John and William Bartram: Botanists and Explorers, 1699-1777, 1739-1823 [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512815696

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PENNSYLVANIA

LIVES

JOHN and WILLIAM BARTRAM

I'ENNSYLVANIA

LIVES

( V o l u m e s Previously Published)

JOHN

WHITE

GEARY

Soldier-Statesman 1819-1873 By Harry Marlin Tinkcom

JOHN BARTRAM

JOHN

and

WILLIAM

BARTRAM Botanists

and

1699-1777

Explorers

1739-1823

By

ERNEST

EARNEST

t UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS PHILADELPHIA

1940

Copyright 1940 UNIVERSITY OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A PRESS

Manufactured in the United States of America

LONDON HUMPHREY OXFORD

MILFORD

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

FOREWORD require no introduction to John Bartram and his son William, for Linnseus himself referred to John as "the greatest natural botanist in the world," and William so extended his father's explorations and collections and made so many discoveries of his own that his published work has achieved a very prominent place in the history of taxonomy in America. Before we can hope to evaluate the Bartrams and their accomplishments we must view them in their proper setting. Their opportunities were undoubtedly exceptional, but the obstacles and hazards which they had to overcome were greater perhaps than we realize. T h e y were living on the frontier of a botanically unexplored wilderness, filled with useful and ornamental plants unknown to European collectors, at a time when the systematists were particularly desirous of obtaining specimens of the American flora. Professional gardeners and horticulturists were anxious to obtain plants from the temperate zone in America, for such plants could survive the European winters and were constantly in demand by the owners of the great estates. It was this demand which gave John Bartram the opportunity to explore and collect seeds, and it was characteristic of him that in a very short time he became much more than an explorer and collector. BOTANISTS

From the very first he imported Old W o r l d plants in exchange for those he sent abroad, and he was thus enabled to establish the first botanic garden in America which contained both native and exotic species. As he mastered the science of botany, he became interested in investigating the major botanical problems of the time. Soon he convinced himself that plants as well as animals reproduce sexually, a matter which was much debated in the early eighteenth century, and, incidental

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JOHN AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

to his experiments designed to demonstrate the sexuality of plants, he became one of the first plant hybridizers. Distinguished as the Bartrams were as botanists, their influence was not limited to that one field. As Professor Earnest shows, they were personally acquainted with many of the political leaders in the Colonies and they corresponded with many great Europeans. William Bartram's accounts of the Indians among whom he journeyed, and his descriptions of the American scene, helped to shape the philosophy of nature which was soon to develop in English literature. Together with Benjamin Franklin and James Logan, John and William Bartram produced some of the best scientific work which came out of Colonial Pennsylvania, and we are only beginning to realize the importance of this early American research. CONWAY ZIRKLE

University of Pennsylvania September 1940

CONTENTS JOHN BARTRAM Portrait by Albert Hamson m the John Bartram High Philadelphia. Courtesy of Caroline Bartram Wen

School, Frontispiece Page

FOREWORD

v

INTRODUCTION

i

Chapter I JOHN BARTRAM

j

II T H E ROAD T O DAMASCUS

14

III T H E PHILADELPHIA A N D Q U A K E R BACKGROUNDS IV V VI VII VIII

COLLINSON A N D B A R T R A M : T H E I R ON E N G L I S H G A R D E N S

22

INFLUENCE 34

JOHN BARTRAM'S TRAVELS

44

T H E TELESCOPE: J O H N B A R T R A M ' S RELIGION

60

RECOGNITION

68

WILLIAM B A R T R A M

84

WILLIAM B A R T R A M Portrait by Charles Willson Peale, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia Facing page 84 IX

W H A T A SURPRISING FOUNTAIN!

96

THE WANDERER

104

THE TRAVELS

112

T H E SPIRIT OF N A T U R E

132

XIII

T H E SPIRIT OF T H E C E N T U R Y

141

XIV

T H E CREST OF F E A T H E R S

.53

XV

T H E QUIET Y E A R S

162

XVI

T H E SISTER MUSES

176

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL N O T E

181

INDEX

183

X XI XII

INTRODUCTION C O L O N I A L life is generally recognized as vigorous; it is less often thought of as cultured. Sidney Smith's sneer in 1820 at American books is more often resented than refuted. Yet long before that date, two Americans little known today had established European reputations—one in science, the other in literature. These were two quiet Philadelphia Quakers, John Bartram and his son William Bartram. There has been no important study of the elder Bartram since William Darlington's Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall, published in 1849. In the case of William, however, several scholars have in recent years investigated his work, particularly the problem of his literary influence. Professor Lane Cooper in Methods and Aims in the Study of Literature showed something of the debt Wordsworth owed Bartram's Travels, both for descriptions of scenery and for some important elements in his philosophy of nature. In The Road to Xanadu, Professor Lowes traced to the same source many of Coleridge's most striking images. These studies were supplemented by Dr. N . B. Fagin's thorough investigation of Bartram's work and literary influence, which he published under the title William Bartram, Interpreter of the American Landscape. Dr. Fagin has discussed above a dozen English and American writers who seem to be in Bartram's debt. In addition Chateaubriand, in Atala, lifted (and usually spoiled with sentimental embroidery) whole passages out of the Travels. Some further influence upon literature will be shown in the present study. It is not my plan, however, to deal primarily with the literary parallels between the Travels and other works, interesting as these are. Suffice it is to say here that Bartram supplied the jetting fountains, the "caverns measureless to man," the meandering river, and much else in "Kubla Khan," that much of the 1

1

JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM

thunderstorm in the "Ancient Mariner" comes from the same source, and that Wordsworth went to Bartram for the American Scenes in "Ruth," for information about Indians, and for some of the nature passages in the Prelude. This widespread use of the Travels by literary men is only one mark of the book's popularity in its own day. Within the ten years following its publication in Philadelphia in 1791 it went through two editions in London and one in Dublin; it was translated into German, Dutch, and French, going through two editions in the latter tongue. A book so popular and important cannot be a mere accident. It is obvious that a colonial America which could give birth to such a work merits further study to reveal some of the elements in its culture that have been hitherto overlooked. W e have much information about the religious background of a poem like Michael Wigglesworth's "Day of Doom" or the origin of a political tract like Paine's Common Sense, but there is little to tell us how, in eighteenth-century Philadelphia, William Bartram was able to write a scientific work, couched in pseudo-classic style, and filled with doctrines of man and nature similar to those of Rousseau and Wordsworth. A n y study of William Bartram leads directly to the work of his perhaps more famous father, John Bartram. In spite of the widespread influence of the Travels, the scientific achievements of John Bartram are probably better known. He was the friend of Franklin, James Logan, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and many other influential men in the colonies. His European correspondents included Peter Collinson, Dr. John Fothergill, Gronovius, Peter Kalm, and Linnaeus. Linnaeus spoke of him as "the greatest natural botanist in the world." "Bartram was an original member of the American Philosophical Society, 1742, his name following Franklin's at the head of the roll." He was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, and held the post of botanist to the King for the American colonies under George III. John Bartram is an excellent illustration of that combination

INTRODUCTION

3

of practicality and learning found in a number of men of his time—for example, in Thomas Jefferson. Throughout his life Bartram remained a Pennsylvania farmer, simple in his tastes and unassuming in his life. His house, which still exists, is the work of his own hands. Yet he found time in the course of his studies to travel extensively throughout the colonies, covering an area from Canada to Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. In addition to his work as a farmer and scientist, he wrote two books of travel as well as hundreds of letters to prominent men in Europe and America. It was from John Bartram that his son William drew many of his most characteristic ideas, particularly those which appealed to the Romantic poets. In his Quaker simplicity of life and in his scientific work the son greatly resembled the father. An able botanist, an artist of merit, and the author of a literary work of high rank and wide influence, William Bartram made even less noise in the world than John. Yet both men had a breadth of knowledge on many subjects and a fearless originality of ideas that would be remarkable in any age. An important characteristic of both men was their lack of provinciality. Like Benjamin Franklin, John Bartram was in constant touch with the scientists of Europe. He imported books on many subjects: religion, literature, history, and science. His own discoveries and theories were in turn communicated to botanists in Sweden, in France, and to the Royal Society of London. And William, whose Travels is a source book on the American Indian, is thoroughly imbued with the fashionable European doctrine of the "noble savage." His style borrows from Pope and Thomson; his literary allusions include Ovid and Milton. It becomes evident, therefore, that the Bartrams should not be considered as a mere footnote to literature. They were interesting persons in their own right, and it is thus, primarily, that I shall discuss them. In addition I shall try to show something of their cultural background, a background that becomes increasingly interesting when we begin to count up the number

4

J O H N AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

of men then engaged upon scientific and scholarly pursuits. Philadelphia today could hardly marshal so many famous men as appear there during the lifetime of the Bartrams. An attempt will be made to clear up some problems that still remain in regard to William Bartram. However, because of his pioneer work, his greater originality, and the lack of any complete study of his life and work, I shall deal most fully with John Bartram.

I

JOHN BARTRAM There is surely a piece of divinity in us; something that was before the elements, and owes no homage to the sun. Sir Thomas B r o w n e : — r e l i g i o m e d i c i

are notorious for their lack of attention to the ordinary details of everyday life. It seems therefore that the artist in William Bartram was uppermost when he gave the genealogy of his father in the biographical sketch he wrote for Professor Barton's Medical and Physical Journal in 1804. Or he may have been one of those numerous persons who can never keep family relationships straight in their minds. William named Richard Bartram as his great-grandfather, and spoke of his coming to America. In reality, Richard was his great-great-grandfather, and never left England. Furthermore, he dated his own father's birth early in the eighteenth century, although it occurred in 1699. And he named an unmarried great-uncle as his own grandfather. There is some justification for confusion because of the family's consistent fondness for the names John and William. In fact, so frequent are these names that nothing less than a diagram will make all the family relationships clear: Artists

John

Isaac

Richard Bartram 1 John (Came to America 1682) ! Elizabeth Hunt—William—Elizabeth Smith 1 l

Jok n (the botanist) b. May 23, 1699 1

James

William

Elizabeth

1 T h e date usually given is March 13. This is because of a misunderstanding of the entry in the Friends' records at Darby, which reads: 5

6

JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM T h i s genealogy is supported b y a letter f r o m John Bartram

to Archibald Bartram in 1 7 6 1 . John says that as his father and uncle died when he was y o u n g , he got what information he could f r o m his grandmother. She told him that his greatgrandfather's name was Richard, and that he lived in D e r b y shire as had Richard's father. Richard had one son, John, w h o married in D e r b y ; settled in Ashburn f o r a time; then came to America " b e f o r e there was one house in Philadelphia." This was the botanist's grandfather. T w o of his sons remained bachelors; the third married and had three sons and a daughter. J o h n says that a Presbyterian minister f r o m Scotland told him that t w o brothers named Bartram came to England with William the Conqueror, and that one of them settled in the north of England, the other in Scotland. John believed himself descended f r o m the former. William Bartram tells a romantic story about his grandfather, which may be true in spite of his inaccuracies in the genealogy. H e says that his grandfather soon after his second marriage moved to N o r t h Carolina. Here at a plantation called W h i t o c he was killed b y the Indians and his w i d o w and t w o children were carried a w a y as captives. A f t e r being ransomed, they returned to Philadelphia. It was William, one of the survivors of the experience, w h o returned to N o r t h Carolina to settle. His nephew, the author, visited him there; so he had ample opportunity to v e r i f y the story—one which must have been often told in the Bartram family. One possible reason f o r the migration of John's father to N o r t h Carolina is that he had a long r o w with his fellow Quakers of the D a r b y Meeting. H e complained of several "wrongs and abuses" received f r o m both men and w o m e n Friends, which '3d. m o , 23, 1699.' See Frances W . Leach: Old Philadelphia Families Mag. 162 (Reprinted from the Philadelphia North American.) Cf. John Smith's diary (A. C. Myers: Hannah Logan's Courtship. Philadelphia 1904, pp. 282-83), where '2d mo., 5th day, 1750' refers to the Pennsylvania Gazette for April 5, 1750. 'Up till 1752 in England the official date of the new year had continued to be the 25th of March.' A . Philip: The Calendar, Its History, etc. Cambridge 1921, p. 22.

JOHN'

BARTRAM

7

seem to have led to the postponement of his second marriage. T h e investigating committee appointed b y the meeting reported that he had no cause f o r complaint, but William refused to abide by their decision or to appear before the meeting. As his name ceases to appear in the records in 1709, he must have left about that time. It would seem that John was not taken to North Carolina with his father and stepmother. His own mother had died when he was only two. Perhaps he was looked after by his grandmother, to whom, in 1708, his uncle Isaac left his farm. Upon her death the property was to go to young John. Had John died, the next heir was his brother James—only in the event of the death of both boys was the property to go to their father, William, the testator's brother. In spite of being the prospective heir of a farm, John received a meager education, as is shown b y his early letters. His son William tells of it with a characteristic flourish: Being born in a newly settled colony where the sciences of the Ola Continent were little known, it cannot be supposed that he could derive great advantages or assistance from school learning or literature. He had, however, all or most of the education that could at that time be acquired in country schools; and whenever opportunity offered, he studied such of Latin and Greek grammars and classics, as his circumstances enabled him to purchase; and he always sought the society of the most learned and virtuous men. William's guess about his father's schooling is probably colored b y his recollection of the latter as a well-educated elderly man. John's early letters show a lack of anything but the most rudimentary schooling. T h e spelling, grammar—even the penmanship—are much worse than those of the half a dozen or so of his neighbors who kept the records of the Darby Meeting. T h e other possibility is that the Friends' school in Darby was woefully poor and that the records were kept entirely by men educated in England or in Philadelphia—which is rather unlikely, as the men occupying important positions in a con-

8

JOHN

AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

gregation are usually members of long standing. In any case Darby had a school seven years before Bartram was born, for the records show under the date of 1692: "Agreed at this meeting that Benjamin G i f t is to teach school Beginning the 12th day of the 7th mo. and to continue one whole year except two weeks." As Clift's name appears in the records as late as 1707, it is probable that he continued to teach school. Since there are, however, no entries on the subject of education during the whole of Bartram's youth, it would seem that this was not one of the chief concerns of the Darby Meeting. T h e curriculum of Friends' schools at Philadelphia and at Darby consisted of reading, English, writing, arithmetic, branches of mathematics, and spelling. Other subjects like bookkeeping, surveying, astronomy, and navigation are mentioned about the middle of the century, but these were probably added after Bartram's schooldays. Spelling was always an important subject, and the fact that John never mastered it would indicate that he went to school very little. In 1702 there was a Philadelphia edition of Instructions for Right Spelling by Fox. Other books frequently mentioned in the early records of Friends' meetings are: George Fox's Primers; Stephen Crisp's Primer; George Fox's The Youngers; and Barclay's Apology. Had Bartram's family wanted him to have a better education than Darby afforded they could have sent him to school in Philadelphia. In 1683 the Provincial Council had engaged Enoch Flower to teach pay school where the charges were four shillings a quarter to learn reading; six for reading and writing; or eight if arithmetic was included. Board, lodging (including washing), and schooling for a whole year were only ten pounds. There was also a public school set up in 1689 under the jurisdiction of Quaker overseers. T h e first masters were George Keith and Thomas Makin, the latter of whom published in 1729 a long Latin poem describing Pennsylvania. For about three years, ending in 1700, the learned Pastorius taught there before he set up a school in Germantown. N o doubt some of

JOHN

BARTRAM

9

the textbooks he wrote continued in use, among them, A New Primer, a Lingua Anglicana, and A Breviary of Arithmetick. It was quite possible for a Quaker of Bartram's time to obtain a sound education under competent masters using good textbooks. John's meager knowledge of the very things taught in the early schools was a sensitive point with him, as is revealed in a letter to Peter Collinson, who had apparently criticized him on this score: Good grammar and good spelling may please those that are more taken with a fine superficial flourish than real truth; but m y chief aims was to inform my readers of the true, real, distinguishing characters of each genus, and where and how, each species differed from one another of the same genus. In spite of his limited education, Bartram early became a person of consequence in his community. In 1723 he declared his intention of marrying Mary Maris of the Chester Monthly Meeting, and was given the necessary certificate of good conduct by his own congregation. Shortly after this his name begins to appear on the records, as he was from time to time chosen as a delegate to the quarterly meetings. In 1727, following a great storm and flood, the country was swept by "such a raging sickness" that the Philadelphia Assembly had to postpone its meetings. Mary Bartram died this same year, possibly during the epidemic. Something of John's feelings can be gathered from a letter he wrote years later when his friend Peter Collinson lost a wife: It seems hard to have one's dearest consort, a loving spouse, an affectionate wife, an object that we love above all terrestrial enjoyments taken from our arms. H o w grievous is it, for one that is thus agreeable to be torn from our hearts! Her dear sweet bosom is cold; her tender heart—the center of mutual love—is motionless; her dear arms are no more extended to embrace her beloved; the partner of his cares and sharer of his pleasures must no more sit down with her husband at his table . . .

IO

JOHN

AND WILLIAM

BARTRAM

T h e f o l l o w i n g y e a r he bought at sheriffs sale a tract of land containing a hundred and t w o acres, and another of five acres. 2 It may be that he had already sold the farm he inherited from his uncle, f o r it is not included in the land deeded or willed b y Bartram after this time. O n the farm he bought there was a small house dating f r o m Swedish times, and forming the nucleus of his later home. This was on the Schuylkill at Kingsessing, then about three miles f r o m Philadelphia. N e a r b y was the L o w e r Ferry or G r a y ' s Ferry, which, as it carried most of the southern and western traffic into Philadelphia, was a most important place. Alexander Wilson, w h o later taught school there, described the neighborhood of the f e r r y thus: A n ever varying scene the road displays, W i t h horsemen, thundering stage, and stately team, N o w burning with the sun's resplendent rays, N o w lost in clouds of dust the travellers seem, A n d n o w a lengthened pond or miry stream, D e e p sink the wheels, and slow they drag along, Journeying to t o w n , with butter, apples, cream, Fowls, eggs, and fruit, in many a motley throng, Coop'd in their little carts their various truck among. T h i s road gave Bartram ready access to the city where he frequently w e n t to transact business—or, using business as an excuse, visited libraries and learned friends, or attended the meetings of the Philosophical Society. In 1729 he married again, this time A n n Mendinghall of the C o n c o r d Meeting. It was, therefore, necessary f o r him to enlarge his tiny house, w h i c h consisted of what is now the kitchen w i t h a half-story above it. H e did the work with his o w n hands. In a letter to Jared Eliot, he described his method: 1 have split rocks seventeen feet long, and built four'houses of h e w n stone, split out of the rock with m y o w n hands. M y 2 This is the plot on which, according to Darlington and subsequent writers, he established his garden. However, the Brief of Title shows that his house and garden are on the larger tract. He sold this five-acre plot jin 1740. Book H 2, p. 257 (Philadelphia City Hajl)..

