1885.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 381 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF HENRY N. JOHNSON. 

 BY THOMAS MEEHAN. 



In the central part of Germantown, on what is known as " The 

 battle-ground," is " Upsal," the estate of John Johnson, the de- 

 scendant of Dirk Jansen, an early settler in that borough. The 

 residence is some five hundred feet west of the celebrated Chew 

 Mansion, in which a number of British troops fortified themselves 

 in the war of the Revolution to resist the advance of General 

 Washington's army towards Philadelphia. In front of John 

 Johnson's house the cannon were placed that were used by the 

 American army in the attack on the Chew House. The estate 

 was known as " Upsal," a name associated with the great Swed- 

 ish botanist Linnaeus ; but in this case given from its being the 

 birthplace of Mrs. John Johnson. 



A love of* botany, or at least of rare trees and plants, must have 

 been a trait in the character of John Johnson, for when the writer 

 first knew it, about 1856, it was, in many regards, a botanic 

 garden, in respect to the number of rare herbaceous plants growing 

 there, while some of the finest specimens of rare trees to be found 

 about the city, adorned the grounds. At that time it contained 

 a specimen of the European silver fir, which the writer measured 

 and found over ninety feet high ; a very large deciduous cypress, by 

 examining which the late Dr. Engelmann made his first discovery 

 of the fact that at least one coniferous plant imitated amentaceous 

 plants in advancing considerably male flower buds in the fall ; 

 magnolias, and especially a specimen of the American yew, which 

 remains to this day probably the finest specimen of this plant in 

 the world. These trees, according to the statement of Henry >»., 

 the son and subject of this sketch, were planted by John Johnson 

 about the year 1800. 



Henry N. was born on the 20th of May, 1820. He completed 

 his education in the old Germantown Academy in 1839. He was 

 noted among his schoolmates for a studious disposition, and in 

 the classics, literature, and mathematics, particularly, kept at the 

 head of his class. Entering manhood he started, in connection 

 with a friend, the business of a bookseller, on Chestnut Street, 

 near Seventh, in Philadelphia, which was ultimately abandoned. 

 A physical infirmity which afflicted him from birth, rendered 



