20 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
AMERICA’S EARLY 
GARDEN BENEFACTORS 
A Record of Men 
Who W res 
Wilderness 
L. GRE 
Peter Collinson, Bot¬ 
anist to the King of 
England, to whom 
John Bartram sent 
collections of Ameri¬ 
can wild flowers in 
exchange for “nails , 
calico, Russian linen 
and clothes" for his 
boys 150 years ago 
tied With 
Conditions 
ENLEE 
William Bartram, son 
of the botanist and 
himself a. student of 
floivers. With his fa¬ 
ther he made the jour¬ 
ney through Florida 
and drew the map 
shown on page 56. 
This the King publish¬ 
ed for the colonists 
T HE most interesting 
house and garden 
in America, early in the 
18th Century, were those 
of John Bartram, on the 
Schuylkill river, near 
Philadelphia. It had not then its like any¬ 
where in the world. It was the cradle of 
botany and horticulture for this then New 
World. The house, built by the hands of 
its owner, is still standing; the garden, now 
happily a part of Philadelphia’s park sys¬ 
tem, is being restored. Such was its charm 
in earlier days that knowing garden-makers 
from over-seas made pilgrimages to it, 
and our own grave statesmen, Washing¬ 
ton, Jefferson, Franklin and others as 
heavily weighted with affairs, sometimes 
rested there. It is no little deed to 
make a beautiful garden, “that greatest re¬ 
freshment to the spirit of man,” anywhere. 
But to make a gar¬ 
den in the wilderness, 
garnering into its lap 
all the lovesome 
plants of a whole 
wilderness continent, 
and distributing them 
thence to great cen¬ 
ters of gardening art 
and research on other 
continents—that was 
surely a great deed. 
John Bartram was 
a simple Quaker 
farmer, born near 
Darby, Pa., in 1699. 
Resting from his 
labors under a tree 
one hot day, he 
plucked a daisy and 
began to examine it. 
That seems to have 
been the awakening 
of the man whom 
Linnaeus called the 
greatest natural bot¬ 
anist of the world, 
known ere the close 
of his life as one of 
the most illustrious, 
and by far the most 
picturesque of early 
botanizers a n d gar¬ 
den-makers. Although 
he became the peer 
and fellow of the 
greatest natural scientists of his day, and 
Botanist to the King of England in his 
American provinces, he retained to the last 
the habits and customs of the simple 
farmer. Even yet his simple, wholesome, 
powerful personality seems to pervade the 
garden which he made so long ago. 
When, in 1730, Bartram set about his 
garden - making, the Alleghanies were 
mapped as “The Endless Mountains.” 
Through and over them led the trails by 
which spoils came to the garden. Danger 
lurked beside him almost from the time he 
left his own door and through all his life, 
for he died when the young republic was 
scarcely a year old, soon after the battle 
of Brandywine. Yet he wrote, “If I die 
a martyr to Botany, God’s will be done ; 
His will be done in all things.” Reading 
the letters of Peter Collinson to Bartram, 
after the exchange of English and Ameri¬ 
can plants began, one recalls his resignation 
often. For quaint old Peter was much 
enamored of American plants. He would 
not have his dear friend risk death by In¬ 
dians or wild beasts, but he did want some 
more of those rare American orchids, or 
glorious rhododendrons, or exquisite silver- 
bells, for the Queen’s Gardens! 
William Darlington, the biographer of 
Bartram, says that it was Joseph Brient- 
nall, a friend and a prosperous merchant of 
Philadelphia, who first became interested 
in Bartram’s collection of plants, his dried 
specimens, etc., and suggested that he 
should send some of them to Peter Collin¬ 
son, of London. Bartram had studied 
Latin in order to master botany and his 
specimens were well done. Imagine the 
thrills of the Botanist 
to the King when he 
opened the first 
packet from the 
American wilds! 
The great useful¬ 
ness of the Bartram 
Garden dates from 
that time. “For near¬ 
ly fifty years, though 
never meeting face to 
face, these two 
helped, rallied and 
loved each other. 
Through Collinson 
Bartram’s letters 
reached nearly all of 
the distinguished nat¬ 
uralists of his time. 
Collinson engaged the 
Dukes of Richmond 
and Norfolk, Lord 
Peter and others, to 
subscribe an annual 
allowance of thirty 
guineas to meet Bar¬ 
tram’s expenses in 
procuring American 
plants for their gar- 
d e n s. Something 
was consigned to Col¬ 
linson—seeds, plants, 
roots, cuttings; one 
box, twenty boxes— 
by almost every ship 
leaving for London. 
The original Bartram home still stands in Philadelphia. It was built by John 
Bartram himself and it was the center of garden benefaction in America during 
pre-Revolutionary days 
JOHN 
BARTRAM 
