any rate, with a new set of clothes in hand and instructions to collect friends and well as plants, John Bartram set out for Williamsburg in the autumn of 1738. He tried to visit with Gloucester County clerk and botanist John Clayton, but unfortunately, he was away from home. After a total of two weeks of travel from Philadelphia, Bartram arrived in the capital of Virginia and called at the home of John Custis. Custis resided in one of the finest homes of all Williamsburg on a plot of land that is to this day known as "Custis Square". As an aside, John Custis was the first father-in-law of the future Martha Washington! While I'm sure Bartram appreciated a dry place to sleep after the rain he had experienced on his journey south, what the two men were most fascinated by were the plants in Custis' four-acre garden. Highlights included horse chestnuts, lilacs, and roses. The two men instantly hit it off and had a grand time together, Custis lamented that Bartram insisted on leaving after a stay of only two nights. Bartram seems to have had the ability to make friends with a wide range of people. After visiting with both William Byrd II and William Randolph, Bartram returned home after five weeks of absence.
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It was around this time that Bartram conceived the idea of a philosophical society, where the networking and camaraderie that he had experienced with Custis could happen on a more regular basis. Franklin, of course, was immediately interested. Franklin thought that a society that discussed and exchanged scientific ideas was a stellar way to bolster the reputation of the American colonies in the eyes of their brethren in London. However, it was 1743 before either man was able to make their idea a reality.
The goal of the American Philosophical Society was to meet monthly and discuss all things science, whether in person or through written correspondence who could not travel to Philadelphia. All members were charged a piece of eight to support Society activity. Franklin served as the first secretary. Collectively, the American Philosophical Society counted among its charter members not just botanists, but those with training in medicine, mathematics, and geography as well. Franklin endeavored to publish a regular Society journal, but alas, was too busy with other pursuits to make this one happen.
One record that survives of Society activity is that of botanist/physician John Mitchell submitting two papers for review, one on yellow fever and the other on describing two species of pine tree in Virginia, including the ecological influences of how the environment affects the plant species. Both Bartram and Franklin were delighted.
There is another interesting aside about John Mitchell. You may have heard of Carl Linnaeus and his binomial nomenclature system. Binomial nomenclature refers to how Linnaeus used two words to create the scientific name for every species: the first name (genus) that indicated the broader group in which all members were similar and the second name describing the species itself. The concept is very similar to how we commonly have first and last names. Anyways, Linnaeus thought high enough of John Mitchell to name the partridgeberry Mitchella repens - the genus after the doctor and repens because the partridgeberry exhibits creeping or trailing. I particularly like this example as Mitchella repens was one of the common plant species I encountered in my doctoral research. Part of the reason I became interested in historical botany was through my natural curiosity of "Who was Mitchell?"!
Author Andrea Wulf curates some interesting thoughts regarding the Society:
“Bartram was at his most sanguine when he suggested that the equivalent to the Royal Society be established in America. Collinson had initially dismissed the idea on the grounds of the "Infancy of your colony." Bur Bartram, together with Benjamin Franklin, persevered, because they believed it to be important to promote "Useful Knowledge." ...Moreover, improved roads and postal services made scientific collaborations and communication a feasible reality for the first time. Franklin even applied to become the Postmaster General, a position that allowed him to grant free postage to the members of the society.
Almost immediately, though, Bartram and Franklin became frustrated by the "poor progress" of their society. Bartram believed that the problem lay in the make-up of colonial society. In true Linnaean spirit he classified the colonists into three categories to explain the reasons: the ones who were only interested in laying out their large estates; the ones who indulged in luxury (often the children of plantation owners) and, finally, those who, although often "ye most curious" about science, couldn't afford to pursue their interests because they had to work hard to support their families.” (p. 104 - 105, Wulf)
The trajectory of the eighteenth-century American Philosophical Society is an unsurprising one to me as a twenty-first century scientist. One thing that hasn't changed with time: giving a talk or writing a paper always takes longer than expected. And getting five academic professionals to line up their schedules to be in the same room at the same time is near nigh impossible!
