86 Darlington’s Memorials 
mouldering and often hardly legible correspondence of these 
earliest cultivators of his favorite science in his native state, and, 
we believe, the earliest indigenous botanists of the new world. 
Instead of elaborating anew the materials for a biography of 
the elder Bartram, Dr. Darlington has reproduced the meagre 
sketch which was prepared by his son William, and published in 
Barton’s Medical and Physical Journal in the year 1804, as in 
the main more reliable than any other. Its incompleteness, how- 
ever, may be gathered from the fact, that it does not, nor does 
any other published biography, mention the name of Bartram’s 
father, ‘‘nor could any of his descendants, enquired of by the 
editor, furnish that name, neither could they give the exact date 
of the botanist’s birth!” These desiderata are now supplied, 
through Dr. Darlington’s diligence, and the kindness of a friend 
_ who obtained them from the ancient records of Darby Monthly 
Meeting. It appears that he was born “near the village of Darby, 
in Delaware (then Chester) County, Pennsylvania, on the twenty- 
third day of March, 1699; that his great-grandfather, Richard 
rtram, lived and died in Derbyshire, England ; leaving an only 
son, John, who married in Derby, lived for some years in the 
town of Ashborn, and in 1682—the year in which the city of 
Philadelphia was founded—emigrated to Darby, Pennsylvania, 
with three sons, two of whom died unmarried. The third, Wil- 
liam, was the father of John Bartram the botanist. 
was developed, which, however, must have been early in life. 
or he was stilla young man when he removed from the farm he 
had inherited from his uncle, and purchased a piece of ground on 
the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, for the establishment of the 
well known garden that bears his name, and built with his own 
hands (A. D. 1731) the large and comfortable house of hewn 
stone which is still standing, and which Dr. Darlington has de- 
picted in a large wood-cut which forms the frontispiece of his 
volume. T'o him is attributed, we believe justly, the credit of 
having been “ the first Anglo-American who conceived the idea 
of establishing a botanical garden for the reception of the various 
vegetables, natives of the country as well as of exotics; and 0 
travelling for the discovery and acquisition of them.” He cer- 
tainly established the first garden of the kind in this country, and 
filled it with our choicest plants and trees, then in great part novel 
to botanists. It was not his fault that it was not the nucleus of 
a public institution, endowed through the wealth and spirit of a 
prosperous metropolis, instead of sinking into neglect and becom- 
ing the site of a coal-yard. 