JOHN

BARTRAM

IX

method is to bore the rock about six inches deep, having drawn a line from one end to the other, in which I bore holes about a foot asunder, more or less, according to the freeness of the rock; if it be three or four or five feet thick, ten, twelve, or sixteen inches deep. The holes should be an inch and a quarter diameter, if the rock be two feet thick; but if it be five or six feet thick, the holes should be an inch and three quarters diameter. There must be provided twice as many iron wedges as holes; and one half or them must be made full as long as the hole is deep, and made round at one end, just fit to drop into the hole; the other half may be made a little longer, and thicker one way, and blunt pointed. All the holes must have their wedges drove together, one after another, gently, that they may strain all alike. You may hear by their ringing, when they strain well. Then with the sharp end of the sledge, strike hard on the rock in the line between every wedge, which will crack the rock; then drive the wedges again. It generally opens a f e w minutes after the wedges are drove tight. Then with an iron bar, or long levers, raise them up, and lay the two pieces flat and bore and split them in what shape and dimensions you please. If the rock is anything free, you may split them as true almost, as sawn 1 timber; and by this method y '' ' ' you may add what power deeper and closer together. Many times he used large slabs, like "sawn timber" six or eight feet long in the walls. The record "John—Ann Bartram 1 7 3 1 " set high in the wall, gives the date of the completion of the work. What was probably a later addition shows the date 1770. Thus Bartram occupied his spare time. His chief task was running and improving his farm so that it would provide for his family. By his first wife he had two sons, Richard (who died young) and Isaac. B y Ann he had so many children that he had a printer make the following record f o r their family Bibles: Children of John and Ann Bartram James Bartram Moses Bartram

born June 25th, 1730 " June 1732

12

JOHN AND WILLIAM

Elizabeth Bartram

"

Mary Bartram " William and Elizabeth Bartram " AnnBartram " John Bartram " Benjamin Bartram "

BARTRAM

Aug. 27th 1734 (died young) Sept. 21st, 1736 Feb. 9th, 1739 June 24th, 1741 Oct. 24th, 1743 July 6th, 1748

T h e father of such a family is faced with problems other than those of pure science. W i t h characteristic shrewdness, Bartram later made botany pay very well. In the meantime he drained marshland along the Schuylkill, which he turned into beautiful meadows where Crevecoeur counted "the amazing number of cattle and horses now feeding on solid bottoms, which but a few years before had been covered with water." So well did he fertilize his soil and rotate his crops that he got "fifty-three hundreds of excellent hay per acre from a soil which scarcely produced five-fingers [a weed] some years before." His wheat fields yielded from twenty-eight to thirty-six bushels to the acre, at a time when farmers in N e w York got about twenty bushels to the acre. Flax, oats, and Indian corn he raised in the same proportion. So prosperous did he become that in 1738 he bought from Andrew Jonason a 140-acre farm. T h e next year he added a tract of forty acres next to his own farm, and another plot of ten acres both bought from the estate of Andrew Souplis (Souplee), for which he paid 175 pounds, 14 shillings, 6 pence, Pennsylvania currency. Keeping the part he wanted, he immediately sold four small plots aggregating about thirty-four acres (five acres from his purchase of 1728, the rest from his two recent ones) for 120 pounds. It seems to have been a profitable transaction. During these years of hard work at home, he also did considerable traveling in search of plants (see Chapter V ) . T h e money he received for this at first scarcely paid the cost of his journeys. These and his real estate purchases left him somewhat short of money, for three months after he bought the

JOHN

BARTRAM

I3

Souplis farm, he gratefully thanked Collinson f o r "the cash, which came in the very nick of time, when I wanted to pay the mortgage interest." From a practical, worldly point of view John Bartram had already succeeded: he was a respected member of his congregation; he owned about 261 acres of excellent farm land; and he had a handsome stone house f o r his growing family. Yet more and more during these years, he had found his real life outside these things; he had begun his life work as a botanist.

II

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS And suddenly there shined about him a light from heaven. ACTS

9:3

" S E L D O M is any good story ever wholly true," remarked Dr. Johnson. On that basis many people have doubted Crevecceur's account of a visit to John Bartram, particularly his story of Bartram's experience with the daisy. This appears in The Letters of an American Farmer under the heading "From Mr. Iw n A1 z, a Russian Gentleman; Describing the Visit He Paid at My Request to Mr. John Bartram, the Celebrated Pennsylvania Botanist." The statement in this account that Bartram's father was a Frenchman has cast further doubt upon its accuracy. On the other hand, much of the information is so detailed and so accurate that it would seem to be the story of an actual visit. Especially accurate is his description of the situation and topography of Bartram's farm. He is correct in his remarks upon Bartram's interest in building dykes along the Schuylkill, and in his list of places visited by the botanist. The mention of John's trip to Florida would date the visit after 1765, and points to the conclusion that Crevecceur himself was the "Russian Gentleman," for between 1769 and 1779 he was exploring the settled portions of New York and Pennsylvania. Subsequent to the publication of the Memorials, Darlington, the editor of Bartram's correspondence, unearthed a letter that confirmed his suspicion that Crevecceur himself was the "Russian Gentleman." It was written by Crevecceur in 1783 to Bartram's sons William and John, and begins:

Gentlemen: I have just received your kind letter: I am very happy to think you still remember the connection which once subsisted between your illustrious parent and me. His industry, simplicity, and virtue, I have taken the liberty of recording in a '4

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

1$

book, called Letters from an American Farmer, published in London two years ago, the translation of which is now printing in Paris. Thus Crevecoeur's account, in spite turesque effect, is an authentic record with John Bartram. Certainly the story est in botany has become the traditional

of his striving for picbased on his friendship of Bartram's first interone:

One day I was very busy holding my plow (for thee seest that I am but a simple plowman) and being weary I ran under the shade of a tree to repose myself. I cast my eyes on a daisy, I plucked it mechanically and viewed it with more curiosity than common country farmers are wont to do; and observing therein many distinct parts, some perpendicular, some horizontal. What a shame, said my Ttiind, that thee shouldst have employed so many years in tilling the earth and destroying so many flowers and plants, -without being acquainted with their structures and uses! This seeming inspiration suddenly awakened my curiosity for these were not thoughts to which I had been accustomed. He mentioned his scheme of botanical study to his wife, who opposed it. "However her prudent caution did not discourage me; I thought about it continually, at supper, in bed and wherever I went." A few days later he went up to Philadelphia where he asked advice of a bookseller, who provided him with some botanical works and a Latin grammar. He engaged a neighboring schoolmaster to give him a three-months' course in Latin. After botanizing all over his farm and becoming acquainted with every vegetable that grew in the neighborhood, he "ventured into Maryland," living among the Friends, and as he increased his knowledge he lengthened his journeys. On the other hand, we have Bartram's statement in a letter to Collinson, May i, 1764: "I had always, since ten years old, a great inclination to plants, and knew all that I once observed by sight, though not their proper names, having no person, nor books to instruct me." T o add to the confusion, William Bartram said that his father learned enough medicine and surgery to.be able to treat neigh-

16

J O H N AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

bors too poor to afford Philadelphia doctors. William thought that his father's use of herb medicines led him to take up botany as a study. This theory may contain the real clue to an explanation of the apparent contradictions among the various accounts. In the first place, there is no doubt of John's interest in medicine. The third edition of Medicina Britannica had: A preface by Mr. John Bartram, botanist of Pennsylvania, and his notes throughout the work, shewing the places where many of the described plants are to be found in these parts of America, their differences in name, appearance and virtue, from those of the same kind in Europe; ana an appendix, containing a description of a number of plants peculiar to America, their uses, virtues, etc. Also there are in the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, I, Nov. 1804, his "Notices of the epidemics of Pennsylvania and N e w Jersey in the years 1746, 1747, 1748, and 1749." It may well be that Bartram first studied plants for their medicinal qualities, and that his experience with the daisy marked the beginning of his interest in botany for its own sake. Crevecceur was right in another particular: Bartram continued to earn his living as a farmer. Thus it was that he usually began his botanical trips after the harvest was in. Also that was the best time for gathering matured seeds of any new plants he found. But seeds are valueless unless planted, and they must be planted in a special place where they can be labeled, guarded, and observed as they grow. Bartram wanted to watch the plants he found develop throughout the year. This led him to start his famous botanic garden. This was not, as is often stated, the first botanic garden in America. That honor seems to belong to the strange brotherhood of learned German mystics led by Kelpius, who established themselves in 1694 on the Wissahickon. At their monastery, Das Weib in der Wuste, they experimented in alchemy seeking an elixir of life, studied mathematics and astronomy, practised medicine, and cultivated a garden of medicinal herbs. Unfortunately no description of this garden seems to exist.

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

17

Somewhat more is known about the garden of Dr. Christopher Witt, a native of Wiltshire, England, who came to America in 1704. He must have immediately become associated with the theosophical brotherhood, for he made an oil painting of Kelpius, who died that same year. Soon afterward he removed to Germantown, where he started a large botanic garden of his own. In 1711 Pastorius wrote in his Hortenses Deliciae, "Christopher Witt removed his flower beds close to my fence," and in 1716 he threw over the fence a poem on Christopher Witt's Fig Tree. The doctor returned an answering verse by the same method. When he moved to the house of Christian Warmer, Witt started a second botanic garden. This was the one John Bartram wrote of. He had met the doctor in 1736 or earlier, for in February 1736/7 Collinson wrote: "I am pleased to hear thee art acquainted with Dr. Witt, an old correspondent of mine, and has sent me, many a valuable, curious plant." In 1743 Bartram wrote to Collinson: "I have lately been to visit our friend Dr. Witt, where I spent four or five hours very agreeably—sometimes in his garden—where I viewed every kind of plant, I believe, that grew therein . . ." Witt used his knowledge of herbs along with his occult lore in his medical practice. He and Bartram continued to visit each other until the doctor's death at the age of ninety in 1765. Witt's much more famous neighbor, Francis Daniel Pastorius, was also something of a botanist and botanical gardener. His knowledge of the subject is fully attested by his manuscript works, particularly the Medicus Dilectus and the Hortenses Deliciae. The first contains a discussion of medicinal herbs found in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The second, subtitled Garden Recreations, and written in English, German, French, Latin, and Dutch, reveals the learned scholar in his lighter moments writing rimes about the rare plants in his garden, and mingling botanic lore with doggerel against youngsters who trample on his flowers. It is quite possible that some of the verse is the same that he sent to James Logan in 1715, describing them as "Bo-

l8

/

J O H N AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

tanick Rimes." These rimes, while they do not show to what extent this was a systematic botanic garden, do give an indication of the great variety of plants and flowers there—some found in the Pennsylvania woods; others imported from Europe, and a "Blumlein von Jerusalem." And in one verse he wrote: Since G o d the allmighty, and holy-great men Were Horti-Cult(u)res what wonder you then That Daniel Pastorius here many hours spends And having no money on usury lend(s) To's Vineyard & Orchard—Garden such Times, Wherein he helps Nature & Nature his Rimes, Because they provide him both Victuals and Drink, Both Medicine and Flowers both Paper and Ink. H e referred to himself as a 'Florister' and as a 'Horticulator' and said: W e r keinen Garten baut Und nichts von Blumen weiss, Niemals zurucke schaut Ins irdisch Paradeis: 1st nur ein Slav und Knecht . . . Pastorius died about December 1719, so that it is unlikely that John Bartram ever met him. But Bartram later became intimate with James Logan and Christopher Witt, both of whom had discussed botany with the founder of Germantown, and must have had in their garden rare plants drawn from his. It is quite probable then that Whittier's guess was correct when he wrote of Anna Pastorius: And Anna's aloe? If it flowered at last In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast A glance upon it as he meekly past? Between Germantown and Philadelphia was another famous garden at Fair Hill, the estate of Isaac Norris. Pastorius wrote to Mrs. Norris that it was "the finest I hitherto have seen in the whole country, fitted with abundance of rarities, physical and metaphysical." Although this description dates from 1718, Fair Hill was begun soon after 1708.

T H E ROAD TO DAMASCUS

Then there is a puzzling reference to a botanic garden in George Webb's "Bachelors' Hall." Webb, one of the printers working for Keimer, and a member of Franklin's Junto, has given a long poetic description of this Hall which had a reputation for revelry. W e b b asserts, however, that it was: For other, O far other ends designed, T o mend the heart and cultivate the mind. Mysterious nature here unveil'd shall be, And knotty points of deep philosophy; Close to the dome a garden shall be join'd, A fit employment for a studious mind: In our vast woods whatever simples grow, Whose virtues none, or none but Indians know, Within the confines of this garden brought, T o rise with added luster shall be taught; Then cull'd with judgment each shall yield its juice Saliferous balsam to the sick man's use . . . This garden, if it did exist, antedated Bartram's, f o r the poem was published between 1729 and 1 7 3 1 . T h e Hall was on the Delaware in what is now Kensington. Isaac Norris, the owner of Fair Hill, was finally persuaded to buy it from the members. Certainly if it did exist it must have early come to Bartram's notice, because he was intimate with several of the members of the Junto. Less legendary but also less well described was James Logan's garden at Stenton. T h e mansion was built in 1728, the same year Bartram purchased the land for his home, but it may be that Logan's garden was begun before that. Jellett dates it as early as 1720. Certainly his interest in botany was known when Pastorius in 1715 sent him the "Botanick Rimes." It was, however, in a Philadelphia garden that Logan worked out the experiments with maize in support of the sexual theory of plants, the results of which he reported in 1735. As we shall see, Logan was one of the first to give encouragement to Bartram in his botanical studies. T o what extent these were true botanical gardens is a matter

20

JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM

of dispute. Those of Kelpius and Witt seem to have the best claim. They were, it seems, primarily designed for the growing of medicinal herbs, but Witt at least was a collector of all kinds of plants, as is shown by Pastorius' Hortenses Deliciae, and by the letters of Collinson and Bartram. In Virginia there was also an early botanical garden of uncertain date, that of John Clayton. Bartram visited his estate in 1738, but as Clayton was not at home their friendship did not begin until later. The catalogue of the Bartram garden issued in 1801 mentions Clayton's garden as existing first. Unfortunately Clayton's manuscript volumes and a fine herbarium were burned by the British, so that it is difficult to date his work. Much of it was embodied in the Flora Virginica of Gronovius, the first volume of which appeared in 17 39. And as the Virginian was fourteen years older than Bartram, it seems likely that his garden was the earlier of the two. One thing is clear: in the colonies, and especially in and around Philadelphia, there was a considerable interest in and knowledge of botany. Furthermore by 1729 or 1730, when Bartram began his garden, a number of people had already collected exotic and rare plants. There were some also at William Penn's estate at Pennsbury, which, while not a botanic garden, was a most elaborate affair, costing over £ 5,000. Penn 'had sent over workmen in 1685 to begin it. All sorts of rare seeds and plants were sent from England; trees were transplanted from Maryland, and many wildflowers from the forest were domesticated. The lawn was seeded with English grasses. In Philadelphia, then, Bartram could not have sought far for botanical information without being told of some of these collections of plants. For his own garden he chose the part of his farm immediately surrounding his house, particularly the land which sloped from it down to the Schuylkill. The botanic garden proper was about five or six acres in extent, but Bartram termed the whole two or three hundred acres of his land his garden. Dr. Alexander Garden, writing to Cadwallader Colden in

T H E ROAD TO DAMASCUS

1754, told of his visit to Bartram's home, and gave the following description: . . . His garden is a perfect portraiture of himself, here you meet with a row of rare plants almost covered over with weeds, here with a Beautiful Shrub even Luxuriant amongst Briars, and in another corner an Elegant and Lofty tree lost in a common thicket—on our way from town to his house he carried me to several rocks & Dens where he shewed me some of his rare plants, which he brought from the Mountains, &c. In a word he disclaims to have a garden less than Pennsylvania & Every den is an Arbour, Every run of water, a Canal, & every small level Spot a Parterre, where he nurses up some of his Idol Flowers & cultivates his darling productions. He had many plants whose names he did not know most or all of which I had seen & knew them . . . On the other hand he had several I had not seen & some I never heard of . . . Even in building his house Bartram kept botany in mind. Beside the fireplaces there are cupboards for drying plants and seeds, and in one of them he arranged an ingenious flue to heat it. He had chosen a site with a fine view of the river, toward which he faced his house. Between it and the river he laid out terraces and walks; this small area of an acre or so was probably the only part of it in which he made any attempt at formal arrangement. Not until 1760 did he add a greenhouse, although William Penn's daughter Margaret Frame had one early in the eighteenth century, and Charles Norris built one on Chestnut Street about 1750. The importance of Bartram's garden derived to a great extent from John Bartram himself. Through his fame as a botanist, it became known to scientists all over Europe and America, a place sought out by foreign and native travelers. Furthermore, in addition to the many exotics sent by his foreign correspondents, Bartram built up probably the finest collection of native plants in America.

Ill THE PHILADELPHIA AND QUAKER BACKGROUNDS . . . there are two educations, one of formal tuition, the other of unconscious influence; and . . . the latter is by far the more important. Richard Aldington: A L L M E N A R E E N E M I E S

was not always intellectually torpid. The young farmer three miles away at Kingsessing had not finished building his house when the learned and influential men of Philadelphia became acquainted with him. One of the first to take an interest in Bartram was James Logan, who in addition to his many other interests was a student of botany. As he had aided the glazier, Thomas Godfrey, by lending him Newton's Works, so he aided Bartram with books. "The first authors I read were Salmon,1 Culpeper 2 and Turner. 3 These James Logan gave me," wrote Bartram to Sir Hans Sloane. And in 1729 Logan presented him with Parkinson's Paridisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris.* Bartram's generous friend was in a position to help in many ways. Having come over with William Penn as his secretary in 1699, he had been appointed Secretary of the Province of Pennsylvania and Clerk of the Council. Later he held the offices

PHILADELPHIA

1 P r o b a b l y : W m . Salmon, Botanologia, The English Herbal; or History of Plants, L o n d o n , 1710. 2 P r o b a b l y : N i c h o l a s Culpeper, The English Physician Or an Astrologo-physical Discourse of the Vulgar Herbs of this Nation, etc., L o n d o n , I 6 J 2 . ( A l s o noted b y Pastorius in his manuscript Alvearialia, as one of his sources of information.) 8 P r o b a b l y either: W m . T u r n e r , The names of herbes m Greke, Latin, Englishe, Due he, and Frenche wyth the commune names that Herbaries and Apothecaries use. L o n d o n , 1548; o r his A new Herball, wherein are conteyned the names of Herbes, etc. L o n d o n , 1 5 5 1 , second part, 1562. Reprinted, 1568. * J o h n Parkinson, Paridisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris. A Garden of all Sorts of Pleasant Flowers Which Our English Ayre will Permitt to be noursed up: with a Kitchen garden, etc. L o n d o n , 1656. ( T h i s book is n o w at the A c a d e m y of N a t u r a l Sciences in Philadelphia.) 22

QUAKER BACKGROUNDS

23

of Commissioner of Property, Chief Justice, and President of the Council. For two years following the death of Governor Gordon, he was virtual Governor of the Province. So influential a man could introduce Bartram to other leaders in the colony. Logan's constant negotiations with the Indians made it possible for him to arrange for Bartram to accompany the interpreter Conrad Weiser on the journey to Onondaga, one of the longest John ever made. The Iroquois, who revered Logan as a saint, frequently visited Stenton, his Germantown estate. In 1736 a hundred or more of them turned up with Weiser, and were entertained two nights. The dignified Friend may have chosen the great rectangular library of his stately Georgian house as the place to receive the Iroquois chieftains. If so, the campfires flaring through the many windows threw into relief the ceremonial headdresses against the background of the finest book collection in America. There, surrounding the savages were "above one hundred authors, in folio, all in Greek, with mostly their versions, all the old Roman classics, without exception; all the old Greek mathematicians, viz: Archimedes, Euclid, and Ptolemy, both his geography and almagest"; there were rare books that he had sought all over Europe, "and a great number of modem mathematicians, with all three editions of Newton, Dr. Halley, Wallis, &c." From this library Logan lent and gave Bartram books. He found time to explain to John the Latin of Linnseus, and to instruct him in the use of the microscope. He was especially interested in the theory of sex in plants, a subject which had greatly interested botanists following Nehemia Grew's address before the Royal Society in 1696. In 1735 he sent Collinson a report of the highly successful results of experiments upon maize, giving valuable information about the spreading of pollen. These experiments, Bartram, "at the request of some naturalists in Europe," corroborated by some of his own in Lychnis diotca. Logan's neighbor, Christopher Witt, could also contribute to Bartram's education. In addition to his botanic garden he had an unusual library. Bartram told Collinson that it "was furnished

24

J O H N AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

with books containing different kinds of learning; . . . as Philosophy, Natural Magic, Divinity, nay even Mystic Divinity; all of which were subjects of our discourse within doors . . ." Bartram, however, was not an entirely docile student, for he added: When we are upon the topic of astrology, magic, and mystic divinity, I am apt to be a little troublesome, by inquiring into the foundation and reasonableness of these notions—which thee knows, will not bear to be searched and examined into; though I handle these fancies with more tenderness with him, than I should with many others that are so superstitiously inclined, because I respect the man. He hath a considerable share of good in him. Bartram did manage to convince the doctor that some Snake Stones he had bought from a great traveler in Spain and Italy "were nothing but calcined old horse bones." Another of Bartram's early friends in Philadelphia was Joseph Breintnall, a member of Franklin's Junto. Franklin described him as "a copier of deeds for the scriveners, a goodnatured, friendly middle-aged man, a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in making little knick-knackeries and of sensible conversation." He occasionally did business with Peter Collinson, a rich Quaker merchant of London, and when Collinson wanted someone to collect American plants, Breintnall recommended Bartram. The friendship of Collinson was of immense importance to Bartram. Collinson's biographer says that it began in 1730 although the first extant letter dates from 1735. Although Collinson's influence on John's botanical work was of chief importance, he aided the young man in other ways. For many years he sent books and magazines. The books he chose were either religious or scientific, and when John asked for more, he issued a warning against spending too much money that way: "Remember Solomon's advice; in reading books there is no end." T o this Bartram replied: "I take thy advice about books very