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In 1756, the French and Indian War began. The conflict necessitated Bartram to curtail his botanical excursions to the greater Philadelphia region. Furthermore, the French seized seven out of eight North American vessels bound for London. Both Bartram and Collinson realized that their business would be sunk, literally and figuratively, until the War was over. In the meantime, Bartram set his eyes south on once more trying to meet in person with fellow botanist John Clayton. In 1760, Bartram sailed south to Charleston, South Carolina. Edmund and Dorothy Berkeley share the following:
"This time he found Clayton at home, and a joyous meeting it was. No other men in America had made so extensive a study of plants as had these two, and both had achieved considerable reputations both at home and abroad as botanists of ability. Bartram had "corresponded freely" with Clayton at least as early as 1744, and he had long used his Flora Virginica and admired it. They had much to discuss and did so at such a rapid pace that Clayton later complained bitterly of all that he had forgotten to show Bartram. Clayton was very much interested in the journeys Bartram had made and one which he planned to make to Pittsburgh...
“Clayton and Bartram spent a long time in the garden examining all of Clayton’s treasures from forty years of collecting. Clayton was especially proud of a fine English laurel that he had grown from seed. The great majority of his plants were well established in Bartram’s own garden, but there were many things on which to compare notes.” (p. 190 - 192, Berkeley)
It was around this time that Bartram noticed the American market for his plants was growing larger and that the colonists were willing to pay more than their European brethren. Due to lower shipping costs and an increased chance of both delivery and profit, Bartram began to pivot his business. Wulf describes how this personal change illustrated the larger political changes in the colonies:
"With his growing success, Bartram was confident enough to demand to be treated as an equal. He engaged in intellectual debates with his correspondents, and, in tandem with the horticultural ripostes, was happy to contradict Collinson's opinions m colonial governance and politics. So while Collinson was optimistic about the stability of the peace, Bartram insisted that the Native Americans "will not keep to any treaty of peace."...
“Similarly other colonists were insisting on being treated as equal subjects. There was a growing unease at the lack of control the colonists exerted over the military and economic issues that affected their country. Already a decade previously Franklin had pointed out that they were being treated "as a conquer'd People, not as true British subjects." Now he made more vocal demands of the British government: "give us Members in your Legislature, and let us be one People," he insisted. But instead of accommodating these colonial concerns Britain chose to ignore them.” (p. 161 - 162, Wulf)
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The French and Indian War concluded in 1763. The following year, Parliament implemented the a stamp tax on the American colonies as a way of paying for the conflict. Benjamin Franklin wrote to Collinson that “We are in your Hands as Clay in the Hands of the Potter,” but warned that “the Potter cannot waste or spoil his Clay without injuring himself.”
As colonial protest over the stamp tax grew, John Bartram found an additional grievance to protest: his neighbor William Young had been appointed as Queen Charlotte's Royal Botanist! In addition to bragging rights, the position also came with a three hundred pound annual salary. Both the good doctor and the botanist were angered as Bartram was of much higher skill and greater experience than Young. The two men determined to see what they could do. While the inexperienced Young had sent the Queen only a few common plants, Franklin and Bartram collected a much more thorough and impressive collection of botanical specimens. They then sent it to Peter Collinson, who delivered the box to King George III. The ruler was impressed enough to give Bartram the title of His Majesty’s Botanist for North America, with a stipend of fifty pounds a year. Even though it was a fraction of what Young received, Bartram was thrilled for both the stipend and title. Slaughter explains:
“Exaggerating the scope of his Royal appointment – John was King’s Botanist in the North American colonies, not the botanist there or a botanist elsewhere in the Empire – is an understandable expression of pride…John’s appointment as botanist to King George III, which came in 1765, helped fill the hole in John’s soul...
