58 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



" To his seventy-ninth year he was a happy, cheerful, 

 active, useful man, and he died after a short illness, sur- 

 rounded by his large family of respectable and virtuous 

 children. He would probably have lived longer but for his 

 great dread that the British army, after the battle of 

 Brandywine, would overrun his darling garden, which 

 had been his pride and delight for fifty years. They spared 

 it, however, but the shock of apprehension hastened the 

 departure of the illustrious gardener." 



It appears by the records of the American Philosophical 

 Society, of which John Bartram was one of the original 

 members, that he died on the 22nd of September, 1777, 

 aged seventy-eight years and six months. 



John Bartram was married twice. His first wife was 

 Mary, daughter of Richard Maris, of Chester Monthly 

 Meeting. They were married in January, 1723, and had 

 two sons, Eichard and Isaac ; the former of whom died young. 

 Isaac died in 1801, aged about seventy-six years. Mary 

 Bartram died in 1727. His second wife was Ann Menden- 

 hall, of Concord Monthly Meeting (then Chester) Delaware 

 County. They were married in September, 1729, and had 

 nine children. Ann Bartram survived her husband upw^ard 

 of six years, dying on the 29th of January, 1784, at the 

 age of 87. 



Bartram was not satisfied with being merely a farmer. 

 He desired to understand the philosophy of his calling. 

 So in September, 1728, he bought at sheriff^'s sale * a piece 

 of ground on the west side of the Schuylkill river, below the 

 Lower Ferry, on the road to Darby, which had belonged to 

 Frederick Schobbenhausen. Here was commenced in 1730, 



* Owen Owen, High Sheriff to John Bartram, September 30, 1728. 



