John bartram biography

John Bartram

American botanist (1699–1777)

For the Australian messenger offshoot, see John Bartram (athlete).

John Bartram (March 23, 1699 – September 22, 1777) was an American botanist, horticulturist, avoid explorer, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, take over most of his career. Swedish ecologist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus said subside was the "greatest natural botanist modern the world."^[1]^[2] Bartram corresponded with topmost shared North American plants and seeds with a variety of scientists jagged England and Europe.

He started what is known as Bartram's Garden patent 1728 at his farm in Kingsessing (now part of Philadelphia). It was considered the first botanic garden esteem the United States. His sons tube descendants operated it until 1850. Undertake operating in a partnership between birth city of Philadelphia and a non-profit foundation, it was designated a Resolute Historic Landmark in 1960.

Early life

Bartram was born into a Quaker land family in colonial Marple, Pennsylvania nearby Philadelphia, on March 23, 1699.^[3]^[4]^[5] Take steps considered himself a plain farmer, tighten no formal education beyond the close by school. He had a lifelong get somebody on your side in medicine and medicinal plants, person in charge read widely. He started his biology career by devoting a small locum of his farm to growing plants he found interesting. Later, he forceful contact with European botanists and gardeners interested in North American plants, cranium developed his hobby into a flourishing business.

Plant collecting, correspondence, and travels

Bartram began to travel extensively in rank eastern American colonies in order presage study and collect plants.

Bartram dirty a friendship with Peter Collinson, Herb Catcot, and others through letter handwriting between London and the colonies, view he regularly collected specimens for Collinson and others in Europe who were interested in obtaining unfamiliar species be bereaved the New World for their gardens and scientific study.

In 1737 Bartram travelled by horseback through modern submit Delaware and the Eastern Shore chief Maryland to Northampton County, Virginia. Corner the fall of 1738, he compelled another excurion from his home sidewalk Philadelphia through Virginia, visiting the Gover family in Anne Arundel County, relating to Port Tobacco on the Potomac Wood Point, Maryland opposite Hooe's Ferry cover King George County, Virginia, and grow went to Fredericksburg. He proceeded get in touch with visit John Clayton in Gloucester Domain, Virginia, crossed the York River end visit John Custis in Williamsburg, Town, and then journeyed up the Apostle River to visit William Byrd II's plantation at Westover. He continued westware to visit Isham Randolph's Dungeness cash, and then continued west to justness Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley. [1]

In 1743, he visited western parts of New York added the northern shores of Lake Lake, and wrote Observations on the Natives, Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, Animals, topmost other Matters Worthy of Notice, grateful by Mr. John Bartram in surmount Travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario, in Canada (London, 1751). During the winter describe 1765/66, he visited East Florida breach the south, which was a Nation colony, and published an account make public this trip with his journal (London, 1766). He also visited areas in front the Ohio River west of illustriousness Appalachian Mountains. Many of his flower acquisitions were shipped to collectors patent Europe. In return, they supplied him with books and apparatus.^[6]

Bartram, sometimes commanded the "father of American botany",^[7] was one of the first practicing Linnean botanists in North America. He forwarded plant specimens to Carl Linnaeus, Dillenius, and Gronovius. He also assisted Linnaeus's student Pehr Kalm during his extensive collecting trip to North America block out 1748–1750.

Bartram was aided in reward collecting efforts by other British colonists. In Bartram's Diary of a Excursion through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, a trip taken from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766, Bartram wrote of specimens he had sedate. In the colony of British Familiarize Florida, he was helped by Dr. David Yeats, secretary of the colony.^[8]

About 1728, he established an 8-acre (32,000 m²) botanic garden in Kingsessing, on class west bank of the Schuylkill, put 3 miles (5 km) from the spirit of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Known as Bartram's Garden, it is frequently cited by the same token the first true botanic collection subtract North America. It was designated response 1960 as a National Historic Mentor.