QUAKER BACKGROUNDS

25

kindly, . . . although I love reading such dearly; and I believe if Solomon had loved women less, and books more, he would have been a wiser and happier man than he was." It is quite possible that Breintnall was also the one who introduced Bartram to another person who was greatly to influence his life, Benjamin Franklin. Even this early the intellectual life of the colony was beginning to revolve around this energetic printer. In fact, meeting Franklin was like meeting the eighteenth century personified. Characteristically Franklin soon took a thoroughly practical method to aid Bartram and to advance science. Following a preliminary announcement in his Pennsylvania Gazette for March 10, 1741/2, Franklin published the following week A Copy of the Subscription Paper for the Encouragement of Mr. John Bartram, promised in our last. The paper contained a long preamble on the value of botany, and continued: And as John Bartram has had a Propensity to Botanicks from his Infancy, and to the Productions of Nature in general, and is an accurate Observator; well known in Pennsylvania, where he was born and resides, to be a person fitted for this employment, acquainted with Vegetables and Fossils, and Books treating of them, of great industry and Temperance, and of unquestionable veracity; and had by many Ships sent over to some of the Members of the Royal Society in London, at their Request, Plants, Seeds and Specimens, as were new and unknown to them . . . we the Subscribers to induce and enable him wholly to spend his time and exert himself in these Employments, have proposed an annual Contribution for his Encouragement; with which he being made acquainted, and it agreeing with his benevolent Temper, he has promised some of us, that if it appears by what shall be subscribed, that he can maintain himself and Family, and defray the Expenses he must sometimes unavoidably be at in long Journies for Guides and Assistance, he will without delay dispose of his affairs at Home, and undertake what is desired of him . . . N. B. Subscriptions are taken in at the Post Office in Philadelphia. Near 20 £ a Year is already subscribed. As the postmaster was Benjamin Franklin, it is obvious that

26

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BARTRAM

he was the real force behind the scheme. This subscription makes clear how it was that in spite of the death that same year of Lord Petre, one of his best patrons abroad, Bartram was able to make long journeys during the ensuing three years. At its expiration in 1745 he seems to have curtailed his traveling for a time. Breintnall and Franklin aided Bartram in other ways. About 1730 Franklin had proposed that the Junto form a library company. This scheme got under way in the following year with Breintnall as secretary. Thomas Godfrey got the aid of James Logan, who promised to help choose the books. Collinson was appointed London agent, a position he held for thirty years. In addition to going to great trouble in the purchase of books, he donated Newton's Philosophy, Miller's Gardeners' Dictionary, and an oil painting. The first books, chosen largely by Franklin, were devoted chiefly to science, history, politics, law, morals, and useful arts. In April 1743 the directors resolved: "As Mr. John Bartram is a deserving man, he should have free access to the library, and be permitted to read and borrow books." As shares cost forty shillings, and the annual dues were ten shillings, the directors had made Bartram a substantial present. Under the influence of such men as Logan, Collinson, and Franklin, Bartram began to take a more active part in the intellectual life of the community. At almost the same time that the directors of the Library Company made him the present of a share, he was helping to establish a library at Darby, not far from his home. Although he was not one of the twenty-nine founders, it was he who wrote to Collinson to ask him to act as purchasing agent for the Darby Company. The first shipment was forty-three volumes at a cost of 11 pounds, 10 shillings Sterling, or 25 pounds, 19 shillings, 8 pence, Pennsylvania currency. The list is sufficiently interesting to be given in full: The Gentleman Instructed Puffendorf Of the Law of Nature and Nations The Universal Spectator The Turkish Spy

1 vol. 1 vol. 8 vol. 8 vol.

1739 1729 1736 1741

QUAKER

BACKGROUNDS

27 1 vol. 1718 Tournefort, A Voyage into the Levant I vol. '737 Whitson's A New Theory of the Earth I vol. 1736 Addison's Travels I vol. 1736 Barclay's Apology I vol. 1738 Locke, On Education I vol. 1738 Religion of Nature Delineated I vol. 1741 Gordon's Geographical Grammar Whitson's Astronomical Principles of Religion I vol. 1717 Maundrel's A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem I vol. 1740 I vol. 1740 Dycke's New English Dictionary I vol. '733 Tull's Horse Shoeing Husbandry The Independent Whig 3 vol. 1736 I vol. 1738 Wood's Institute of the Laws of England Milton's Paradise Lost and Regained 2 vol. 1730 I vol. 1702 Puffendorf's History of Sweden 2 vol. 1743 Raleigh's History of the World The Life of the Duke of Marlborough 2 vol. 1 743 " H o w many of these Bartram may have chosen is impossible to say. At least we know he was not responsible for one book on the list because Collinson had already sent him a copy of Barclay "to refresh thy inward man." T o this John had answered: Barclay's Apology I shall take care of for thy sake. It answers thy advice much better than if thee had sent me one of Natural History, or Botany, which I would have spent many times the hours reading of, while I might have labored for the maintenance of my family. Indeed I have little respect to apologies and disputes about the ceremonial parts of religion, which often introduce animosities, confusion, and disorders in the mind— and sometimes body too. It is clear that the Quaker fanner who had begun as a pillar of the Darby Meeting had become more secular under the influence of his reading and of the worldly Franklin. For orthodox Friends seem to have regarded Barclay's Apology as second 6 This list is from the one at the Darby Library, which was apparently compiled from the records of the Company, there being a statement that the books were received and examined at a meeting of the Library Company held Nov. 5, 1743. The books with the exception of six volumes of the Universal Spectator and Volume I of The Turkish Spy are still in the possession of the library, and are kept together in a case.

28

JOHN

AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

only to the Bible. It is interesting to note the secular character of many of the books added to the Darby Library during Bartram's lifetime. This too at a time when the records of the meeting show an increasing number of cases of discipline for any deviation from orthodoxy, such as dancing, or being married by a clergyman. About 1753 the managers of the library bought Virgil's Aeneid, Seneca's Morals, Cowley's Works, Harvey's Meditations, Waller's Poems, Pope's Homer, The Rambler, Josephus' Works, Newton's Optics, Franklin's Letters, and Blackstone's Commentaries. In 1773 they bought Tom Jones, Letters of Junius, Sterne's Works, Swift's Works, The Vicar of Wakefield, Evelina, and Pamela. And a few years later they added Locke's Works, Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Don Quixote, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Burns' Poems, and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. T h e excellence of the selection is scarcely less remarkable than its un-Quaker-like character. W h a t Dr. Comfort calls the official attitude of eighteenth-century Quakerism toward literature had been set forth in a minute drawn up by the London yearly meeting in 1764: This meeting being sorrowfully affected under a considera, romances, novels, recommended to . 0 a n d suppress the same. N o r would Peter Collinson have chosen many of the books bought for this library. There is therefore a strong probability that John Bartram selected many of these titles, and that even when he did not make the actual choice, his secular tastes influenced the managers. Certainly John Bartram helped to bring to the extremely orthodox community of Darby some taste of the skeptical and rationalistic temper of the eighteenth century. ^ Bartram's Philadelphia friends had literary tastes similar to those shown in the list of books bought at Darby. A t the Post Office Franklin was offering for sale, in addition to books on mathematics, surveying, and science: Hudibras, Don Quixote,

QUAKER BACKGROUNDS

29

Tamerlane, The Tale of a Tub, The Turkish Spy, Waller's Poems, The Tatler, and the Arabian Nights Entertainment. Franklin often filled extra space in the Gazette with essays from his beloved Spectator. Then there was John Smith, a rising young merchant who was courting James Logan's daughter Hannah. Like Bartram, he too was a Friend, but his choice of reading as shown by his diary could easily be that of a cultivated, fashionable gentleman in London. As he was also interested in gardening, he went out to dine with Bartram, who "was very civil in showing his rarities of sundry sorts." Unlike the botanist, Smith enjoyed reading works on religion, among them Sherlock's Practical Meditation upon the Four Last Things, volumes of sermons, and Steele's Christian Hero. T o these he added books on travel, biography, and science. Most numerous in his diary, however, are references to works of literature. Barclay might write: "Yea what are comedies, but a studied complex of idle lying words?" And John Smith might be a devout young Friend given to reading sermons and to pious meditation in his diary. Nevertheless he read Steele's Conscious Lovers and The Funeral, Thomson's Sophonisba, and Shakespeare. In addition he endangered his soul with Atalantis, Joseph Andrews (also noted by another Quaker, Sally Wister, in her diary), and Tom Jones. Above all he seems to have enjoyed the five volumes of the Turkish Spy. In poetry he read Thomson's Seasons, Pope's Windsor Forest, and was "much pleased with reading Paradise Lost, particularly with the conversation of Adam and Eve in Paradise." For much as he might be interested in Dr. Tillotson's sermons or John Bartram's conversation about his garden, his chief concern was his love for Hannah Logan. It is not surprising that in such an environment and with such friends John Bartram should introduce pseudo-classic elements of style into his letters. Thus in the "spacious vale" between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains, he discovered that "Flora sported in solitary retirement as Sylva doth on the Catskill Mountains." T o Dr. Garden he wrote:

30

J O H N AND W I L L I A M

BARTRAM

What charming colours appear in the various tribes, in the regular succession of the vernal and autumnal flowers—these so nobly bold—those so delicately languid! What a glow is enkindled in some, what a gloss shines in others! With what a masterly skill is every one of the varying tints disposed! Here they seem to be thrown on with an easy dash of security and freedom; there, they are adjusted by the nicest touches. . . . Some are intersected with elegant stripes, or studded with radiant spots; others affect to be genteelly powdered, or neatly fringed; other are plain in their aspect, and please with their naked simplicity. Some are arrayed in purple; some charm with the virgin's white; others are dashed with crimson; while others are robed in scarlet. Some glitter like silver lace; others shine as if embroidered with gold. The John Bartram who wrote that was no longer the illeducated farmer to whom James Logan lent books. Important as was Bartram's literary development, his development as a scientist was still more important. In some ways the two complemented one another, for he sent to his London correspondents journals of his travels, and Peter Collinson read before the Royal Society a number of John's letters describing his discoveries.8 Furthermore by means of his interesting letters he kept in constant touch with scientists all over Europe and America—men who replied in kind with reports of every new idea. As a scientist Bartram was one of those who helped to make eighteenth-century Philadelphia the scientific capital of the colonies. His European reputation in this field antedated that of Benjamin Franklin, whose electrical experiments were begun in 1746 and reported in 1748, nine years after Bartram had made his study of sex in plants for "some ingenius botanists in Leyden." Franklin's importance was due not only to his own work, «Phil Trans. " " " " " "

41: 43= 43= 46: 46: 46:

pp. PPPPPPPPpp.

358-59, '57-59. 363-66. 2 78-79. 323-15. 400-02,

1742 «745 «745 1750 «75« 1751

QUAKER BACKGROUNDS

3I

however, but also to his organizing ability. In 1727 he had founded the Junto to discuss morals, politics, and natural philosophy. In 1742, as we have seen, he got up the subscription for Bartram. Out of the Junto and this subscription grew a much more important organization, the American Philosophical Society. Franklin in launching the project in 1743 wrote: That the subjects of the correspondence be: all new-discovered plants, herbs, trees, roots, their virtues, uses, etc.; methods of propagating them, and making such as are useful, but particular to some plantations, more general; improvements of vegetable juices, as ciders, wines, etc.; new methods of curing or preventing diseases; all new-discovered fossils in different countries, as mines, minerals and quarries; new and useful improvements in any branch of mathematics; new discoveries in chemistry; such as improvements in distillation, brewing, and assaying of ores, new mechanical inventions f o r saving labour, as mills and carriages, and f o r raising and conveying of water, draining of meadows, etc.; all new arts in trades and manufactures . . . and all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life. Obviously this was written with Bartram largely in mind— botany, medical herbs, fossils, minerals, and draining meadows were all his specialties. In the list of nine founders, his name stands next to Franklin's at the head of the list. As the society was to include learned men throughout the colonies, Franklin enlisted the aid of the famous Cadwallader Colden of N e w York. Here again Bartram could help, f o r he and Colden were already warm friends. Collinson had introduced them by letter in 1741, and Bartram had visited Colden the following year. Each wrote of the other to Collinson in the most enthusiastic terms. Franklin had included in the new society several of his old friends from the Junto, among them Thomas G o d f r e y . Like the Junto, the aims of the organization were as much practical

32

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BARTRAM

as scientific. It was, however, more serious minded, not given to singing drinking songs of Franklin's composition as was the older club. The work of its members is thoroughly characteristic of the practical and scientific nature of Philadelphia culture at that time. And when the city began to become literary, it was the sons of these men who led the way. The president was Thomas Hopkinson, a lawyer and experimenter in electricity. His son, Francis, became a Revolutionary poet, the author of "The Battle of the Kegs." Thomas Godfrey became famous as the inventor of the double reflecting sea quadrant. His son Thomas developed into a pseudo-classic poet, and the first American playwright. But it was Bartram's son William who became the most famous author of them all. Franklin alone of the original founders became famous in literature as well as in science. His almanac and his lightning rods were known throughout the world. His lack of provinciality was characteristic of Bartram as well. In 1755 John wrote to Collinson asking what could be done in the event of a war with France to prevent the destruction of his notes on Billy's drawings if they were captured at sea. He suggested putting inside the cover the address of Dalibard, Buffon, or Jussieu in the hope that they would reach some lover of science. This lack of provinciality helps to explain how within the lifetime of the original founders this little group in a provincial town, without royal patronage or financial endowment, became internationally famous. The society aided a later member, David Rittenhouse, in his astronomical observations at the time of the transit of Venus. Thus the first approximately accurate results in the measurement of the spheres were given to the world, not by the schooled and salaried astronomers who watched from the magnificent royal observatories of Europe, but by unpaid amateurs and devotees in the youthful province of Pennsylvania. Another reason for the astonishing scientific achievements of Godfrey, Rittenhouse, Franklin, and Bartram was their very

QUAKER BACKGROUNDS

33

practicality. As Dr. Fay has pointed out, Franklin succeeded in electrical experiments partly because he had the manual skill to carry out the experiments, whereas the European gentlemen with their white hands and lace cuffs were forced to rely upon common workmen. All these Americans were accustomed to using their hands: Godfrey hit upon his idea for the quadrant while he was glazing the windows at Stenton; Rittenhouse was a maker of clocks and mathematical instruments; Bartram was a farmer skilled in stone masonry. Much that is most characteristically American is foreshadowed in this Philosophical Society. With its founding, John Bartram had hit his full stride.

IV

COLLINSON AND BARTRAM THEIR I N F L U E N C E ON ENGLISH

GARDENS

. . . at one point, at least, the history of landscape-gardening becomes a part of any truly philosophical history of modern thought. A. O. Lovejoy: THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING, p. 15

biographer says that "he practically made Bartram as a Botanist and he started Franklin on his career as a researcher in electricity." Allowing for the overvaluing of their subjects customary to biographers, there remains considerable truth in this. Had Bartram never heard of Collinson he would still have been a botanist; he would have found his inspiration and help in other places. However, he was introduced to Collinson early, and the two men complemented each other. Bartram was in moderate circumstances; but he had genius and a new continent filled with wonders to explore. Collinson was rich. In temperament he was methodical and religious. And he and his influential friends were seeking new and exotic plants for their gardens, and tales of wonder for their scientific societies. Peter Collinson was a wholesale woolen draper whose hobby was science. Like many other prominent scientists of his day, he was a Quaker. Brett-James suggests that "In business and in scientific research nonconformists took a prominent place, no doubt because so few avenues of distinction were open to them." They were especially fortunate in being shut out from the Oxford and Cambridge of the eighteenth century. Their own academies, unhampered by a moribund classicism, lazy, threebottle scholars, and a distrust of science, were thoroughly alive. Collinson was five years older than Bartram. Like Bartram he began the study of botany in his twenties. He had built up a considerable trade with the colonies and thus became acCOLLLNSON'S

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quainted with natives of Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New England. These acquaintances tried for a time to supply the American plants that so greatly interested him. They frequently sent the wrong things, and finally gave him to understand that they were glad to buy his woolens, but that they were not interested in plants. So things stood for a number of years until, to be rid of Collinson's importunities, Joseph Breintnall recommended John Bartram as a source of supply—apparently as much because Bartram had a large family to support as because he was qualified for the work. Collinson anticipated no great amount of business, merely the sending of occasional boxes of botanical curiosities. He reckoned without John's astonishing energy and detective skill. A price of five pounds, five shillings was set for each box of plants. Like every enthusiast Collinson soon interested others in his discovery; first of all Lord Petre, who employed Bartram from 1736 to 1740. Then orders came from the Dukes of Richmond, Norfolk, and Bedford. So great did the interest in American plants become that in addition to those mentioned, Collinson was able to list fifty-seven subscribers to whom Bartram supplied material. The list included the Earls of Bute, Leicester, and Lincoln; the Dukes of Argyll, Marlborough, and many other noblemen; Thomas Penn 1 and Philip Miller, author of the important Gardeners Dictionary. Such a list indicates something of the enthusiasm for gardening then current. The part played by Bartram and Collinson in the development of eighteenth-century gardens can perhaps be made clear by a brief historical sketch. According to Fuller's Worthies (1662), "Gardening crept out of Holland to Sandwich, Kent, in Elizabeth's reign." Bacon's "Essay on Gardens" undoubtedly influenced many in the laying out of their estates. Under Charles II, both Greenwich and St. James parks were laid out 1 Both Bartram and Collinson, however, regarded Thomas Penn as a scoundrel: Collinson, because Penn cheated the Indians; Bartram because in real estate transactions 'our proprietor is almost as crafty as covetous.' Memorials, p. 257 & p. 180.

