GERMANTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY/HISTORIC GERMANTOWN 
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Elms flank the entrance to Meehan’s Nurseries, photographed around 1902. 
three sons (Thomas B., J. Franklin, and S. Men- 
delson) came on board in the decades to come. 
As evidence of the success of the operations, 
what had begun as a few acres of land in Ger- 
mantown grew to 75 acres by the late 1800s and 
then to 150 acres by the turn of the twentieth 
century, encompassing property in German- 
town and suburban Dresher, Pennsylvania.!! 
The nursery was especially known for its 
diverse offerings of North American trees. By 
1893, a correspondent for Garden and Forest 
noted that “Mr. Meehan early recognized that 
... American plants are the best for America” 
and went on to say that “in no other place are 
American trees and shrubs raised in such quan- 
tities.” Their offerings included native species 
that were difficult to find at other nurseries. Yet, 
Meehan simultaneously offered and promoted 
non-natives species as they became available. !” 
This Janus-like approach to horticulture con- 
tinued the link to Philadelphia’s horticultural 
heritage while recognizing the changing demog- 
raphy and tastes of the city’s gardeners. 
American nursery catalogues from the mid- 
1800s reveal that most ornamental trees offered 
were from North America and Europe, with 
a smattering from Asia Minor and Asia.!3 A 
watershed moment in the availability of greater 
plant diversity occurred at the Centennial Expo- 
sition, the first official world’s fair held in the 
United States, which took place in Philadelphia 
from the spring to autumn of 1876. As a celebra- 
tion of the one-hundredth anniversary of the 
signing of the Declaration of Independence, the 
event exposed a vast audience to a wide array of 
modern conveniences, inventions, and interna- 
tional cultures. Also, through various horticul- 
tural exhibits, the Exposition introduced Asian 
(particularly Japanese) plant species to a broad 
American audience. Prior to the Exposition, 