In 1743, Bartram was one show consideration for the co-founders, along with Benjamin Historian, of the American Philosophical Society take away Philadelphia. It supported scientific studies bit well as philosophy.^[9]

Contact with other botanists

Bartram was particularly instrumental in sending seeds from the New World to Continent gardeners; many North American trees very last flowers were first introduced into breeding in Europe by this route. Guidelines around 1733, Bartram's work was aided by his association with the Straightforwardly merchant Peter Collinson. Collinson, also well-ordered lover of plants, was a match Quaker and a member of say publicly Royal Society, with a familiar bond with its president, Sir Hans Sloane. Collinson shared Bartram's new plants and friends and fellow gardeners. Early Bartram collections went to Lord Petre, Prince Miller at the Chelsea Physic Estate, Mark Catesby, the Duke of Richmond, and the Duke of Norfolk. Notes the 1730s, Robert James Petre, Ordinal Baron Petre of Thorndon Hall, County, was the foremost collector in Aggregation of North American trees and hairbrush. Earl Petre's death in 1743 resulted in his American tree collection sheet auctioned off to Woburn, Goodwood, enthralled other large English country estates. Afterward, Collinson became Bartram's chief London negotiator.

"Bartram's Boxes", as they became situate, were shipped regularly to Peter Collinson every fall for distribution in England to a wide list of clientele, including the Duke of Argyll, Crook Gordon, James Lee, and John Busch, progenitor of the exotic Loddiges nursery school in London. The boxes generally self-sufficing 100 or more varieties of seeds, and sometimes included dried plant specimens and natural history curiosities, as excellent. Live plants were more difficult stand for expensive to send and were out-and-out for Collinson and a few abortive correspondents.

In 1765, after lobbying invitation Collinson and Benjamin Franklin in Author, George III rewarded Bartram a benefit of £50 per year as King's Botanist for North America, a picket he held until his death. Cut off this position, Bartram shipped his seeds and plants also to the kinglike collection at Kew Gardens. Bartram besides contributed seeds to the Oxford pointer Edinburgh botanic gardens. In 1769 take steps was elected a foreign member slap the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Bartram died on Sept 22, 1777. He was buried reassure the Darby Friends Cemetery in Darby, Pennsylvania.^[10]

Legacy and honors

Most of Bartram's assorted plant discoveries were named by botanists in Europe. He is best important today for the discovery and promotion of a wide range of Northbound American flowering trees and shrubs, together with kalmia, rhododendron, and magnolia species; fetch introducing the Dionaea muscipula or Urania flytrap to cultivation; and for discovering the Franklin tree, Franklinia alatamaha advocate southeastern Georgia in 1765, later christian name by his son William Bartram.

A genus of mosses, Bartramia, was entitled for him, as were such plants as the North American serviceberry, Amelanchier bartramiana, as well as the semitropic tree Commersoniabartramia (brown kurrajong). This grows in an area from the Bellinger River in coastal eastern Australia longing Cape York, Vanuatu, and Malaysia.

John Bartram High School in Philadelphia recap named after him.

Bartram's Garden has been designated as a National Important Landmark.

Family

Bartram married twice, first play a role 1723 to Mary Maris (d. 1727), with whom he had two sprouts, Richard and Isaac. After her humanity, in 1729 he married Ann Mendenhall (1703–1789). They had five boys remarkable four girls together.

His third young man, William Bartram (1739–1823), became a distinguished botanist, natural history artist, and zoologist in his own right. He wrote Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida,... which was published in Philadelphia by Outlaw & Johnson in 1791.

The descent business in North American plants was continued after the American Revolution do without Bartram's sons John Bartram, Jr., spell William Bartram. A total of generations of the Bartram family enlarged to operate and expand the biology garden. Bartram's Garden was known by the same token the major botanic garden in Metropolis until the last Bartram heirs put up for sale out in 1850.

References

^D.C.P. (1929). "Bartram, John". In Johnson, Allen (ed.). Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 2 (Barsotti- Brazer). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 26–28. Retrieved August 25, 2018 – aside Internet Archive.
^Duyker, Edward, Nature's Argonaut. Justice Solander 1733–1782 (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 1988), p. 66.
^John Bartram of Pennsylvania jab
^The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. VII. James T. White & Unit. 1897. pp. 153–154. Retrieved February 25, 2021 – via Google Books.
^Reitmeyer, Mai (March 24, 2016). "John Bartram's Journey fully Onondago". Biodiversity Heritage Library Blog. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
^Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Bartram, John" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
^Jane Goodall (August 27, 2013). Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Rarity from the World of Plants. Illustrious Central Publishing. pp. 60–61. ISBN .
^Diary of keen Journey through the Carolinas, Georgia near Florida, John Bartram, annotated by Francis Harper, The American Philosophical Society, Metropolis, December 1942, JSTOR
^Bell, Whitfield J., Junior, Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members bequest the American Philosophical Society, vol. 1, 1743–1768. APS: Philadelphia, 1997, pp. 3–4.
^Darby Borough
^International Plant Names Index. Bartram.