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by the French landscape gardener Le Nôtre. Sir John Evelyn had plans for gardens of all kinds and a scheme for developing London as a huge garden city. The arrival of William of Orange further stimulated the interest in gardening. The Dutch fashion of formal gardens and cut evergreens was entirely in accord with the taste for Sir Christopher Wren's classic façades and Dryden's balanced couplets. The change in fashion in favor of the more natural garden that began early in the eighteenth century was in part a reaction against a style that had been carried to ridiculous extremes, and in part to the importation of large numbers of foreign trees and shrubs which were not suited to the formal garden. The absurdity of the extremely artificial style was satirized, especially by the literary men. Joseph Addison, who influenced contemporary taste on everything from literature to fans, satirized the owner of "Adam and Eve in Yew" and "St. George in box," and complained: Our British gardeners . . . instead of humoring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees come in cones, globes and pyramids. W e see the marks of the scissors upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion, of boughs and branches, rather than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre. This was one subject on which Alexander Pope agreed with him. In that century of elegant amateurs when a politician like Bolingbroke wrote on philosophy, Horace Walpole played with Gothic architecture, Dr. Johnson discussed Celtic literature, Coleridge experimented in chemistry, and a Unitarian minister discovered oxygen, it was not thought strange for Mr. Pope to offer instructions on morals, poetry, and gardens. He took it for granted that a rich man would have a garden. He satirized the poor taste frequently displayed, and advised:

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Consult the genius of the place in all; That tells the waters or to rise or fall; Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale, Or scoops in circling theatres the vale, Calls in the country, catches opening glades, Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades, Now breaks, or now directs th' intending lines, Paints as you plant, and as you work designs. Still follow Sense, of every art the soul; Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole, Spontaneous beauties all around advance, Start even from difficulty, strike from chance; Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow A work to wonder at—perhaps a Stowe. Pope invested the proceeds of his Homer in the little estate at Twickenham where he laid out the garden in which he took so much pride. So famous did this become that the Prince of Wales's garden was patterned after it. The principles Pope laid down in his "Of the Use of Riches" quoted above, and which he illustrated in his garden at Twickenham, were those followed by William Kent, an unsuccessful painter who became a landscape gardener. Horace Walpole called Kent the father of modern gardening, and said that Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste. William Mason spoke of Kent as "Pope's bold associate." Following Kent, but perhaps working independently, was Launcelot Brown, usually known as "Capability" Brown. He had begun at Stowe, which Pope so highly praised. Later he laid out Kew, Blenheim, and Nuneham Courtnay. Brown is credited with having had supreme control over the art of gardening for half a century until his death in 1783. The gardens laid out by Kent and Brown had large lawns with clumps of trees, intersected by curved paths or irregular bodies of water. Flowers, especially in the early days of the style, found no place there. On the other hand "the individual tree found for the first time its proper place and full development." And Gothein points out that with the advance of this

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school, "there was a steady influx of different sorts of American wood." The men who had the most to do with this introduction of American trees were Bartram's subscribers in England, particularly Collinson and Philip Miller. Of the three hundred new plants introduced into England from 1734, when Bartram sent his first shipment, until the Revolution interrupted the traffic, Collinson is credited in English records with the introduction of forty. Most of these came from Bartram. Nearly two hundred more are credited to Philip Miller, at that time the most famous of British horticulturists. Miller never named his sources, but almost at the beginning of his correspondence with Bartram Collinson wrote, ". . . anything in my power, or my friend Miller's will be always at thy service." And in 1736 Collinson got Miller to subscribe to the financial support of Bartram's journeys. From then on he regularly received from Collinson his share of each shipment. Thus a large number of plants credited to Miller were undoubtedly received from Bartram, so that "he was probably responsible for the first appearance in the gardens of England of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred of our plants." In addition Bartram sent to Collinson for distribution large supplies of various plants previously in cultivation in small quantities. He thus enabled British growers to secure readily many kinds of shrubs and trees that had been considered rare. Dr. Barnhardt of the New York Botanical Garden believes that Bartram's influence in increasing the abundance of American plants in England was as important as his introduction of novelties. The part played by botanists like Bartram, Collinson, and Miller in the great development of gardening during the eighteenth century is less generally known than is the work of the landscape gardeners like Kent, Brown, Walpole, George Mason, and Shenstone. The work of the botanists, however, antedated that of the three latter men, whose books on the subject ap-

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peared between 1764 and 1795. Yet most recent histories of horticulture fail to mention Collinson at all. In reality Collinson was very active in stirring up enthusiasm for gardening. N o t only did he introduce Bartram's discoveries into his own gardens first at Peckham and, after 1749, at Mill Hill, but he interested a number of other men in the subject. T h e fifty-seven subscribers f o r Bartram's seeds and plants were all obtained through his efforts. Kalm, who visited Peckham in 1748, spoke particularly of the American trees there, and said ". . . there is scarcely a garden where so many kinds of trees and plants, especially the rarest, are to be found." Such a garden naturally attracted other visitors, among them the famous Linnaeus. Philip Miller, who as w e have seen got plants from Collinson, and through him from Bartram, developed the ancient Physic Gardens at Chelsea into perhaps the finest botanic garden in Europe. Collinson's own gardens eventually attained such fame that naturalists tried to get him to publish a catalogue of them. In addition to acting without profit as distributor of Bartram's seeds and plants, Collinson found himself called upon f o r advice: "Pray, sir, how and in what manner must I sow them, pray be so good as to give me some directing for my gardener is a very ignorant fellow." F o r this reason he would visit country estates for a f e w days to advise about planting, soil, and culture. When Lord Lincoln admired Lord Richmond's garden, Richmond told Collinson, " Y o u and I must go and dine with him, and encourage him in this laudable pursuit." Another of Collinson's intimate friends was Dr. John Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician. Fothergill says their acquaintance began about 1740, and adds that Collinson was then considered one of the best authorities in England on botany and natural history, and that his garden contained many rarities to be seen nowhere else. H e told Linnaeus that Collinson taught him the love of flowers and added, " W h o that shared his comradeship could do other than cultivate plants?" Collin-

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son gave many things from his own garden. Fothergill created what he called a paradise (Gaza) of plants, and developed "a burning love of botany itself." Collinson introduced Fothergill by letter to Bartram, thus starting a long friendship. Their common interest in fossils and minerals gave them an additional link. Fothergill wanted John to make tests of all medicinal springs he found, a project that seems to have been dropped because "the main spring of motion" had "not its proper temper." In later years when he was wealthier, Fothergill financed William Bartram's journey to Florida. Thus in his garden were plants sent by both Bartrams over a period of thirty-five years. It too became famous. Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, said that it was "equalled by nothing but royal munificence, bestowed upon the botanic gardens at Kew. In my opinion no other garden in Europe, royal or of a subject, had nearly so many scarce and valuable plants." Thus Collinson and Bartram had much to do with the enthusiasm for the new type of gardening which in its exotic and naturalistic elements is closely linked with the Romantic revival in literature. Thomson, Shenstone, the pioneers in this revival, all wrote on gardening, and Gray was a thoroughgoing student of botany. It is even possible that had it not been for this enthusiasm, there would have been no American Revolution. The Prince of Wales, an enthusiastic gardener, made Kew Gardens famous. Dr. Mitchell wrote to Bartram that love of gardening was believed to have caused the death of both the Duke of Richmond and the Prince of Wales. The Prince contracted a cold by standing in the rain to watch the planting of some new trees. With an obstinacy not unknown in others of his family he refused to take precautions, with the result that he died of pneumonia. Thus it was that his brother came to the throne as George III. And it is just possible that the unlucky trees came originally from Bartram, for the Kew Gardens drew heavily from Bartram's patron, Philip Miller.

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Collinson's importance is not limited to his share in introducing new plants and stimulating the enthusiasm for gardening. Bartram especially profited by his friend's remarkably wide acquaintance with scientists in Europe and America. Collinson's unflagging zeal as a letter-writer made him a clearing house for scientific information as well as a distributor of plants and seeds. He acted as an unofficial secretary for the unorganized fraternity of his contemporary scientists. He introduced Bartram to other Americans, among them Cadwallader Colden of New York, Robert Gover in Maryland, Isham Randolph, John G a y ton, and Colonels Custis and Byrd in Virginia, Dr. Witt in Germantown, and General Bouquet, with whom Bartram traveled to Pittsburgh. By letter he introduced him to Linnaeus in Sweden, Gronovius in Holland, Buffon in France, Dr. Gmelin in Russia, and in England to Dr. Sibthorp at Oxford, Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society, Dr. Solander of the British Museum, Mark Catesby, the ornithologist, and many others. Collinson had the ability to bring out the talents of his friends. As he had aided Bartram in botany, so he communicated to Franklin the German researches in electricity and sent the apparatus that led him to make his famous experiments. He saw to the publication of Experiments and Observations on Electricity made at Philadelphia in America by Mr. Benjamin Franklin and Communicated to Mr. Peter Collinson 1751, and he read to the Royal Society Franklin's letter describing the experiment with the kite. When in 1757 Franklin came over to London, Collinson, who had known him only through letters for twentyfive years, was delighted. Later he wrote to Bartram, "Our good friend Benjamin Franklin, grows fat and jolly." Collinson continued to report to Bartram the doings of their friend while he was in Europe. In the same way Collinson never lost an opportunity of gaining recognition for Bartram. He read before the Royal Society several of John's papers, including one on the rattlesnake, always a favorite topic with John; another on a salt-marsh mussel, found

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in the oyster beds of Pennsylvania; and a third on the American yellow wasp. In 1739 Collinson wrote: "At the bottom of the box, is a specimen of what our botanists have dubbed Collinsonia, but I think it should rather be Bartramia; for I had it in the very first seeds thee sent me." After thanking Linnaeus for naming this plant after him, "botanically speaking, a species of eternity," he asked that a similar honor might be done to his friend. "I have writ to Linnaeus, not to forget the pains and travels of John Bartram, but stick a feather in his cap, who is as deserving as the rest." _ Very like a fond parent Collinson wished John to put his best foot forward. With Quaker shrewdness he suggested: "Friend John, this is only a hint by the way: Lord Petre is a great admirer of your foreign water-fowl. If at any time an opportunity offers, send him some. Thou will lose nothing by it." He saw to it that Lord Petre got Bartram's journal of a trip to the Rattlesnake Mountains, and got Dr. Fothergill to combine with him in arranging for the publication of Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, Chemicals, and other matters worthy of Notice made by Mr. John Bartram in his travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario in Canada ( 1 7 5 1 ) . And he was much incensed at the wretched job the printer made of it. — He even interested himself in John's appearance. When Bartram was preparing for a trip to aristocratic Virginia, Collinson wrote: One thing I must desire of thee, and do insist that thee oblige me therein; that thou make up that drugget clothes, to go to Virginia in, and not appear to disgrace thyself or me; for though I should not esteem thee the less, to come to me in what dress thou will,—yet these Virginians are a very gentle, well-dressed people—and look, perhaps, more at a man's outside than his inside. For these and other reasons, pray go very clean, neat, and handsomely dressed, to Virginia. Never mind thy clothes: I will send thee more another year.

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Once when he sent John a parcel of seeds in a consignment to Thomas Penn, he advised: "Dress thyself neatly in thy best habits, and wait on him for them; for I have in a particular manner recommended thee to him." Parental too was Peter's occasional irritation at John's independent spirit. T o one of his letters he added the postscript: One thing I forgot to mention before, and what very much surprised me to find thee, who art a philosospher, prouder than I am. My cap, it is true, had a small hole or two on the border, but the lining was new. Instead of giving it away, I wish thee had sent it me back again. It would have served me two or three years, to have worn in the country, in rainy weather. But in this voluminous correspondence covering nearly forty years, irritations are rare, except mock-serious protests from Collinson at John's impatience for letters. T h e last letter of all, written three weeks before his death, is typical of Collinson. It is to William, whose drawings he had already shown to the Duchess of Portland: This morning, Dr. Fothergill came and breakfasted here. As I am thoughtful how to make Billy's ingenuity turn to some advantage, I bethought of showing the Doctor his last elegant performance. He deservedly admired them, and thinks so fine a pencil worthy of encouragement; and Billy may value himself on having such a patron, who is eminent for his generosity, and his noble spirit to promote every branch in Natural History. Thirty-eight years earlier Collinson had started John Bartram on travels that contributed to the change in fashion of English gardens—a change that foreshadowed and in part caused a change in taste in all the arts, even "a change of taste in universes." This letter shows him aiding William to begin a journey that was to echo throughout Romantic literature.

V

JOHN BARTRAM'S TRAVELS All places, all airs, make unto me one country. Sir Thomas Browne

had made short trips even before he began his garden, but he was handicapped by lack of funds and the prudent councils of his wife, Mary Maris. His second wife, Ann Mendinghall, apparently did not object to his botanical activities—perhaps he chose her for that reason. Funds were not immediately forthcoming; so for a few years he continued to travel at his own expense. When he first began to travel for Collinson about 1734, he received seeds and plants from England in return for those he sent. Then Collinson began to send clothes for John, a calico gown for Ann, and presents for the children. His cautious business sense led him to add; "Pray give nobody a hint, how thee or thy wife came by the suit of clothes. There may be some, with you may think they deserve something of that nature." As his demands grew more heavy, Collinson began to pay ten pounds annually, and characteristically added advice on how it should be spent. Later when the boxes of seeds and plants included things for numerous subscribers, the price was set at five pounds, five shillings a box, worth perhaps double that in Pennsylvania currency. Collinson soon interested his intimate friend, Lord Petre, in Bartram. In 1736 Lord Petre offered to subscribe ten guineas and to engage others to add ten more so that John might carry out his scheme to trace the Schuylkill to its source. It was suggested that John take a servant, horses for themselves and a spare one to carry linen, provisions, and all other necessaries. The man's horse and the extra horse were to have large baskets on each side to hold specimens. Collinson and Petre sent a pocket compass and writing paper with the suggestion that John keep a journal. He was to seek, in addition to botanical treasJOHN BARTRAM

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ures, fossils—"being stones found all the world over, that have either the impressions or else the regular form of shells, leaves, fishes, fungi, teeth, sea-eggs, and many other productions. . . . What use the learned make of them, is, that they are evidences of the Deluge." John proposed to start in the spring, probably feeling that for once he could neglect his farm with a clear conscience as he was getting paid f o r it. However, Collinson insisted that he wait till fall so as to get ripened seeds. In the spring "Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," and John, having his heart set on a trip, made one to the Rattlesnake Mountains. That autumn he made the journey up the Schuylkill as planned, and sent Collinson a map of it. As he went beyond the Blue Mountains, his map was probably the first to show this region, f o r even the one drawn b y Lewis Evans in 1749 does not show the river beyond the Blue or Kittatinny Mountains. Collinson was particularly delighted with the results of this expedition: " I can't enough admire thy industry and curiosity in descending to so many minute rarities that came in the box by Savage; which are things very acceptable, but what commonly escape the observation of most, but such a prying eye as thine." In the letters about this trip there is talk of a cave, which would indicate that John made a side excursion from Reading to see what is now Crystal Cave. Probably he visited Conrad Weiser, James Logan's friend, and a later traveling companion of Bartram's. And as if this were not enough f o r one year, he made an expedition into the Jerseys for a curious tree. T h e next spring ( 1 7 3 7 ) he went to Conestoga in Lancaster County. That summer he was again in N e w Jersey and then crossed over to Kent County in Delaware. In the fall he visited Maryland, probably following the suggestion of Collinson and Petre that he "take a turn through your three lower Counties, and then return round the bay home." T h e cost of these journeys began to w o r r y Bartram. Collin-

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son, in answer to a complaint, argued that of the forty pounds Pennsylvania currency only ten pounds would be required for expenses including the hiring of a man. He estimated that five or six weeks traveling would suffice. T o which John replied: "I assure thee, I spend more than twice that time annually; and ten pounds will not, at a moderate expense, defray my charges abroad—beside my neglect of business, in fallowing, harvest, and seed time." The Virginia trip originally planned for the year before was made in 1738. John computed that he covered 1,100 miles in five weeks' time, resting only one day, which he spent at Williamsburg. T o John Mitchell he gave an outline of this journey: I lodged in Fredericksburg; from whence I travelled near sixty miles down Rappahannock thence over Dragon Bridge to John Clayton's (where I was disappointed of seeing him, he being gone towards the mountains), thence to Williamsburg; so up trie James River to Goochland [Isham Randolph's estate], where I saw a pretty little tree of the Arbor Vitae, on the west bank of the river. It was about six inches in diameter. Thence travelling to your Blue Mountains, headed Rappahannock, fell up the branches of Shenandoah, a great branch or Potomac, kept the great vale, between the North and South Mountains, till crossing Susquehanna, took the nearest way home. These journeys can be followed on Lewis Evans' map of the Middle British Colonies, of 1755. It can be seen that Bartram usually followed the roads, such as they were, although he undoubtedly left them frequently to search the forests through which they often ran. His letter to Alexander Catcot, May 1742, gives some idea of the difficulties he met. Because so few Americans were interested in botany, he could find no one to share the hardships of his explorations. Traveling alone, therefore, he ventured into unsettled regions; crossing rivers, climbing mountains and precipices—often following the paths made by the beasts of the forest. N o t least among the hazards were rattlesnakes. Always they held for John a blend of fascination and fear. In the next few years he traveled "many times over East and

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West Jersey, and up the North River [the Hudson] to the great falls of the Mohawk's River, and twice climbed up the great Katskill Mountains (which is near three times as high as any other I ever climbed) where is a fine prospect of New England." On his trip to the Catskills in 1742 he visited Dr. Cadwallader Colden, who "received and entertained me with all the demonstrations of civility and respect that were convenient. He is one of the most facetious, agreeable gentlemen, ever met with." John's new friend was indeed an interesting person. Cadwallader Colden was born in Scotland in 1688 and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1710. Here he practised medicine until Governor Hunter of N e w York induced him to settle in that State. He became the first Surveyor General of the Colonies, Master of Chancery, a member of the King's Council of N e w York, and in 1761 Lieutenant Governor, a post he held until shortly before his death in 1776. Having obtained a patent for a tract of land near Newburg, he took his family there in 1739. At this estate, Coldenham, in the center of an uncultivated wilderness and exposed to Indian raids, he occupied himself with his duties as Surveyor General, agricultural experiments, and philosophy. In addition he maintained a constant correspondence with learned men of Europe and America. Apparently to avoid being scalped he became an author. In January 1746/7 he wrote Bartram: "All my botanical pleasures have been stopped this summer, while I was at Albany. We durst not go without the fortifications without a guard, for fear of having our scalps taken." The result was that he published in 1747 a new and enlarged edition of his History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada which are dependent on the Province of New York and which are the barrier between the English and the French, based upon his researches into Indian history and customs. About the same time he issued a collection of Pennsylvania charters which went through three editions in eight years. Bartram found in Colden, as Collinson said he would, a "man after my own heart." He liked Colden's "generous and com-

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municarive disposition" and especially his "Sincerity, as if thee designed rather to inform thy friend by rational conclusions from accurate and mature observations of facts then to impose upon him with incredible and wonderful relations from the reports of those whose observations penetrated no deeper than the superficies of nature." Colden was almost equally impressed with Bartram. "It is very extraordinary," he wrote to Dr. Gronovius, "that a man of the lowest Education without the advantages of any kind of learning should have such a taste f o r knowledge & acquires so great a share of it." T o Collinson he said much the same thing, adding: " H e has a lively fancy and a surprising memory and indefatigable disposition." He tried to get John to publish a description of American plants, and offered to assist in the work. Bartram replied that he had been considering such a plan, but did not want to be too hasty. He wanted to wait f o r the publication of Dr. Mitchell's book on the plants of Virginia before he went ahead with his own. Bartram's visit may have stimulated Colden's interest in botany, for during that year he classified the flora of the country surrounding Coldenham, according to the Linnsean system, and sent the results to Linnaeus, who later published them. In the summer of 1744 Bartram was again at Coldenham, and that same fall entertained Colden at his home in Philadelphia. T h e latter once more urged John to publish his findings, suggesting a series of monthly papers at about a shilling each. Unfortunately the scheme came to nothing. T h e visit to N e w Y o r k State did not content John even f o r one year. In November he went to E g g Harbor to collect pine cones for the Duke of N o r f o l k . T h e weather was bad. T o Collinson he wrote: " I climbed the trees in the rain, in a desert, and lopped off the boughs, then must stand up to the knees in snow, to pluck off the cones." In 1743, James Logan sent Conrad Weiser to the Iroquois council at Onondaga to make peace between the colonists and

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the Six Nations on account of a skirmish between them and some Virginia backwoodsmen. It was probably Logan who suggested that Bart ram accompany Weiser into this little-known region. Conrad Weiser was a German who as a child had come over in 1710 with the Palatinate fugitives from the persecutions of Louis X I V . Queen Anne had first given them refuge and then sent them to N e w York. Young Weiser was sent by his father to a chief of the Maqua nation in order that he might learn the language. A stepmother made the boy's life so miserable that he preferred to spend as much time as possible with the Indians. In 1729 he, with his family, removed to Pennsylvania and settled in Tulpehocken. From 17 31 until his death in 1760 Weiser acted as ambassador to the Indians for the colonies. It was he who was chiefly responsible for Pennsylvania's policy of siding with the Six Nations against the Delawares. This policy led to troubles with the Delawares, but enabled him to keep the Iroquois loyal to the English. T h e downfall of the French in America was in no small measure due to Weiser. W i t h Weiser and Bartram on the journey to Onondaga in 1743 was Lewis Evans, a surveyor and map maker. As he was an associate of the Franklin circle, he may have learned of the trip from Bartram. All three men kept journals: Weiser's is chiefly a record of the negotiations, one of the best accounts of an Indian council that exists; Evans' is chiefly concerned with topography; Bartram's is the longest and most complete of the three. T h e route they followed is shown on Evans' map of 1749. Bartram and Evans set out on July 3 and spent the second night at Weiser's. His house, at what is now Womelsdorf, is shown on the old maps of the time, both those drawn by Evans and those of Nicholas Scull. From here on they followed streams and Indian trails, for there were no roads. Weiser, who had taken the same journey several times before, had nearly lost his life on the first trip. That was in the winter of 1737, and so