The appointment, secured through the good offices of Collinson, made all the difference in the world; indeed, John would have had a far more difficult time reconciling accounts late in life without this evidence of his contributions to the Empire and his fellow man. The King gave John a title and a stipend that enabled him to go south, to explore, to discover, and to profit from nature’s bounty in all the ways that were important to him. Now his science was recognized, too. Now he could travel to the wilderness again, one more time, with his son.” (p. 100 - 102, Slaughter)
In 1765, at the age of sixty-six, Bartram and his son William set off for their last great adventure together: a trip to Florida via the Carolinas and Georgia. They stopped at the home of many a friend, complained about the weather, and collected as many plant species as possible. While traveling down the Georgia coast to St. Augustine, Florida, they encountered a shrub near the Alatamaha River that fascinated them. Alas, but there were no seeds to collect. A decade later William returned to the region on a solo expedition and harvested a cutting of the plant, naming it Franklinia alatamaha after the local body of water and his father's good friend. The two men planted the cutting in the family garden, and while the species is now extinct in the wild, it is alive in botanical gardens across America thanks to the forethought of what really are two of the first American ecologists.
“No aspect of botany had more appeal for Bartram than that which we presently call ecology. He seldom wrote to anyone about plants without some mention of their ecological relationships, and he had a good grasp of such ecological concepts as plat succession…He recognized that plants are subject to a variety of influences, all important in their total growth and development. He commented that we can “observe in plants how absolutely necessary earth and warmth is to raise ye plant from seed yet ye air and sun is necessary to make it produce flowers and good seed.” (p. 297, Berkeley)
In addition to thinking of ecological relationships, Bartram also pondered the quandary of natural resource management:
"When John wrote advice to fellow gardeners…the point was to improve nature in ways that profited man. So John wrote an essay on reforestation, which recognized the limits of chopping nature down and the need to cultivate trees just as any other crop. Here we can get yet another view of the connections between John’s developmental ethic and his appreciation of the earth’s rhythms, and see the articulation of his ambition to maximize profit from agrarian labor in a domesticated “natural” setting. “Diligent observation” brought John to his view that “timber will soon be very much destroyed” in the settled areas of Anglo-America. This unfortunate circumstance resulted from farmers’ “necessity” in clearing land for tillage and pasture, and from their need for fuel and fencing. The preferred wood for fences was oak, which is slow-growing and deteriorates quickly in use. John recommended reforesting with red cedar, which seemed to him the most likely choice for the region in which he lived." (p. 80, Slaughter)
Bartram exuded: "Considered how easily it can be raised from the seed; its readiness to grow on most kinds of soil; its quick growth; the profits it will afford while it is arriving to maturity; and the long duration of the wood when grown to a proper size for the materials we want for our several occasions in husbandry or building.” (p. 80, Slaughter)
As a plant ecologist by trade with a focus on logging (among other things), I find Bartram's focus on both ecology and sustainability fascinating.
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John Bartram, the unquestionable Father of American Botany, passed away in 1777 at nearly eighty years of age. I think that Slaughter quantifies well the impact of this man:
“Of the 8000 species of plants that grew in eastern North America, only 6 reached Europe before 1600, another so in the next half-century, and by 1734, when John Bartram began collecting, about 300 had already been sent. Between 1734 and 1776, when the American Revolution interrupted this lucrative trade in plants, the number of "new" finds doubled to about 600 and John Bartram was personally responsible for about half of this increase, or one quarter of all the plants identified and sent to Europe during the colonial period. It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this one man's accomplishment in his life's endeavor. " (p. 50 - 51, Slaughter)
The adventures and accomplishments of John Bartram well exceed what I could contain in this blog article, but I hope my writing has whetted your appetite to learn more about this fascinating character of American history. I highly recommend any of the books in the following Resources & References section, and don't forget to check out the conversation I had with Dr. Franklin about John Bartram on the Let's Be Frank podcast!
Resources and References:
Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf
The Life and Travels of John Bartram by Edmund and Dorothy Smith Berkeley
and here is a great review of the volume by Colonial Williamsburg
The Natures of John and William Bartram by Thomas P. Slaughter.
Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall by William Darlington and Peter Collinson
Franklin Tree - great article from New Georgia Encyclopedia about this species
Bartram's Garden website
Beautiful in their own Nature - podcast episode where I talk with Franklin about Bartram
Let's Be Frank podcast website
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