THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 51 



negroes free, paid them eighteen pounds a year wages, 

 taught them to read and write, sat with them at table, and 

 took them with him to Quaker meetings.* 



He was the second Anglo-American who conceived 

 the idea of establishing a botanic garden, for the reception 

 and cultivation of the various vegetables, natives of the 

 country, as well as of exotics, and of traveling for the 

 discovery and acquisition of them. " He purchased a conve- 

 nient piece of ground at sheriff's sale on the margin of the 

 Schuylkill, at a distance of three miles from the city, f a 

 happy situation, possessing every soil and exposure adapted 

 to the various nature of vegetables. Here he built with his 

 own hands a comfortable house of hewn stone, and laid out 

 a garden, containing about five acres of ground. 



" He began his travels at his own expense. His various 

 excursions rewarded his labors with the possession of a great 

 variety of new, beautiful and useful trees, shrubs and herba- 

 ceous plants. 



" A member of Franklin's celebrated club, called the 

 ^' Junto," Joseph Breintnall, an enterprising young mer- 

 chant of Philadelphia, much interested in science, was the 

 means of conveying to Europe the knowledge which John 

 Bartram had collected. One of the noted botanists then 

 living in England was a Quaker gentleman, named Peter 

 Collin son, a rich woolen draper, a great friend all his life of 

 Pennsylvania and Pennsylvanians — a correspondent of 

 Franklin for fifty years. To this excellent man Joseph 



* James Parton— IFood's Household Magazine, Oct., 1871, p. 167. 



fTHE Deed— Owen Owen, Sheriff, to John Bartram bears date September 30, 

 1728. The garden was probably commenced soon afterwards. The year in which 

 the dwelling house was erected may be gathered from an inscription on a stone in 

 the wall, John * Ann : Bartram : 1731. 