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difficult was the going that Weiser becoming exhausted lay down to die. Only the exhortations of his friend, Chief Shikillamy, roused him and kept him going. Even in summer there were dangers. They followed the Swatara Creek through the Blue Mountains. From Pine Grove they went west to the Susquehanna, which they followed to Shamokin, now Sunbury. In the mountains were rattlesnakes. Of one they met, Bartram wrote: " W e punished his rage by striking him dead on the spot . . . after the mortal stroke, his splendor became much diminished, this is likewise the case of many of our snakes." Descending the hill to Shamokin, they had to hold their packhorse by both head and tail to prevent it from tumbling headlong. Shamokin at the junction of the East and West branches of the Susquehanna was then an important Indian town. Evans says that it was scattered over seven or eight hundred acres of very fruitful ground. Here lived Chief Shikillamy, who for twenty years shared in all negotiations of importance between the Iroquois and the whites. He and Weiser were closely associated, and worked together for a unified Indian policy. He claimed to have been born a Cayuga, although Bartram says: "He was of the six nations or rather a Frenchman, born at Mont-real, and adopted by the Oneidoes, after being taken prisoner, bijt his son told me he (the son) was of the Cayuga nation, that of his mother, agreeable to the Indian rule Partus sequitur ventrem, which is as reasonable among them as among cattle, since the whole burthen of bringing up falls on her." Shikillamv joined the party, and his presence gave John, who was always nervous about Indians, whom he suspected of being cannibals, considerable comfort. On July 10 the partv, including the Chief and his son, started northward along Indian trails. They followed the West branch of the Susquehanna, crossed Burnett's Hills, traversed "Dismal Vale" through the "Impenetrable Wilderness." They followed this valley to Owegv, and then struck off northward over the Gooseberry Mountains to Table Mountain. After camping

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there, they went on to Onondaga which they reached J u l y 21. T h e scenery through the mountains has been described by Lewis Evans: Here are no Churches, Towers, Houses, or peaked Mountains to be seen from afar, no Means of obtaining the best Bearings or Distances of Places, but by Compass, and actual Mensuration with the Chain. T h e Mountains are almost all so many Ridges with even Tops, and nearly of a Height. T o look from these Hills into the lower Lands, is but, as it were, into an Ocean of Woods, swelled and deprest here and there by little inequalities, not to be distinguished, one Part from another, any more than the Waves of the real Ocean. Bartram's journal of this trip is remarkable for the number and variety of things he noticed. In spite of his lack of enthusiasm for Indians, he has much interesting information about them. He describes a hymn to the great spirit sung in "a solemn harmonious manner," complains of their laziness in failing to remove fallen logs across a stream, observes that the women "are generally very modest," gives an account of the council, and the menu of a feast following Weiser's speech. Always on the alert to explode superstitions, he got involved in an argument about the belief that rolling stones down the mountain would produce rain. John tried it out, and two days later it rained. T h e Indians blamed him. He pointed out that if the theory had any truth in it, the rain should have come the day before. One of the Indians answered that the almanac of the white man often prophesied rain which did not appear within t w o days. A t times this restless curiosity may have made him something of a nuisance. A f t e r describing an entertainment given the visitors by an Indian clown, John reports: " I ask'd Conrad Weiser, who as well as myself lay next the alley, what noise that was? and Shickalamy, the Indian Chief, our companion, who I suppose thought me somewhat scared, called out, lye still John. I never heard him speak so much plain English before." H e tells of the political methods of Weiser, who treated with

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the chiefs singly before a council to win them to his point of view. And John is fair-minded enough to report that it was almost unheard of for an Indian chief or councilor to go back on a promise once he had made it, no matter what inducements might be offered. In regard to the origin of the Indians he differed from Weiser who, like many men of the time, thought them to be the ten lost tribes of Israel. Weiser, who had once been a monk in the Seventh Day Baptist cloister at Ephrata, went to the Bible for his ethnology. The ten tribes were to go to a "land not planted nor known," their religious rites seemed to have counterparts among the Indians, and he was able to see in Indian faces so strong a resemblance to the Jews that he said a man might think himself in Duke Place or Berry Street, London. The fact that William Penn had described the fancied resemblance in the same words may have heightened Weiser's perceptions. Bartram's theories showed a more secular origin: 1. "Perhaps the Creator provided for peopling this side of the globe with a suitable stock of human species." 2. There are many relations of voyages from the north of Europe previous to that of Columbus "which though dark and uncertain, are neither evidently fabulous nor even improbable from either the length or difficulties of the way." "I am not ignorant that these traditions of the Norwegian Colonies, as well as many others to the same point, particularly that of Prince Madoc, has been treated as mere fiction; but let us not forget that Herodotus's account of the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope has been treated so likewise, tho the fact be now established to the degree of moral certainty." John speaks of land extending most of the way to Japan or "at least islands separated only by narrow channels," and mentions the tale about an Indian woman later met by a trader in Chinese Tartary. 3. Another method of peopling this side of the earth, particularly South America, "might be some vessels of the Egyptians, Phoenicians or Carthaginians being blown off the coast of Guinea to that of Brazil. . . ."

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53

Obviously Bartram had by this time read rather widely and acquired considerable knowledge of history and geography. Nor is his scientific information confined to botany. In discussing the reason for the lowering of Lake Ontario he writes: "Whether this effect is in common to all the waters on the earth* according to a conjecture of the great Sir Isaac Newton; or whether it be not (at least in part) owing to the removal of some great obstruction . . ." Again he mentions Dr. Burnet's "Theory and ingenious Hypothesis to account for the formation of mountains." Such subjects undoubtedly furnished much of the travelers' conversation by the way, for Lewis Evans too was interested in such matters. In the center of his map of 1749 he put "Remarks on the Endless Mountains." These include a discussion of the antiquity of mountains, conjectures upon the deluge, and his theory "That this earth was made of the ruins of another, at the Creation." The fact that the journey was made in July and August helps to explain w h y Evans also included on his map a discussion of lightning and electricity. Evans, who accepted Franklin's theory that the two are one and the same, very probably heard it first from Bartram, for Franklin had not yet published his pamphlet on the subject. Thus five years before the Royal Society had a hearty laugh at such an absurd notion, two travelers were seriously discussing it while they followed an Iroquois chief through the American wilderness. John described his journey as a very prosperous one. While the council was in session he had made a side trip to Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario. He "found several curious plants, shrubs, and trees, particularly a great mountain Magnolia, three feet in diameter, and above an hundred feet high—very straight and very very fine wood." He visited the Salt Springs and boiled water into salt, and observed fossil shells all over the country— "even on the top of the mountain that separates the waters of Susquehanna and St. Lawrence in the Vale of Onondaga, and on the banks of the Lake Frontenac [Ontario]." He had hoped

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to return home b y w a y of A l b a n y , travel the Hudson River, and climb the Catskills to gather Balm of Gilead cones and fir cones on his w a y to Delaware, but he found this impracticable. Three copies of the journal of this trip had to be prepared. T w o copies w e r e on vessels captured b y the French; the third fell into the hands of Fleet Street printers. Collinson, w h o had hoped to add to John's reputation b y its publication, was disgusted b y the wretched job they made of it. In 1744 J o h n was again in N e w Y o r k , and the following year made a trip up the Susquehanna. F o r the next several years he apparently did little traveling. In a letter to Gronovius in 1746 he complained bitterly of the French Indians w h o made traveling hazardous beyond the mountains. A s yet there had been no serious trouble, but the W a r of the Spanish Succession had caused uneasiness. Nine years before, Thomas Penn had swindled the Delawares out of a huge tract b y means of the " W a l k ing Purchase." A s a result they w e r e beginning to ally themselves with the French. In Philadelphia Franklin organized a militia, the Associators, and even the Quaker assembly voted money f o r corn, wheat, "and other grains"—meaning g u n p o w der. John, in daily expectation of an Indian invasion, had "little heart or relish" f o r botanical expeditions. H e probably continued to make excursions into N e w Jersey, which he had f o r m e r l y explored as f a r as Cape May. In 1753 he initiated fourteen-year-old Billy as a botanical traveler. T h e y set off on horseback f o r the Catskill Mountains on September first, traveling f o r t y miles the first day. T h e next day they traveled about f i f t y , and the third crossed the mountains, probably near Phillipsburg. T h e y followed the Delaware f o r a time and then turned right over the mountain on the road to Goshen. T h e route was chosen to show William "the broken, mountainous, desolate part of the c o u n t r y . " On one occasion they lodged in a small hut inhabited b y t w o families, a place "hardly big enough f o r a hen-roost," and infested with vermin. N o t the least of the discomforts to John was the price of half a c r o w n

JOHN BARTRAM's TRAVELS

55

charged by the owner of the hut. As soon as they could see in the morning, they set out for Dr. Colden's. Here their entertainment was very different from that of the previous night. In addition to the versatile Colden they had the company of Dr. Garden of Charleston, South Carolina. Alexander Garden, M.D., F.R.S., a native of Scotland, had been educated in Edinburgh. In addition to practising medicine he became an authority on botany and zoology, especially fishes and reptiles. His name has been immortalized in the flower Gardenia. In a letter to Linnaeus he told of his meeting with Bartram: When I came to New York, I immediately inquired for Coldenhamia, the seat of that most eminent botanist, Mr. Colden. Here, by good fortune, I first met with John Bartram, returning from the Blue Mountains, as they are called. How grateful was such a meeting to me! And how unusual in this part of the world! What congratulations and salutations passed between us! How happy should I be to pass my life with men so distinguished by genius, acuteness and liberality, as well as by eminent botanical learning and experience. Men in whom the greatest knowledge and skill are united to the most amiable candour. Animae, quales neque candidiores Terra tulit. Whilst I was passing my time most delightfully with these gentlemen, they were both so obliging as to show me your letters to them: which has induced me, sir, to take the liberty of writing to you, in order to begin a correspondence, for which I have long wished, but never before found the means of beginning. But there were dangers as well as delights in such a trip. John had started out after a two weeks' illness and with "a lurking fever" hanging on. For that reason he was not able to eat all he wanted to at Dr. Colden's. That did not prevent them from climbing mountains for fossils, nor from covering as much as fifty miles in one day. On the way home Billy had a fever which caused them to "post home as fast as possible." And of course there were the ubiquitous rattlesnakes. John, who seldom missed noting them, tried to get one to strike at his hat. For the next few years the French and Indian War hindered

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John's travels. He wanted to go to Virginia and Carolina the autumn following his trip to New York, but traveling was too dangerous. In 1756 he was again prevented from making the trip: I want rpuch to come to Carolina, to observe the curiosities toward the mountains; but the mischievous Indians are so treacherous that it is not safe trusting them, even in their greatest pretence of friendship. They have destroyed all our back inhabitants. No travelling now, to Dr. Colden's, nor to the back parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, nor Virginia. Instead, Bartram made a journey with Billy to Connecticut to visit Jared Eliot, in the autumn of 1755. He finally made the trip south in 1760. In Virginia he visited John Clayton, an able botanist who supplied Gronovius with most of the descriptions embodied in Flora Virginica. Clayton was then seventy-four, but by no means ready to give up botanical traveling, for twelve years later he made a tour through Orange County. Clayton and Bartram continued to exchange seeds and letters, Clayton insisting that John come again to "make . . . ample amends for this last transient visit." In Charleston he renewed his acquaintance with Dr. Garden, and met Mrs. Martha Logan, who at seventy wrote the first American book on gardening. John describes her to Collinson as "an elderly widow lady, who spares no pains nor cost to oblige me. Her garden is her delight. I was with her about five minutes, in much company, yet we contracted such a mutual correspondence that one silk bag hath passed and repassed full of seeds three times since last fall." T o this Collinson replied: "I plainly see thou knowest how to fascinate the longing widow, by so close a correspondence." Bartram thereafter referred to her as "my fascinated widow" and boasted, "I have also fascinated two men's wives, although one I never saw; that is Mrs. Lamboll, who hath sent me two noble cargoes. . . . The other hath sent me, I think, a great curiosity. She calls it a 'Golden Lily.' "

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57

In 1761, after the English had taken Fort Duquesne, John was "all in a flame to go to Pittsburgh, and down the Ohio, as far as I can get safe escort." In spite of a bad fall which was caused b y a breaking limb when he was climbing after holly berries, and which left his arm so weak that for a time he could hardly pull off his clothes, he made the trip. His escort was Colonel Henry Bouquet, the hero of the battle. Bouquet too was something of a botanist, and gave Bartram the first pecans that found their w a y into the east. These nuts greatly puzzled Collinson, who accused John of being a great wag for sending them without naming them. In his journal of the trip, which was never printed, John seems to have discussed, in addition to plants and fossil shells, the advantages of Pittsburgh as a center for trade, and the value of the coal fields.1 It was apparently in those days "a delightful situation." Even then game and fish seem to have been growing scarce. John reported that although he lay six nights in the woods on the banks of the Ohio and Monongahela, he saw only two or three deer, and at the Fort a tame bear. B y way of comment he expressed astonishment that histories of Europe and Asia should so often mention fish, game, and beasts of prey in settled areas. Such animals had been common in America sixty years before, but were now scarce. Having explored this new section, he returned the next year to the South, where he had so many friends, and where William was then living. F o r some reason Billy did not accompany him. He explored the interior of South Carolina, followed the W a teree and Congaree rivers, then over to the Yadkin, along part of N e w River, and then to the branches of the Staunton. From there he probably followed the Shenandoah Valley home. In his manuscript journal he mentions seeing the Natural Bridge, and to his half-brother William he wrote of a great cave (prob1 These are all mentioned in his letters on the trip; the journal has disappeared.

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BARTRAM

ably the Luray Caverns), and remarked that he had "crawled over many deep wrinkles on the face of our ancient mother earth." T o his sons he wrote: I had the most prosperous journey that ever I was favoured with. Everything succeeded beyond my expectation; and my guardian angel seemed to direct my steps, to discover the greatest curiosities. T h e presence of God was with me, and my heart overflowed, with praises and humble adoration to Him, both day and night, in my wakeful hours. Like many another father, Bartram was more pious when his children were concerned. For over a year John's letters continually refer to this trip to the "terrestrial Paradise": T h e variety of plants and flowers in our southwestern continent is beyond expression. Is it not dear Peter, the very place garden of Madam Flora? Oh! If I could but spend six months on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Florida, in health, I believe I could find more curiosities than the English, French and Spaniards have done in six score of years. Some of the results of this expedition echo throughout the Romantic Poets. For it was then John discovered the Sensitive Tipitiwitchet on which he based so much of his theory of sensation and volition in plants. Collinson sent a leaf of it to Linnaeus: "Only to him would I spare such a jewel." Although John was now sixty-four he was still to make the longest journey of exploration of his career. However, as William was a partner in this expedition, it will be taken up later. T h e traveling already done had yielded great botanical treasures and much interesting information on many subjects. Of the trips taken up to 1763, only one of Bartram's journals has been printed, although he wrote at least four others, two of which are still in existence. His letters to his many friends are even more interesting. In them and in the journals, Bartram tells of methods of travel, Indian customs, mineral resources, natural curiosities, the interesting people he met, and of course

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much about plants, especially the places where he discovered new ones. Probably no one else has given us so much information about the American wilderness of the middle of the eighteenth century.

VI

THE TELESCOPE JOHN

BARTRAM's

RELIGION

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road But looks through Nature up to Nature's God. Alexander Pope

the Cossacks in the Chauve Souris, Bartram lived partly in the wilderness and partly in the eighteenth century. There is a strange consistency running through certain eras not to be explained by all the parallel passages collected by budding Ph.D.'s. True, Bartram read Pope and Addison, and was a friend of Benjamin Franklin. It is not difficult to see the likeness between his ideas and theirs. He even started part of his belief in Mr. Pope's couplet quoted above. Bartram's rationalistic tendencies must, however, be studied against the background of Quaker teaching on both social and theological questions. Like many another man of the eighteenth century he had a strong anti-clerical bent. Part of this may be due to his Quaker training, for the Friends regarded paid preachers as hirelings. But John's quarrel with the preachers is more deep rooted than that. For him they are "mystery mongers," to be classed with the medicine men of the redskins. So violent were his remarks that Darlington expurgated some of the letters—one of the rare flaws in the Memorials. John's remarks on Calvinists would have pleased even the author of Hudibras. As early as 1741 he wrote: LIKE

As to what Whitefield intends to do with his acres of land he proposes to bring as many as would make a township of his friends from England. He [illegible] designs them to be such parasites as was elected before they was born or begot or before the foundation of the world was laid and then when they get up into heaven they are to be witnesses against us at the great day of Judgment when our bodies must rise again after they 60

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have wonderfully dissolved in elemental and vegetable and often animal substances and some of them talk of being judges; (I suppose they will send us Reprobates hundreds and thousands if not millions to hell) nay one of them told his auditors he would sit at the right hand of the father to judge them (but surely he must first heave the sun out of his seat . . . if they was damned what signifieth his tutoring . . . This is all the more remarkable when we remember the experience the more worldly Franklin had with Whitefield. He went to hear one of the sermons, but resolved to put nothing in the collection; he ended by emptying his pockets of copper, silver, and five pistoles of gold. Thomas Hopkinson, who had purposely left his money at home, tried to borrow some to give. Collinson, usually more pious than Bartram, was nevertheless amused by the diatribe on Whitefield, and thanked John for the entertainment his remarks had afforded. And whereas Collinson shared the Friends' hatred of war, Bartram, like James Logan, believed in the right of self-defence. When an attack by the French was feared, John wrote to Collinson: . . . members of our people is daily exercising and learning the Martial discipline in order to oppose them if they should attempt to land and are making preparation for forts and batteries to stop any vesails that come in a hostil manner. The Clergy exerts their talents with all their force of eloquence to persuade their hearers to defend their country, liberty and famdies by the sword and the blessing of God but our society like fools or something worse opposeth them by pamphlets, persuasion and threats of reading them out of their meetings for breach of our discipline in taking up the carnal weapon which reasonable proceeding I suppose hath made one hundred hipocrits to one convert for they can't banish freedom of thought. In regard to Indian policy, John's opinions were equally warlike. His grievance here was more personal; Indian hostilities prevented botanical excursions into new territories. In Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette he read of a scheme proposed in England to have an exploration made of both Canada and Louisiana in order to discover the resources of those regions. T o Col-

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linson he wrote that he would like to take part in this adventure were it not for the danger from Indians. He feared not only death, but torture and the savages' "revengful devouring jaws." Years before an Indian had pulled off John's cap and apparently in great anger had "chewed it all round." This John took to be a threat that he would be eaten if he came there again. T o avoid any such possibility he wanted the Indians driven a thousand miles back into the interior. The only practicable method of establishing a permanent peace with them was, he believed "to bang them stoutly." Bartram's un-Quakerlike sentiments brought a protest from Collinson, who quoted the golden rule and referred to the trickery and cruelty of the whites. He went on to cite examples: the notorious Walking Purchase in which Thomas Penn had cheated the Indians out of large holdings; the broken promise to return the Pittsburgh territory to them; and the common practice of making Indians drunk so as to cheat them out of land. He pointed out that John would not tamely submit to similar treatment, and satirized his preference for fire and faggot instead of for justice. In this Collinson was expressing ideas similar to those held by Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic. The Indian warfare during that summer of 1763 had revived the bitter quarrel within the colony as to the proper method of dealing with the Indians—a quarrel that was largely religious. -On one side were the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who lived on the frontier and who asked " W h y should these heathens have lands which Christians want?" On the other were the Moravians and the Friends. The latter, during the troubled year of 1756, had organized the Friendly Association for gaining and preserving peace with the Indians by pacific measures. Bartram was apparently much more in sympathy with the Presbyterians' policy of Indian extermination than with that of the Friendly Association. It is noteworthy that his warlike remarks were written the year of the Paxton Boys' massacre of about twenty Conestoga Indians, and their subsequent march upon Germantown to kill other Indians who had fled there

