38 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



daughter of James Hunt,* at Darby Meeting (the parties all 

 belonging to the Society of Friends), on the 27th of March, 1696. 

 The time of his death has not been ascertained. He had three 

 sons, and a daughter who died young. The names of the sons were 

 John (the botanist), James, and William. Of these, William 

 went to North Carolina, and settled near Cape Fear ; James, who 

 remained in Pennsylvania, left no male descendants. 



John Bartram, eldest son of William and Elizabeth Bar- 

 tram, and the subject of this brief memoir, inherited a farm near 

 Darby, which was left to him by his uncle Isaac, f " Being born 

 in a newly-settled colony, of not more than fifty years' establish- 

 ment, in a country where the sciences of the Old Continent were 

 little known, it cannot be supposed that he could derive great ad- 

 vantages or assistance from school-learning or literature. He had, 

 however, all or most of the education that could at that time be 

 acquired in country schools ; and whenever an opportunity offered, 

 he studied such of the Latin and Greek grammars and classics, as 

 his circumstances enabled him to purchase ; and he always sought 

 the society of the most learned and virtuous men. 



" He had a very early inclination to the study of physic and 

 surgery. He even acquired so much knowledge in the practice 

 of the latter science, as to be very useful : and, in many instances, 

 he gave great relief to his poor neighbours, who were unable to 

 apply for medicines and assistance to physicians of the city 

 (Philadelphia). It is extremely probable that, as most of his 

 medicines were derived from the vegetable kingdom, this circum- 

 stance might point out to him the necessity of, and excite a desire 

 for, the study of Botany.^ 



* When the editor commenced his inquiries into the personal history of Hum- 

 phry Marshall and John Bartram, he had not the slightest suspicion that there 

 was any kind of family connexion between them. In the progress of his 

 researches, however, he ascertained not only that they were men of kindred minds 

 and tastes, but that they were actually cousins german the sons of two sisters ! 

 James Hunt, of Kingsessing, in the County of Philadelphia, had the happiness 

 to call those ladies his daughters, and the rare privilege of enumerating two of 

 the earliest and most distinguished botanists of Pennsylvania, among his grand- 

 children. 



f The portion of this sketch which here follows, and is designated by quota- 

 tion marks, is taken from an account of John Bartram, written by his son Wil- 

 liam, and published in Professor Barton's Medical and Physical Journal. 



j His penchant for medical matters, no doubt, induced him to prepare the notes 

 and appendix to the American edition of Short's Medicina Britannica, published 

 in 1751, by B. Franklin and D. Hall. 



