BAR'TRAM, JOHN (1699-1777). The first American botanist of eminence. He was born of Quaker parentage, near Darby, Pa.; received a scant education in country schools; and, though bred a farmer, studied medicine and surgery. While engaged in the cultivation of a small farm, his attention was accidentally turned to the study of plants and flowers, and he thereafter devoted himself so assiduously to botanical in vestigations as to win an international reputa tion. He secured an appointment as American botanist to George III.. and Linnaeus, with whom he corresponded, pronounced him 'the greatest natural botanist in the world.' For the purpose of increasing his collections and extending his botanical studies, he made many expeditions in the various American provinces, and, according to his friend, Peter Collinson, thought little of "riding 50 or 100 miles to see a new plant." For many years he carried on an extensive cor respondence with the most eminent of European naturalists, to whom he sent large plant collec tions in exchange for books, and at his home near Philadelphia lie received as his guests many foreigners attracted thither by his reputation for learning and hospitality. In 1728 he estab
lished at Kingsessing, on the Schuylkill. the first botanical garden in America. In addition to sev eral papers which he contributed to the Transac tions of the Philosophical Society, he wrote a small but very interesting book, entitled Obserra tio»s on the Inhabitants, Soil, Dirers Produc floes, Animals, etc., Made by John Bartram in His Travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario (17 ) . His Journal Kept Upon a Journey from Saint Augustine up the Saint Johns was published in William Stork's Description of East Florida (1769). Consult William Darlington. Memorials of Jahn Bartram and Humphrey Marshall (Philadelphia, 1849).