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for safety. Governor John Penn and council thereupon acceded to the demands of the Scotch-Irish, and offered bounties for the scalps of male and female Indians over ten years old. Bartram was hardly just in accusing the colony of too great leniency. Only on the subject of slavery was John in complete accord with the teachings of his sect. As early as 1671 George Fox had advocated the freeing of slaves after they had served thirty years. In America the opposition to slavery first centered in the Chester Monthly Meeting. In 1758, after an appeal by John Woolman, the yearly meeting came out against buying, selling, or keeping slaves for life. By 1774 all the willing members had freed their slaves, and it was decided to deal with recalcitrants as offenders against discipline. Crevecceur says that Bartram so far approved the Quaker doctrines on this subject that not only had he freed his own slaves, but that he taught them to read and write, took them with him to meeting, and allowed them to sit at his table. In addition to supplying food and clothing, he paid them wages of eighteen pounds a year each. Although Crevecceur perhaps exaggerated the number of John's emancipated Negroes, his statement is in part borne out by that of William Bartram, who wrote that his father zealously testified against slavery and that he freed a valuable male slave who had been bred up in the Bartram family. Aside from the doctrine of freedom for the slaves, Bartram's theology and religion are not so much from the teachings of the Friends as from the eighteenth century, the age of Joseph Priestley, Richard Price, and Thomas Paine. T h e scientists of the time had discovered an orderly universe operating not through direct manipulation of Jehovah, but according to fixed laws. It was a doctrine eminently suited to an age anxious to forget the zeal and fanaticism of the seventeenth century. Thus for Protestant Joseph Addison: The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky,

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BARTRAM

And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim. T h ' unwearied Sun from day to day Does his Creator's power display; And publishes to every land T h e work of an Almighty hand. And Mr. Pope, the Papist, sings: T o thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar earth, sea, skies! One chorus let all being raise! All nature's incense rise! And John Bartram, the Quaker, writes of nature: "It is through the telescope I see God in his glory." In the coffee house or at Twickenham or in the American wilderness, it is all one. This religion of nature flourished partly because of a lack of understanding of the complexity of the forces involved. It was believed that in life as in poetry the adherence to a few simple laws would insure perfection. So w e find Bartram teaching his children "the following precept, as comprehending the great principles of moral duty in man: 'Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before G o d . ' " T h e eighteenth century would have had little difficulty in defining all three. Bartram, however, had gone further than most of his contemporaries in the study of the laws of nature. This study had led him to a belief in a unifying principle, based not on vague generalities, but upon careful observation. As we shall see later, this belief, amplified b y William, seems to have greatly influenced William Wordsworth. Bartram believed that plants, animals, and man all operated on similar principles. When we nearly examine the various motions of plants and flowers, in their evening contraction and morning expansion, they seem to be operated upon by something superior to only heat and cold, or shade and sunshine; such as the surprising tribes of the sensitive plants, and the petals of many flowers shutting up close in rainy weather, or in the evening, until the female part is fully impregnated; and if we won't allow them real feeling, or what we call sense, it must be some action next degree

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inferior to it, f o r which w e want a proper epithet, or the immediate finger of God, to whom be all glory and praise. And to Collinson: " I also am of opinion that the creatures commonly called brutes, possess higher qualifications, and more exalted ideas, than our traditional mystery mongers are willing to allow them." T o Bartram as to most of his contemporaries this unifying principle was wise and good. He marveled at the discovery that the seeds of useless plants might lie in the ground, even in tilled soil, for as long as seven years before germinating; whereas nutritious grains came up the first year they were sown. " O h the wisdom of Divine Providence!" John further believed that an all-wise creator had provided that a balance be maintained between animal and vegetable life. He used as his text the huge flocks of passenger pigeons which appeared at the time of migration. It was a theory which Collinson had never met with before John suggested it. Collinson could find even wasps an evidence of the unlimited power and wisdom of G o d . Though they were a pest to man, they were provided with marvelous instincts. Thus man had small reason for conceit about his abilities; even the humblest classes of being showed God's care f o r them. Looking through this telescope of nature, Bartram and his contemporaries were able to see glories not always revealed to modern scientists. In a paragraph scarcely inferior to Addison's hymn, John wrote: I don't dwell so long in the vegetable kingdom, as though I thought the wisdom and power of G o d were only manifest therein. T h e contemplation of the mineral, and especially the animal, will equally incline the pious heart to overflow with daily adorations and praises to the Grand Giver and Supporter of universal life. But what amazing distant glories are disclosed in a midnight scene! Vast are the bodies which roll in the immense expanse! Orbs beyond orbs, without number, suns beyond suns, systems beyond systems, with their proper inhabitants of the great Jehova's empire, how can we look on these without amazement, most humble adoration. Esteeming our-

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BARTRAM

selves, with all our wisdom, but as one of the smallest atoms of dust praising the living God, the great I A M . Churches, however, have frequently judged a man's religion by other criteria than science or poetry. In this the Darby Meeting was no exception. As far as the other members were concerned, John was using the wrong telescope. And although it is not mentioned in the charges against him, he held one tenet that is particularly obnoxious to the orthodox. Even Darlington expurgated it. In the letter to Collinson on the subject of Barclay's Apology, the printed letter concludes: "Living in Love and innocency, we may die in hope," but the manuscript continues, "Then if we don't go to heaven, I believe we shan't go to hell." Irritating as such a notion must have been to his neighbors, the complaint shows that there were even graver charges. The records of the Darby Meeting show that: 5 mo. 4, 1757, The overseers entered a complaint against John Bartram for disbelieving in Christ as the Son of God and having been desired to attend at this meeting to account for his disorderly belief. But he not attending, therefore Samuel Bunting, Benjamin Lobb, Isaac Pearson and William Parker are appointed to treat with him on account of his said unbelief and put him upon attending at the next Monthly Meeting and make report or their proceedings therein at the next Monthly Meeting. The case dragged on for fifteen months. Under "8 mo. 3, 1757, the Friends appointed to visit John Bartram and labour with him, in the spirit of meekness to turn from the spirit of unbelief, reports that according to their appointment they have visited him but could not prevail upon him to believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ but to the contrary that although he was endowed with the power of God he was no more than man." The society seems to have moved with reluctance. A second committee was appointed to visit John with no better results than the first. The members appointed to draw up the testification against him failed to appear at the next meeting. After the testification was approved John was allowed to appeal, but

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would not do so. There was a delay of two months before the final letter of disownment. Even that underwent revision so that the final form was milder than the original. "Dark notions" was substituted for the word "blasphemous," and "opinions" for "heresies." Characteristically, John continued to attend meeting after his disownment. But so that no one might mistake his opinions he carved on his house what William described as "a pious distich, engraven by his own hand, in very conspicuous characters, upon a stone placed over the front window of the apartment which was designed for study and philosophical retirement." It is God alone, Almighty Lord, The Holy One, By me Adord. John Bartram, 1770. Both the deistic theology and the challenging tone bespeak the eighteenth century—the Age of Reason.

VII

RECOGNITION Myself not least, but honored of them all. T e n n y s o n : ULYSSES

THE eighteenth-century world seems strangely small. Almost all the important men knew each other. T o d a y w h e n a single university may contain a biologist whose w o r k is k n o w n to scientists all over the world but not to the equally able linguist on the same faculty, much less to the political leader on the board of trustees, it is hard to realize a world in w h i c h a Swedish botanical w o r k

1

would inspire an English poet, 2 or G e r m a n research

in electricity lead an American politician to risk his life to veri f y it. T w o characteristics of the time seem to be responsible f o r this: the versatility of the ablest men, and the habit of letter writing. T h e r e was not then the overwhelming b o d y of knowledge that makes present-day specialization necessary. So it was that Franklin could experiment in electricity, T o m Paine invent the iron bridge, and Jefferson design furniture. Similarly, in a letter written to Collinson while " w e are all in a great hurry preparing to attack the French," Cadwallader Colden discussed gravitation and a new method of finding longitude. Bartram's friendship w i t h Colden had begun, as w e have seen, in 1742. T h a t year and the next were important ones in Bartram's life: his long association with Franklin began; he became a member of the Library C o m p a n y ; he helped to found the library at D a r b y and the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia; and he made the long journey to Onondaga, the journal of w h i c h became his first published book. From this time until his death Bartram became one of the recognized figures in the intellectual life of the age. 1 2

Linnxus, Genera Plantarum. Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden and The Loves of the 68

Plants.

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F o r one thing he, like Franklin and Collinson, became a sort of "central" through which the scientists of the day got in touch with one another. Franklin occasionally went all the way to Kingsessing to deliver a letter sent by Colden to Bartram. Bartram copied interesting paragraphs from letters from Holland, St. Petersburg, Sweden, etc., or from Dr. Gmelin of St. Petersburg, and sent them to Colden. When Dr. Mitchell gave him a treatise on Virginia pines, Bartram asked Lewis Evans to copy it f o r Colden. Gronovius sent his letters to the N e w Yorker through the same channel. Even Colden's brother sent letters to N e w York through Bartram. T h e best idea of the methods of communication between scientists in those days is given by a letter John wrote to Colden in 1745: I find by my correspondents in Europe that they have been informed b y our Phylosophycal Society & have great expectation of fine accounts therefrom tho I durst not so much as mention it to my correspondents f o r fear it should turn out but poorly; but I find the mentioned to Collinson, hee to Catasby, & hee to Gronovius, which was to him from Clayton. These accounts I showed to franklin & he layeth the blame on us; & Dr. Bond saith Ben Franklin is in fault . . . Even before Nicholas Scull published his map of Philadelphia, on which Bartram's house was shown, it had been sought out by traveling scientists. Prior to his own visit to Bartram, Colden sent Colonel Rutherford, a member of Parliament who was traveling in America, apparently in the interests of science. Rutherford brought with him to John's house "several Gentlemen of the Chiefest distinction in Philadelphia." Colden's son visited Bartram that same year. Following Cadwallader Colden's visit the next autumn, came Dr. John Mitchell, a physician and botanist from Virginia. N o t without a little pride, Bartram introduced him to his influential friends. He took him first to meet Franklin. Mitchell was so pleased with his entertainment that he stayed in town nearly three weeks, going out to Kingsessing many times, and botaniz-

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ing with John. "But," wrote Bartram, "notwithstanding the satisfaction I received in the Doctor's Company I could not help mentioning my friend Colden to him and set thy abilities & character in such a clear light before him which together with some specimens of thy performance so inflamed the doctor's mind (that tho his Constitution is miserably racked) he said that if he was sure he could see thee at York he would venture so far for the sake of a little of thy Company." In 1748 Collinson sent Peter Kalm, a native of Sweden, and a pupil of Linnaeus, who came to study American plants. Both Franklin and Bartram gave him much help. In 1751 he returned to his professorship at Abo, and aided Linnaeus, in the Species Plantarvm. Kalm's own book, Travels into North America, is filled with references to Bartram, although Darlington suggests that Kalm occasionally took credit for discoveries rightly belonging to Bartram. Kalm was much impressed with the American botanist. He marveled at a man who, without education, had taught himself enough Latin to read any book in that language, even those filled with botanical terms. He spoke of John's genius for science, his great knowledge of botany and zoology, his numerous discoveries of rare plants, and—inevitably—of the keenness of observation which let nothing escape. So fascinated was the visitor that James Logan complained to Collinson that during his eight months' stay in Philadelphia, Kalm had seen no one but Franklin and Bartram. Bartram had already written a preface and notes to Franklin and Hall's edition of Short's Medicina Britannica, an essay for Poor Richard on planting red cedars ("of more service to the publick," said Franklin, "than 375 prefaces of my own writing"), and a book of travel; yet Kalm blamed him for not writing down more of his observations. Of John's book Kalm said: He has not filled it with a thousandth part of the great knowledge which he has acquired in natural philosophy and history, especially in regard to North America. I have often been at a loss to think of the sources, from whence he got many of the things which came to his knowledge. I likewise owe him many things,

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for he possessed that great quality of communicating everything he knew. I shall therefore in the sequel, frequently mention this gentleman. For I should never forgive myself, if I were to omit the name of the first inventor, and claim that as my own invention, which I learnt from another person. The disclaimer is almost too handsome. Bart ram discussed many topics with him: silk culture, vineyards, truffles, stalactites, slate, the origin of rats in America, Indian pottery, humming birds, wasp nests, snake-bite cures, the theory that apple trees were native in America, but peaches an importation, and the sea shells found on mountain tops. Bartram said these were like those now found only on southern beaches, and defended Thomas Burnet's theory that the earth might once have been in a different position toward the sun. Kalm asked about a particular larch tree mentioned in Miller's Botanical Dictionary. Bartram knew all about it; he had sent the tree to Collinson. One story Bartram told has an interesting history. He said that he had found the broad plantain, or Plantago Ttiajor, at so many places on his travels that he did not know whether it was native or an importation from Europe. When he asked the Indians about it, they told him that wherever a European walked, the plant grew up in his footsteps. For that reason they named it "the Englishman's foot." A hundred years later Longfellow noted in his diary: Agassiz dined with us. . . . As we walked down to the village, he pointed out by the roadside a weed called by the Indians "the white man's foot" because it advances into the wilderness with the white settlers. Who can doubt that Agassiz had read in Kalm's Travels the story Bartram had told long ago? Thus his ghost hovers behind the section of The Song of Hiawatha called "The White Man's Foot": Whereso'er they tread, beneath them Springs a flower unknown among us, Springs the White-man's Foot in blossom.

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A t Bartram's house one evening, Kalm met a visitor from Carolina. It was probably Thomas Lamboll, whose letters indicate that he knew both Bartram and his wife. In 1754, a year after meeting John at Coldenham, Dr. Alexander Garden of Charleston visited Kingsessing. T o Colden he wrote: I have met with little new in the Botanic way unless your acquaintance Bartram, who is what he is & whose acquaintance alone makes ammends for other disappointments in that way. I first waited of him with G o v r . Tinker & Dr. Bond whom he received with so much ease, Gaiety & happy Alacrity, & invited to dine with so much rural vivacity that everyone were agreeably pleased and surprised. Most welcome of all, perhaps, were the visits of Benjamin Franklin, who came occasionally to bring a letter or a distinguished visitor. In the winter they would sit around the Franklin stove he had presented, and drink cider from the mill in Bartram's garden. During the years that Franklin spent abroad, they kept up their friendship through letters. Collinson also wrote news of their friend, and from Philadelphia Mrs. Franklin wrote of the Bartrams. But the letters came too seldom. Bartram enclosed one of his with one from Mrs. Franklin, "hoping this w a y we may keep the chain of friendship bright." He added: Pray, my dear friend, bestow a f e w lines upon thy old friend, such like as those sent from Woodbridge. T h e y have a magical power of dispelling melancholy fumes, and cheering up my spirits, they are so like thy facetious discourse, in thy southern chamber, when we used to be together. Franklin delivered boxes of seeds for Bartram, and probably helped to get the journal of the trip to Florida printed. H e gave Anne a tea set, and when John complained of failing eyesight he sent a full set of lenses, so that Bartram might at his leisure find the ones suited to his eyes. In sending his journal Bartram wrote: I sent my journal to the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, wherein I wrote my observations daily of particular soils, rivers

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and natural vegetable productions with which our friend Peter expressed such satisfaction but there was no artificial curiosities in those provinces as temples, theatres, piramids, palaces, bridges, catacoms, oblisks, pictures and different methods of government and customs to be described: which fills up the greatest part of all our modern travellers journals altho they have been ten times near as well or better related many years before. Franklin replied, urging John to risk no further dangerous excursions, but to "sit down quietly at home, digest the knowledge you have acquired, compile and publish the many observations you have made." As to antiquities he added: It is true, many people are fond of accounts of old buildings, monuments, &c., but there is a number, who would be much better pleased with such accounts as you could afford them; and for one I confess, that if I could find in any Italian travels, a receipt for making Parmesan cheese, it would give me more satisfaction than a transcript of any inscription from any old stone whatever. So were friendships begun through science, nourished on kindliness and humor. Benjamin sent him a picture of Collinson, which was acknowledged with the comment: Now I am furnished with four of our worthies Lineus, Franklin, Edwards and Collinson (but I want Dr. Fothergill to adorn my new stove and lodging room which I have made very convenient for their reception altho I am no picture Enthusiast, yet I love to look at representations of men of innocency integrity ingenuity and Humanity. . . . pray my dear friend squeese out a few lines as often as Convenience will alow to comfort thy old friend in his new stove room. John's gallery of famous friends could well have included many more portraits. In addition to those who have already appeared in these pages was Sir Hans Sloane, royal physician to George II. As a young man he had lived fifteen months in Jamaica, where he made a valuable collection of objects of natural history. On his return he published a Natural History of Jamaica in two huge folio volumes. On the death of Newton, Sloane became President of the Royal Society. When he died

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at ninety-three, his immense collection of natural curiosities became the basis of the British Museum. Collinson introduced Bartram to Sloane in 1741. Bartram sent shells, petrifications, and Indian relics, in return for which Sir Hans sent a copy of the Natural History of Jamaica. T h e next year Bartram asked for a silver cup instead of the money which Sloane owed him for further collections. In the letter of thanks John wrote: "I am well pleased that thy name is engraved upon it at large, so that when my friends drink out of it, they may see who was my benefactor." The Quaker farmer was not averse to showing off his honors a little. Even aristocratic Oxford knew of John Bartram. As early as 1738 Dr. J. J. Dillenius and his successor, Dr. Humphrey Sibthorp, continued the correspondence. T h e latter speaks of Franklin, who seems to have met every scientist in Europe. Franklin also introduced M. T . F. Dalibard, a botanist of Paris, to Bartram. Dalibard offered to send a book, probably his Florae Parisiensis Prodromus, and John promised seeds in return. Other correspondents included Dr. Solander, a pupil of Linnaeus, and under-librarian of the British Museum; Philip Miller, the author of The Gardener's Dictionary, Bartram's copy of which is preserved in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. He gave the name Bartramia to a genus of plants, but this genus was later referred to Triumfetta. Mark Catesby corresponded with Bartram and sent his Natural History of Carolina. Some indication of Bartram's fame is given by the letter of Dr. John Hope, Professor of Botany at Edinburgh, who in 1763 wrote: "The great reputation which you have justly acquired, by many faithful and accurate observations, and that most extraordinary thirst of knowledge which has distinguished you, makes me extremely desirous of your correspondence." T h e great Linnaeus himself was a correspondent of John's, and is reported to have called him "the greatest natural botanist in

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the world." It was Linnaeus who made botany a science. In 1735, when he was but twenty-«ight, he published his Systerna Naturae setting forth his theory of binomial nomenclature in botany and zoology—the method which has since become standard in those sciences. That book and his subsequent work are really the beginning of modern systematic botany and zoology. So famous did he become that after he was made a professor at Upsala the student body increased from five hundred to fifteen hundred. It has been said, "he found biology a chaos; he left it a cosmos." The widespread interest in botany during the eighteenth century can be traced to three things: the enthusiasm for gardening, the plant discoveries in America, and the work of Linnaeus. And all three helped to produce the cult of nature that characterized religion, philosophy, politics, and poetry throughout much of the century, a cult that has been ascribed too exclusively to the influence of Rousseau. Collinson, who, as we have seen, had a hand in popularizing gardening and American plants, also helped to spread the theories of Linnaeus. T o Bartram he wrote: "The Sy sterna Naturae is a curious performance for a young man, but his coining of a new set of names for plants tends but to embarrass and perplex the study of Botany—Very few like it." The same year the book was published, Collinson sent an account of it to James Logan, who discussed it with Bartram. In America, John's friends Clayton, Colden, and Mitchell all took up the new system. The intellectual life of the colonies was an integral part of that in Europe. Linnaeus' letters to Bartram have disappeared, but we know from Dr. Garden's account of his visit to Coldenham that John greatly valued them and showed them to his botanical friends. Correspondence was difficult, and on one occasion Bartram complained that one of Linnaeus' letters was two years in reaching America. The same misfortune happened to several pamphlets sent to Dr. Colden and Mr. Clayton. More news came through Collinson. Linnaeus had visited him on a trip to Eng-

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land in 1736, and the two men were in constant communication. Thus Collinson sent John's plants and observations to Sweden, and discussed Linnaeus' ideas in letters to Philadelphia. T h e Philadelphia farmer does not appear ill at ease in the intellectual company of his famous contemporaries. T o Collinson he criticized Linnaeus for putting too many species into one genera. On one subject in particular he and Collinson took issue with their famous friend. Linnaeus believed that swallows spent the winter under water. Collinson and Bartram discussed the theory and discarded it. T h e former entered into a controversy with Linnxus on the matter, and later brought it to the attention of the Royal Society. He argued that if the theory were correct, swallows must possess special organs to breathe under water, and insisted that many of them migrated to southern climes. Linnseus never publicly recanted his views, which were the general belief at the time, and were shared by so noteworthy a sceptic as* Dr. Johnson, but in his copy of RegJtum Animale the statement in Linnaeus own handwriting that swallows hibernate under water is erased.3 John's friends in Sweden were not limited to Kalm and Linnaeus. Crevecceur quotes Bartram as saying: " T h e e understandest the Latin tongue, read this kind epistle which the good Queen of Sweden, Ulrica, sent me a few years ago. G o o d Woman! that she should think in her palace at Stockholm of poor John Bartram on the banks of the Schuylkill; appeareth to me very strange." " N o t in the least, dear Sir," answered the Frenchman; " y o u are the first man whose name as a botanist hath done honor to America; it is very natural at the same time to imagine, that so extensive a continent must contain many curious plants and trees; is it then surprising to see a princess, fond of useful 3 Kalm discusses this topic at some length, and says: 'It is therefore highly probable, or rather incontestibly true, that Swallows retire in the Northern countries during the winter, into the water, and stay there in a torpid state, till the return of warmth revives them again in the spring.' Travels into North America, Warrington, 1770, II, 143—4411.

