TllK RESIDENCE OF JOHN BARTRAM. 



This may sliow the simjilicity and sincerity of liis heart, which never harbored 

 nor pave coniilcnauce to dissinuilation. 



Tlie simplicity of his style of life is well portrayed by one of his visitors, a 

 French gentleman named Hector St. John, who published an account of his visit; 

 he stayed with him a few days, and says: "Wc entered into a large hall where 

 there was a long table full of victuals; at the lowest part sat his negroes; his 

 hired men were next, then the family aud myself, and at the head, the venerable 

 father and his wife presided. Each reclined his head and said his prayers, divested 

 of the tedious cant of some, and of the ostentatious style of others." Astonished 

 by his knowledge, the visitor said: "Pray, ]\Ir. ]>artram, when did you imbibe 

 the first wish to cultivate the science of botany ? AVere you regularly bred to it?" 

 " I have never received any other education than barely reading and writing," 

 was his rci)ly. The beauty of i)lants early attracted him, and he studied Latin 

 for three months, enough to understand Linnajus, and acquired himself a general 

 knowledge of every plant and tree to be found on our continent. 



Peter Collinson, one of the most constant correspondents of Linnaeus, highly 

 distinguished as a naturalist in London, soon found out our natural botanist, and 

 their correspondence, rescued some years back from smoke and dust in an old loft 

 of the mansion, by Dr. W. Darlington, forms one of the most entertaining and 

 instructive volumes; Peter is constantly urging Bartram for seeds and plants and 

 tortoises; in short, for everything new; their intercourse is sometimes highly 

 amusing and quaint. Some dried plants Ijcing received iu London, Collinson 

 says : " I shall, at my first leisure, send thee their true botanical names, and shall 

 send thee more paper; but one quire a year will be sufficient." The instructions 

 sometimes run thus : " If thee observes any curious insects, beetles, butterflies, 

 &c., they are easily preserved, being pinned through the body to the inside of the 

 box. "When thee goes abroad, put a little box in thy pocket, and as thee meets 

 with them put them in, and then stick them in another box when thee comes 

 home. I want a tei-rapin or two. Put them in a box with earth, and they will 

 come safe. They will live a long while without food." Again : " In the course 

 of thy travels, or in digging the earth, or in thy quarries, possibly some sort of 

 figured stones may be found, mixed with earth, or stone and chalk. What use 

 the learned make of them, is, they are evidences of the Deluge!" 



The amount of patronage to Bartram, never large, is gathered from the corre- 

 spondence : "I shall divide the seeds in proportion to ray three contributors; 

 Lord Petre is ten guineas; the Duke of Eichmond five, and* Philip Miller five. 

 Send more black walnuts, long walnuts, and both sorts of hickory, acorns of all 

 sorts, sweet gum, dogwood, red cedar-berries, allspice, sassafras. * * * Vir- 

 ginians 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 Yirginia. Never mind thy clothes : I will send more 

 oilier year." * * * "I have heard of thy house, and thy great art and 



dustry in building it; it makes me long to see it and the builder." * 



