THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 43 



Dr. Witt was a good botanist, and upon removing to 

 Germantown, he started a large garden for his own profit 

 and amusement. It is probably the first botanical garden 

 in America, antedating Bartram's celebrated garden by 

 twenty years. There seems to have been a much earlier 

 garden located on the lower AVissahickon, at the Monastery. 

 In George Webb's poem, Bachelor's Hall, published in 

 1729, he speaks of a place of retreat situated near Phila- 

 delphia, * which was called " Bachelor's Hall, and was 

 the headquarters of a social company. In addition to its 

 uses for such purposes there was attached to the building a 

 botanic garden, cultivated for the production of plants use- 

 ful in medicine. Speaking of this building the poet says : 



"Close to the dome a garden shall be join'd 

 A fit employment for a studious mind. 

 Iri oiir vast woods -whatever simples grow, 

 Whose virtues none but the Indians know, 

 Within the confines of this garden brought, 

 To rise with added lustre shall be taught ; 

 Then culled with judgment each shall yield its juice, 

 Saliferous balsam to the sick man's use ; 

 A longer date of life mankind shall boast, 

 And death shall mourn her ancient empire lost." 



It is known that the members of this social fraternity 

 interested themselves sufficiently in science to append such 

 a garden to their place of good-fellowship, for medical 

 purposes. It is not known who superintended the garden, 

 which must have been under the charge of a person of 

 more than ordinary taste. Dr. Witt corresponded for 



* See introduction, p. 5. This poem varies in different books. The dome, 

 referred to in the poem, is probably the observatory erected by the Rosicruuian 

 fraternity near their garden founded in ir>'j4. is;).-,. SACHSE The German Pietists 

 of Provincial Pennsylvania, p. 71. 