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knowledge descend sometimes from the throne, to walk in the gardens of Linnseus?" N o r was this all. In 1769 he was elected a member of the R o y a l A c a d e m y of Science of Stockholm. T h e secretary, C. M. W r a n g e l , wrote in part as follows: Dear Sir and Beloved Friend: W h e n e v e r I think of America (which I do every day of m y life), I think at the same time of y o u , and y o u r house; and as ingratitude is what I detest, I cannot but bear y o u the warmest gratitude for all the civilities y o u were pleased to show me, while I had the pleasure to cultivate a friendship with you, at a nearer distance. I always looked upon myself as one of y o u r family, being happly enough to be counted so, b y y o u and yours. It grieved me, when I was in America, that y o u r great merit had not, in my native land, received the marks of esteem, in the public, as it deserved; and therefore it gives me great satisfaction, w h e n I n o w assure y o u , that y o u are well known here, from the throne to every one that regards learning; and the Society of Science in Stockholm; which has from its first institution been k n o w n for the greatest delicacy in choosing members of distinction and note, has manifested their great regard for y o u b y choosing y o u a member, unanimously, at the proposal of Professor Bergius. In England Collinson had not been idle in his friend's behalf. A s the K i n g was not interested in botany, Collinson tried to persuade the ministry to appoint Bartram Botanizer Royal for America. One of his numerous letters on the subject was to his friend the Duke of Northumberland. Eager as a b o y asking for a n e w sled, Collinson fairly poured forth his reasons: the Floridas must abound with wonderful things; the Indians were at Peace; Bartram was ideally fitted f o r the undertaking and he traveled inexpensively; seeds could be sent t o the K i n g from Pensacola, Georgia, St. Augustine, and South Carolina; the Duke could see f o r himself the valuable things Bartram discovered if he would Vemember to look at the box of specimens that had been col-

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lected for the King, who had most graciously expressed his approbation to Collinson at the last levee. Bartram was anxious for the post, and jealous of William Young, who had been given an official appointment, and thus . . . have got more honor by a few miles' travelling to pick up a few common plants than I have by near thirty years' travel with great danger and peril. . . . Several of my friends put me upon sending my new discovered specimens to the King to try my success. Accordingly I have put up a box of such specimens as I am sure he never found, and I believe never came to England, before I sent them. The box I sent to thy care, with a letter to the King, under cover to thee, which pray deliver to his Majesty; or if thee hath not freedom to do it, pray deliver it to Dr. Pringle, whom Benjamin Franklin promises to acquaint with the whole affair. Finally Collinson wrote, April 1765: "I have the pleasure to inform my good friend, that my repeated solicitations have not been in vain; for this day I received certain intelligence from our gracious King, that he hath appointed thee his botanist, with a salary of fifty pounds a year." 4 In the pursuit of his new duties John made a journey to Florida, an account of which will be given in Chapter IX. While Bartram was in the wilds of Florida, his rival, Young, visited London and was taken up by the Queen. On his return he was more irritating than ever to John, who accused him of strutting about with a sword and gold lace. Young visited Bartram three times, pretending great respect, and boasting of a pension of three hundred pounds annually. John was more than ever suspicious: a Captain Chancelor had told odd stories about a prison sentence and transportation. Young's friends of course denied the story, and Bartram was left wondering. Strangely enough the only dissenting voice in the honors paid to Bartram came from his friend Dr. Garden, who wrote to Linraeus: * Bartram was not, as reported by Fagin (p. 2) and others, a member of the Royal Society of London. His signature does not appear in The Signatures in the First Journal-Book and Charter Book of the Royal Soci-

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He tells me that he is appointed King's Botanist in America. Is it really so? Surely John is a worthy man; but yet to give the title or King's Botanist to a man who can scarcely spell, much less make out the characters of any one genus of plants appears rather hyperbolical. Pray how is this matter? Is he not rather appointed or sent and paid, for searching out the plants of East and West Florida, and for the service only to have a reward and his expenses? Surely our King is a great King! The very idea of ordering such a search is noble, grand, royal . . . How happy must the people be who are governed by such a King. So it is when the academic mind meets the natural genius. Political differences, too, may have caused Dr. Garden to alter his opinion of Bartram's scientific attainments from that expressed ten years before, after the meeting at Coldenham. Dr. Garden was a sympathizer with the British government in the quarrel with the colonies; Bart ram was growing increasingly critical of the mother country. Not a strong party man, he did not join the enthusiastic crowd that saw Franklin off on his mission to fight the stamp tax. But he expressed the hope "that he may at his return home be received with as much or more applause, and triumph over his enemies." And he wrote to Benjamin that "honest friend Bartram, is daily in mourning for the calamities of our provinces. Vast sums spent, and nothing done to the advantage of the King or country. How should I leap for joy, to see or hear that the British officers would prove by their actions, the zeal and duty to their prince and nation, they so much pretend in words." Not only was the revolutionary Franklin among his friends. Dr. Garden may have been even more annoyed by John's friendship with another Charlestonian, Henry Laurens. Laurens presided at the Provincial Congress of Carolina, and later succeeded John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress. John apparently visited him on his trip to Florida. That John's opinions grew more revolutionary is implied in the remarks of Peter Collinson's son Michael. On his father's ety of London, Lond., 1912 nor in The Record Book of the Royal Society of London, London, 1912. Both of these include the eighteenth century.

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death in 1768, Michael continued the correspondence with Bartram. After a few letters on the question, Michael requested that John drop the subject of colonial troubles, and he strongly inveighed against Bartram for being "vindictive against the English, while drawing his pension from the King." Bartram continued to draw his pension and send seeds until the war interrupted communication between England and the colonies. But in spite of Garden's eulogy on the botanical interests of George III, the latter was no more interested in the results of Bartram's investigations than he had been in appointing him. Collinson, disgusted at the lack of appreciation for John's work, wrote: "I wish the King had any taste in flowers or plants; but as he has none, there are no hopes of encouragement from him, for his talent is architecture." It is just as well Dr. Garden did not see the letter. John Bartram's reputation did not die with him. From the time of William's inaccurate biographical memoir of his father in the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal in 1804, numerous magazine articles have kept his name alive down to the present. Most important of all, however, was William Darlington's book, Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall, published in 1849. Almost everything written about Bartram since that time has been derived solely from Darlington. Bartram's name did not remain in connection with the genus of plants to which Gronovius gave it, but in 1789 Hedwig gave the name Bartramia to a genus of mosses—"humble mosses" as Darlington puts it.5 Bartram's reputation among contemporary scientists was attested in 1931 by "the cordiality of the response from nearly every part of the world" when a bicentennial celebration of the founding of his garden was held. In a special issue of Bartania, the addresses given at that time are preserved. Several of the scientists who spoke discussed Bartram's most important achievements. Professor Rodney H. True summed it up thus: "He did two things that made his name known even to our present day; 5

(J. H . Barnhart says that Dillenius gave the name.)

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he added greatly to mankind's store of knowledge and . . . he planted a garden." At least one plant, a lovely flowering shrub, which John found, and whose seeds William later brought home to his father, has not been found growing wild for over a century. The plant now exists because Bartram cultivated it. The name given it was Franklinia Altamaha in honor of Bartram's friend, and for the locality in which it was discovered. More important than this: Bartram was one of the first in America to produce hybrid plants or "mules" as they were then called. Following Grew's address to the Royal Society in 1676 there had been much discussion of sex in plants. Botanists regarded the production of hybrids important because this proved the new theory. According to Conway Zirkle, the earliest account of plant hybridization is contained in a letter of Cotton Mather's dated 1716. Mather reported the crossing of different varieties of Indian corn and of squashes and gourds. In England, Thomas Fairchild crossed a carnation and a sweet william, an experiment reported in 1717, and described in Miller's The Gardener's Dictionary, 1731. Experiments by European scientists continued, and another American, Paul Dudley, in 1724 reported further work with Zea Mays. Bartram described his own work in a letter to Colonel William Byrd of Virginia in 1739: I have this spring made several microscopical observations upon the malle and femall parts in vegetables to oblige some ingenious botanists in Leyden, who requested that favour of mee which I have performed to their satisfaction and as a mechanical demonstration of the certainty of this hypothesis of the different sex in all plants that hath come under my notice. I can't find that ai;y vegetable hath power to produce perfect seed able to propogate without the conjunction of malle seed any more than animals and by a good microscope the malle and femall organs is plainly discovered. I have made several Successful experiments of joyning several species of the same genus whereby I have obtained curious mixed Colours in flowers never known before but this requires an accurate observation and judgment

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to know the precise time when the femall organs is disposed to receive the masculin seed and likewise when it is by the masculin organs fully perfected for ejection. I hope by these practical observations to open a gate into a very large field of experimental knowledge which if judiciously improved may be a considerable addition to the beauty of the florists garden. Bartram's hybrid was a flesh-colored Lychnis. T w o ideas of Bartram's were in advance of his age. Contrary to the beliefs of his time was his theory of the formation of limestones and marble. Collinson commented on it as follows: N o one doubts but that the marble of Tadmor was hewn out of the neighboring mountains, but thy notion of its formation by a mixture of slime, or mud, with what thee calls nitrous or marine salts, enters not into my comprehension. So thou hath it all to thyself. Bartram's theory was, in its essentials, that of modern geologists. The other idea was outlined in a letter to Dr. Garden in 1756. It is, to bore the ground to great depths, in all different soils in the several provinces with an instrument fit for the purpose, about four inches diameter. The benefit which I shall propose from these trials, is to search for marls, or rich earths, to manure the surface of the poor ground withal. Secondly, to search for all kinds of medicinal earths, sulphurs, bitumens, coal, peat, salts, vitriols, marcasites, flints, as well as metals. Thirdly, to find the various kind of springs, to know whether they are potable, or medicinal, or mechanical. Now, to bring this into practice, suppose there was appointed, in every province, a curious, judicious, honest, careful man, as overseer; that he should choose such men as understood boring in rocks and earth, and furnish them with proper instruments; that he, or any whom he may depute under him, shall take particular care to write down, in a book for that purpose, the time and place, when and where, they begin to bore, and the depth of every stratum they bore through, examining curiously the contents of the bit, every time the auger is drawn out, and the depth from whence it was drawn. . . . How exceeding useful and satisfactory will it be, to curious philosophical inquirers, to know the various terrestrial compositions that we daily walk

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over. B y this method w e may compose a curious subterranean map. This scheme of John's was proposed more than half a century before such undertakings were undertaken or even considered. F e w things are as ephemeral as scientific ideas. T h e plays of Shakespeare are still enjoyed by an age that would laugh at the absurd scientific concepts of the sixteenth century. It is therefore remarkable that anything in Bartram's thought is respected today. But were it all to go, John Bartram would not be forgotten. More than all else perhaps, the vitality of the man himself has kept him alive. T h e great number of his correspondents and friends, and the tone of their letters, attest the force of the man's personality. Physically he was vigorous. William says that he was above middle height, and upright. His face was long; his expression a mixture of dignity, animation, and sensibility. In manner he was frank and cheerful, with a gentleness about him that caused him to shrink from giving pain even to animals. His letters bear out this account of his personality. T h e crudities of his style cannot mask his humor, friendliness, keenness, and even poetical powers. Over and over I have discarded my paraphrase for John's original. Like Burke, "I did not dare to rub off a particle of the venerable dust that rather adorns and preserves, than destroys the metal."

VIII

WILLIAM BARTRAM Delightful Task! To rear the tender Thought, To teach the young Idea how to shoot, To pour the fresh Instruction o'er the Mind, To breathe th' enlivening Spirit, and to fix The generous Purpose in the glowing Breast. James Thomson, SPRING (Quoted by Franklin in PROPOSALS R E L A T I N G TO T H E EDUCATION OF Y O U T H IN P E N S I L V A N I A . )

THE year 1739 was an important one to John Bartram. It was the year of his pioneering experiment with the hybridization of flowers. And on February 9 his wife bore him twins, William and Elizabeth. Both his experiment and his son were to add greatly to his fame. William's background was a very different one from his father's. John was an obscure orphan with almost no schooling or opportunity for reading. William grew up in a house with a good library; he had considerable schooling; and he was the son of a well-known man who entertained important people at his home: Cadwallader Colden, Benjamin Franklin, Peter Kalm, James Logan. In John's library, in addition to the many scientific books sent by his European friends, was a volume of the Spectator papers and probably historical works. By the time William was able to read, his father had helped to found the Darby Library and could borrow books from the Philadelphia Library Company. Frequent references to books of travel and history indicate that John drew from the Darby Library many of those listed in Chapter III. A book that must have appealed to the adolescent William was John Josselyn's New England Rarities, which Collinson asked John to read. Among other things Collinson says: "He seems enamoured with the young Indian nymphs. What sayeth thee to these originals in their native dress? Have they even been 84

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able to charm an Englishman, as they do the French, who are not so delicate?" Indian nymphs in their native dress were later to charm William Bartram, and through him William Wordsworth. William may well have learned some of his method from Josselyn; certainly his attitude is similar to that of the earlier writer. In any case his remarks may have led young Bartram to want to see these nymphs for himself. Josselyn starts off with a flourish: Now (gentle Reader) having trespassed upon your patience a long while in the perusing of these rude observations, I shall to make your ainmends, present you by way of Divertisement, or Recreation, with a Copy of Verses made sometimes since upon the Picture of a young and handsome Gypsie, not improperly transferred upon the Indian Squa, or Female Indian, tricked up in all her bravery. The men are somewhat Horse Fac'd, and generally Paucius, i. e., without beards; but the Women many of them have very good Features; seldom without a Come to me, or Cos Amoris, in their Countenance; all of them black eyed, having even short Teeth, and very white; their Hair black, thick and long, broad Breasted; handsome straight Bodies, and slender, considering their loose habit: Their limbs cleanly, straight, and of a convenient stature, generally as plump as Partridges, and saving here and there one, of a modest deportment. The poem is remarkable neither for literary excellence nor especial good taste. Nor are either of Josselyn's books on America valuable as accurate records. Josselyn's taste, like Desdemona's, was for marvels—strange beasts and men. But the book, unlike John Bartram's journals of travel, makes an attempt to be literary. When some years later William came to write on travel, he too strove to be literary. On the subject of Indian nymphs, he is much more poetic than Josselyn: We . . . began to ascend the hills of a ridge which we were under the necessity of crossing, and having gained its summit, enjoyed a most enchanting view, a vast expanse of green meadows and strawberry fields; a meandering river gliding through,

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saluting in its various turnings the swelling, green, turfy knolls, embellished with parterres of flowers and fruitful strawberry beds; flocks of turkies strolling about them; herds of deer prancing in the meads or bounding over the hills; companies of young, innocent Cherokee virgins, some busily gathering the rich fragrant fruit, others having already filled their baskets, lay reclined under the shade of floriferous and fragrant native bowers of Magnolia, Azalea, Philadelphus, perfumed Calycanthus, sweet Yellow Jessamine and cerulian Glycine frutescens, disclosing their beauties to the fluttering breeze, and bathing their limbs in the cool fleeting streams; whilst other parties, more gay and libertine, were yet collecting strawberries or wantonly chasing their companions, tantalising them, staining their lips and cheeks with the rich fruit. This sylvan scene of primitive innocence was enchanting, and perhaps too enticing for hearty young men long to continue idle spectators. In fine, nature prevailing over reason, we wished at least to have a more active part in their delicious sports. Thus precipitately resolving, we cautiously made our approaches, yet undiscovered, almost to the joyous scene of action. N o w although we meant no other than an innocent frolic with this gay assembly of hamadryads, we shall leave it to the person of feeling and sensibility to form an idea to what lengths our passions might have hurried us, thus warmed and excited, had it not been for the vigilance and care of some envious matrons who lay in ambush, and espying us gave the alarm, time enough for the nymphs to rally and assemble together; we however pursued and gained ground on a group of them, who had incautiously strolled to a greater distance from their guardians, and finding their retreat cut off, took shelter under cover of a little grove, but on perceiving themselves to be discovered by us, kept their station, peeping through the bushes; when observing our approaches, they confidently discovered themselves and decently advanced to meet us, half unveiling their blooming faces, incarnated with the modest maiden blush, and with native innocence and cheerfulness, presented their little baskets, merrily telling us their fruit was ripe and sound. W e accepted a basket, sat down and regaled ourselves with the delicious fruit, encircled by the whole assembly of the innocently jocose sylvan nymphs; by this time the several parties under the conduct of the elder matrons, had disposed themselves in companies on the green, turfy banks.

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. . . and now taking leave of these Elysian fields, w e again mounted the hills, which we crossed, and traversing obliquely, their flowery beds, arriving in town in the cool of the evening. 1 Nothing about this passage is more remarkable than its unlikeness to anything John ever wrote. Whatever else William got from his father, he did not get the style nor the Rousseauistic attitude toward Indians. T h e style is easier to account for than the doctrines of the noble savage. Its ultimate source is the pseudo-classic literature of England. W e have seen that Pope and Addison were known to John Bartram, and that the libraries he used contained pseudoclassic writers. William too knew his Pope, for in his papers appears the famous quotation: " T h e proper study of Mankind is man." And to his nephew he wrote: "Remember that line of the Poet, which thee pointed out to me as beautiful. Hills peep o'er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise." There was, however, a pseudo-classic school nearer home. Its chief exponents were young men of about William's age: Thomas G o d f r e y , Jr., and Bartram's schoolfellows, Jacob Duché, Francis Hopkinson, and Nathaniel Evans. T h e y were all members of the literary and artistic group which centered around Provost William Smith. In 1754 Franklin had secured Smith, who had attended the University of Aberdeen, to take charge of the new Academy, which the following year was chartered as a college with the power to grant degrees. T h e new Provost, brilliant, energetic, contentious, became the com1 William Bartram, Travels, etc., Philadelphia, 1791, pp. 356-58. Cf. Wordsworth's 'Ruth,' 11. 49-55 'He told of girls—a happy rout! W h o quit their fold with dance and shout, Their pleasant Indian town, T o gather strawberries all day long; Returning with a choral song W h e n daylight is gone down.' T h e poet, however added the admonition: Such tales as told to any maid By such a youth, in the green shade W e r e perilous to hear.'

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panion of his pupils as well as their teacher. In 1757

helped

to found a review, The American Magazine and Monthly

Chron-

icle for the British Colonies.

It was printed b y Franklin's old

rivals, the Bradfords, " f o r a society of gentlemen" consisting of Smith and the y o u n g men he drew about him at the college. T h e material, in addition to scientific and philosophical articles, included original poems and essays. F o r some reason Bartram seems to have written nothing for the magazine—possibly because the Bartrams were loyal to Franklin, whereas Smith enthusiastically joined with the Penns in attacking him. William could not, however, have avoided being influenced b y this literary movement. T y p i c a l of the g r o w i n g tendency for Philadelphia to become literary as well as scientific and practical is the career of Francis Hopkinson. T w o years older than Bartram, he was also the son of a founder of the Philosophical Society, Thomas Hopkinson, Franklin's co-worker in electricity. Y o u n g Hopkinson composed music, dabbled in science, studied painting, and wrote essays and humorous verse. His amusing paper, "Whitewashing," a satire on Philadelphia customs, is in the best Addisonian tradition; his "Battle of the K e g s " is neat satirical verse. Pseudo-classic characteristics are even more marked in the w o r k of Thomas G o d f r e y , Jr., and Nathaniel Evans. T h e i r poems, the first of which appeared in the American

Magazine,

are full of swains and nymphs; personification abounds, and there are numerous references to G r e e k and Roman deities. T h e elder G o d f r e y had used his k n o w l e d g e of astronomy in the invention of the mariner's quadrant; Thomas Jr. transposed his into verse: Astronomy with proud, aspiring eye G a z d on the glowing beauties of the sky. Her vest with glitt'ring stars was spangled o'er A n d in her hand a telescope she bore; W i t h this she marks the rolling planets sway O r where portentous comets dreadful stray.

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Godfrey was also the author of The Prince of Parthia, the first play by an American writer to be presented by professional actors on any American stage. Among the twenty-four subscribers to an edition of his works published in 1765 was William Bartram, Jr., of Cape Fear, N. C. Whether this is the Philadelphia William, who was living there at the time, or his cousin, is not clear. As Godfrey himself was living in Wilmington, N. C., for several years until his death in 1763, it is probable that William introduced him to his North Carolina relatives. Nathaniel Evans, Bartram's schoolmate, wrote at the age of sixteen a Pastoral Eclogue, the style of which is closely allied to Bartram's own. He began his poem thus: Shall fam'd arcadia own the tuneful choir And fair Sicilia boast the matchless lyre? Shall Gallia's groves resound the heav'nly lays, And Albion's poets claim immortal bays? And this new world ne'er feel the muse's fire; No beauties charm us, or no deeds inspire? O Pennsylvania, shall no son of thine Glow with the raptures of the sacred nine? Fired with the thought, I court the sylvan muse, Her magic influence o'er me to diffuse, Whilst I aspire to wake the rural reed And sing of swains whose snowy lambkins feed On Schuylkill's banks with shady walnuts crown'd, And bid the vales with music melt around. It would seem that at the Academy the pseudo-classic technique was in high favor. As a matter of fact, Franklin, who says he modeled his own style on that of the Spectator, proposed that in the new Academy: "The English Language might be taught by Grammar, in which some of the best Writers, as Tillotson, Addison, Pope, Algernon Sidney, Cato's Letters, 8tc should be Classicks." William Bartram entered the Academy in 1752 and was there

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for about four years. There were at that time over a hundred scholars and at least six masters. The reason that John sent his son to the new Academy rather than to the Friends' School (now Penn Charter) is probably that the board of trustees at the time included Drs. Thomas and Phineas Bond, Thomas Hopkinson, and Benjamin Franklin, all co-founders with Bartram of the Philosophical Society. An important member of the faculty was Charles Thomson, who taught Greek and Latin. Both Thomson's revolutionary principles and his friendship for the Indians seem to have influenced young Bartram. In 1757 Thomson was sent to Easton to treat with the Indians. His protests against the unfairness of the whites, particularly their policy of keeping Chief Tedyuscung drunk, led the Delawares to adopt him as "the man who tells the truth." He says that his admission to Indian councils gave him an opportunity of presenting any inquiries, and gaining some knowledge of their internal policy, customs, and manners. His remarks on these subjects were later published by his friend Thomas Jefferson as an appendix to Notes on Virginia. Particularly does he attack the ideas of Buffon on the American Indian. William Bartram's attitude is much more like Thomson's than it is like that of his father. Like Thomson he studied customs and manners, and protested against the unfairness of the whites. Both are careful to distinguish the characteristics of various tribes. Thomson's political activities led the Continental Congress to choose him secretary, a position he held for fifteen years. John Adams referred to him as "the Sam Adams of Philadelphia, the life of the cause of liberty." The anonymous writer of an obituary of William Bartram says that he was of republican principles, and that he got them from Charles Thomson. 2 Thomson's abilities as a classical scholar were considerable. After his retirement from public life, he devoted seventeen years to making a translation of the Bible from the Greek. This 2 Pamphlet 1166, Miscellanea X L I I I , American Philosophical Society. (J. H . Barnhart in his 'Bartram Bibliography' lists J . Doughty as the writer.)

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translation was favorably received by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, and in many cases anticipates the readings of the Revised Version of 1881. With tutors like Thomson and Smith, it is not remarkable that William Bartram shows considerable knowledge of the classics, at least for the purposes of literary allusion. His father wrote to Collinson in 1755 that Billy "is constantly kept to school, to learn Latin and French." But these were not the studies that chiefly interested young Bartram. "Botany and drawing are his darling delight," wrote his father; "am afraid he can't settle to any business else." When Billy was only fourteen, his drawings had won the praise of Collinson. He devoted Sundays to this occupation, a most unusual procedure in an eighteenth-century Quaker household. T w o or three years later he began to make drawings of American birds for the English ornithologist, George Edwards. John wrote to Collinson in 1756: Billy is much obliged to thee f o r his drawing paper. He has drawn many rare birds, in order to send thee; and dried the birds to send to his friend Edwards, to whom he is much obliged f o r those two curious books. He spent his time, this spring, in shooting and drawing the rare birds of quick passage, which stayed with us but a f e w days, to rest and fill their bellies, on their flight northward, where they breed; as he observed, by the hens having immature eggs in them, which their quick passage through our country before, rendered them unobserved. Thus in addition to learning to draw, William got his training as one of the first American authorities on birds. Dr. Witmer Stone told me that Edwards' History of Birds was used by Linnasus in his work on ornithology, and that Edwards' pictures of William's dried birds and reproductions of William's own drawings were Linnaeus' source of his information on American birds. Billy's skill in drawing and painting brought him other E u ropean patrons. Collinson and his son were particularly delighted with one drawing: " S o great was the deception, it being

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candle-light, that we disputed for some time whether it was an engraving or a drawing. It is really a noble piece of pencilwork; and the skill of the artist is shown in following nature in her progressive operations." With his usual interest in the welfare of others, Collinson showed some drawings to Lord Bute; C. D. Ehret, an artist; the Duchess of Portland; and Dr. Fothergill. The Duchess sent twenty guineas and an order for more work. Dr. Fothergill asked for drawings of shells and turtles. "Set all thy wits to work, to gratify so deserving a patron," admonished Collinson. John Bartram, although rather proud of his son's attainments, was worried over the fact that they would not gain him a livelihood. He discussed the problem with Franklin and Collinson. Although William had gone to the Philadelphia Academy, his father had small sympathy with the aristocratic tendencies there. As he told Collinson, he did not want Billy to become "what is commonly called a gentleman." Young Francis Hopkinson might study law and write essays in imitation of Arbuthnot, Swift, and Addison; Billy's friend, Nathaniel Evans, might compose pastoral poetry and study for the ministry; the glazier's son, Thomas Godfrey, Jr., might imitate Chaucer's poetry and write plays; but John wanted his son to follow the advice of Poor Richard and earn a reasonable living by carefulness and industry. Bartram, whose own tastes were for medicine and surgery, told Collinson that he had for several years been planning for Billy to become a doctor, but that would take the boy from "his drawing which he takes particular delight in." Did Peter have anything to suggest? Next he considered surveying as an occupation which would give his son a chance to continue botanical study, but remarked, "we have five times more surveyors already than can get half employ." Franklin suggested that Billy become a printer, and Collinson heartily concurred. John with his usual business shrewdness objected, telling Benjamin, "that, as he well knew, he was the only printer that did ever make a good livelihood by it, in this place. . . . He sate and paused awhile, then said

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that there was a profitable business which he thought was now upon the increase; that there was a very ingenious man in town, who had more business than he could well manage himself, and that was engraving; and which he thought would suit Billy well." This discussion took place in the spring of 1756. Apparently Billy was not settled until the next year, when John wrote that he was working for Captain Child, a Philadelphia merchant. None of John's other children appears so frequently in his letters, either because Billy was his favorite, or because he was more trouble. Moses, however, occasionally got into difficulties. He made a trip to England as a sailor. T h e ship was sold, so that he had no way of getting home. Collinson tried to help the boy, who was willing to work f o r his passage either to Philadelphia or N e w York, but he refused to permit Moses to hire himself as a sailor on an English vessel going to the West Indies. London common sailors were, according to Collinson, a most profligate crew. He finally fitted Moses up with clothes, and paid his passage to Philadelphia. Apparently Moses continued to follow the sea without any great success, for in 1756 Collinson wrote: "Poor Moses has been trembling and tumbling about the world. Inclosed is his letter from Gibraltar." And in 1763: "Where is poor William and Moses? As for John, I find he is our right hand man. H o w happy is it to have children of so agreeable a cast." T h e foregoing reference to John, Jr., as well as others, indicates that he had some interest in botany. Collinson wrote: " I am glad to find the spirit of Elijah rests upon him." John replied: " M y John is a worthy, sober, industrious son, and delights in plants." John, although he was William's junior, inherited his father's garden, 3 probably because of William's complete lack of business ability. In earlier years, however, William was the son on whom John 3

In 1753 John deeded 64 acres of the farm bought from Andrew Jonason, to John, Jr. Deed Bk. D 70, p. 444. The Garden was deeded in 1771.

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planned to cast his mantle. When the boy was only fourteen, Bartram initiated him as a botanical traveler by taking him to the Catskills, as we have seen. In 1755 he again took William, this time to Killingsworth, Connecticut, where they visited Jared Eliot. With them was Dr. Alison, professor of the higher classics, logic, metaphysics, and geography at the College of Philadelphia. Franklin sent a letter with them, addressed to his friend Eliot: I wrote to you yesterday, and now I write again. You will say, It can't rain, but it pours; for I not only send you Tttanuscript, but living letters. T h e former may be short, but the latter will be longer and yet more agreeable. Mr. Bartram, I believe, you will find to be at least twenty folio pages, large paper well filled, on the subjects of botany, fossils, husbandry, and the first creation. This Mr. Alison is as many more on agriculture, philosophy, your own Catholic divinity, and various other points of learning equally useful and engaging. Read them both. It will take you at least a week; and then answer, by sending me two of the like kind, or by coming yourself. On this journey they also visited Professor Stiles at Newport who said of Alison: "He is the greatest classical scholar in America, especially in Greek—not great in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Astronomy, but in Ethics, History, and general reading, is a great literary character." Eliot, too, was an interesting person. He was graduated from Yale in 1706, and soon after was ordained. While serving as minister at Killingsworth he studied botany and practised scientific agriculture. In addition he became the first physician in the colony. He discovered a process of extracting iron from black sand. T h e location of his home on the road from Boston to N e w York made it a stopping place for men of distinction, particularly Franklin. Benjamin Gale, Eliot's son-in-law, was also a friend of Bartram's. He too had qualifications that must have made his conversation instructive. A graduate of Yale in 1773, he became a physician and agriculturist. He was greatly interested in politics, but found time to invent the drill plow, write a Disserta-

W I L L I A M BARTRAM

95

tion on the Prophecies, and publish a Treatise on Inoculation for the Small-pox. T h e very difficulty of travel and of meeting seem to have led the intellectual men of those days to keep in touch with one another. Another noteworthy characteristic is the mixture of scholarship and practicality shown by so many of them. John Bartram was too much of the eighteenth century to have developed one side of his nature at the expense of all others. Combined with his practicality and his science, he had a keen love of beauty. So, in addition to seeking plants, he never overlooked a picturesque scene. Writing to Collinson about this trip, he reported that on the way home he had traveled in the back country, and had crossed the Hudson below the Highlands in order to show William the falls of the Passaic River, which John much admired. F e w men have been so fortunate as was William Bartram in getting exactly the right training for his appointed task. Such a journey, and the association with such men, does much to explain how it was that some years later he was able to make his w a y safely through the Florida wilderness alone, and then write the Travels with its mixture of science and poetry.

IX

WHAT A SURPRISING FOUNTAIN! They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and tum again. R. W . Emerson:

BRAHMA.

r^ r^ r^ r^ r^ r^ r^ r^ r^ r- r^

r^^

FOR the next ten years William apparently did not accompany his father on botanical tours. Part of that time he was with Captain Child. In 1761 he went to Cape Fear, N. C., where his uncle, William Bartram, Sr., was living. There he set up as a merchant. At the same time, his cousin Billy left Cape Fear to live with John Bartram while he went to school in Philadelphia. This exchange may have lessened the confusion of having three William Bartrams in Cape Fear, but it is little help to the reader of their letters. One reason for leaving Philadelphia seems to have been failure in business. A letter of John's to his son gives some clues as to the situation: . . . My dear child I have no advice to give thee but to remember thee of my former general instructions: fear God and walk humbly before him; practice all virtues and eschew all vice; take care of being beguiled by vain recreations that are like the hornets hath a sting in their tail, but keep close to industry, temperance and frugality; thee hath left a good character behind in town; pray don't forget it. Now is the time to gain it there and establish it in both provinces by making good remittances to thy creditors here. Be complasant and obliging to all so far as consistent with thy credit and no honest man will desire more. T h y master and mistress gives thee an extraordinary good word and laments their loss as one of their family. I have thy welfare much at heart. Take thy uncle's advice; he is both capable and I doubt not, willing to advice thee [illegible] best as to thy general conduct, but in the perticular branch of marchandise thee ought to know best but I think it might be well if thee would at convenient times pay a complaisant visit to the Governor and most of the chief persons, letting them know that thee art come into their country in the way of trade, and that thee would if thee 96

W H A T A SURPRISING F O U N T A I N !

97

could make a suitable remittance, settle such a correspondence at Philadelphia or London as thee might be enabled to furnish them with any goods thay wanted. . . . At first William was happy in his new location. His uncle wrote that: "Bille thinks himself fatter and hartier than ever in his life before." And William wrote that he enjoyed his uncle's conversation. However, his business did not prosper. John wished he could "gain credit, as Isaac and Moses have. They began with a little, and have unexpectedly dropped into fine business . . ." It was unlikely that the self-effacing William took his father's advice about calling on influential persons. He was a poet and a dreamer rather than a man of action. Numerous letters hint at his neglect of various duties. George Edwards wrote to ask if William ever got his valuable illustrated work, Gleanings of Natural History, which had been sent a year and a half before. Young Bartram had evidently failed to acknowledge it. He even failed to sends seeds to his father from Carolina. And some years later Dr. Fothergill complained of William's failure to send seeds and plants from Florida, although his expenses there were being paid for that purpose. After he had been in North Carolina about a year, William started back to Philadelphia. Having been very seasick on the way down, he returned on horseback. He seems to have been uncertain whether he would stay in Philadelphia or return to Cape Fear. Although he might not succeed in business, William never failed to make friends. The Childs in Philadelphia had been loath to part with him; his uncle wrote to John that parting with "Bille this day felt harder to me than the parting with my own son." His chief comfort was the hope that William would return and live at Cape Fear after his affairs were settled in Philadelphia. He repeated this hope in an anxious postscript. That same autumn William was back at Cape Fear with a present of some reading matter for his uncle. John mentioned it in a letter to Collinson: "I can't find thy amphibious creature, that thee published in the Magazine. My Billy has stole two

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from me to carry to his uncle at Cape Fear; perhaps it is one of them." William had a great affection for his uncle's estate. Years later in his Travels he described the house as standing on a bluff seventy feet above the river, with a magnificent view of forests and cane meadows. But there was more than scenery to attract him to Cape Fear. In a letter written when he was more than fifty, he told his cousin: . . . don't doubt my assertion when I tell you that Time, vicicitudes of Fortune, tribulation; I may say indeed the decripitude of old age, are not sufficient to erace from my mind those impressions which it received during my residence in my Unkles family in No. Carolina; Dreams by Night, or serious reveres by day, often present to my emagination striking scenes of past transactions which occurred to me in your delightful country, and be asured that thou my cousin art the foremost pleasing object in these Ideal paintings. For altho our pastimes were of the most Innocent and simple nature such as amuse Brothers, Sisters and Friends, yet they have sufficient impressions to be often recollected. However I must confess that now I am grown old, and consequently more sensible of the cold & frowns of our Winters, it is generally in the autumn and Winter that these Juvenile Landskips or your fine temperate & flowery regions (where reigns Spring eternal) present to view and seem to becken me to return nearer the Meridian. . . . I am with every sentiment of regard and esteem Your much obliged Friend and Relation W M . BARTRAM.

The manuscript gives no clue of the name of the cousin, but it happens that only one was then alive. This was Mary Bartram Robeson, who was, at the time of William's letter, a widow. It seems very much as if William fell in love with his cousin Mary, as well as with the South. An unsuccessful love affair would help to explain why he never married, and why he buried himself for four years in the wilderness. Here may be another of the many strangely assorted elements that went into the making of the Travels.

WHAT

A SURPRISING

FOUNTAIN!

99

N o r was John Bartram done with his part in the structure. Collinson wrote April 9, 1765, telling of John's appointment as King's Botanist. On June 7, John wrote to William at Cape Fear, offering him a chance to go along to Florida, and saying that he was leaving Philadelphia in two or three weeks. So great was his haste to get started that Collinson protested, saying he should have waited until he had received sufficient funds. Also as John was sixty-six years old, Peter "ordered" him to take along either a servant or William. John's letter from Charleston brought further protests from Peter: " I wish thou may temper thy zeal with prudence, but I do not think it an instance of it, when thou and Mrs. Lamboll rambled in the intense heat of a midday sun. Perhaps it was to procure thee a seasoning." As a matter of fact John did become ill, and Peter urged him to return home. William joined him at Charleston and shortly afterwards John was writing from Savannah to " M y Dear Spouse" saying that, " W e are now hearty, and have a good stomach." Thomas Lamboll wrote to John, Jr., that his father and brother left Charleston August 29, on their w a y through Georgia to East Florida. "Both of them were then in good health and spirits, proposing not to exceed the last of September, in their researches through the woods, on account of a Congress that is to be held at Augustine the 1st of October." T h e following February they were still in Florida. John's journal 1 covers only their travels between December 19 and February 12, chiefly the journey up the St. John's River. A letter to Collinson gives some account of how they put in the rest of the time: I hope what specimens I sent for thyself will give thee great pleasure, as many of them are entirely new; the collecting of which hath cost thy friend many score pounds, pains and sickness, which held me constantly near or quite two months; in Florida the fever and jaundice; and a looseness through North and South Carolina, and Georgia; yet somehow or other, I lost 1 A Description of East Florida, etc. London 1769. (The manuscript journal at the Penna. Hist. Soc., however, begins July 1, 1765.)

IOO

JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM

not an hour's time of travelling through those provinces; and when at Augustine, with the fever and jaundice, I travelled both by water and land all round the town for many miles, and to Picolata, to the Congress, although so weak as hard set to get up to bed; and during the meeting of the Governor and Indians, in the Pavilion, I was forced to sit or lie down upon the ground, close by its side, that I might observe what passed. The disease may have been typhoid fever with jaundice as an aftermath. On the way home he was dreadfully seasick. In spite of all this, however, his curiosity was undiminished. His journal records: weather conditions; characteristics of the soil at many places; Indian remains; unusual springs; new varieties of plants; a description of St. Augustine; suitable locations for forts; the Indians' way of eating oranges with honey; the mechanism of an alligator's jaws; and of course a rattlesnake. He kept a daily record of weather conditions until, climbing a tree after honey, he broke his thermometer. According to William, his father, after leaving St. Augustine, traveled by land to the banks of the St. John's River, embarked at Picolata and ascended the stream about four hundred miles to its sources. He ascended the river on one side and returned by the other, exploring on the way the various branches and connected lakes. These he mapped, showing the length, breadth, and depth of each, as well as of the main stream. It is characteristic of William's modesty that he does not mention his own part in the expedition. William seems to have considered this his father's most important journev. At least, it is the only one he described in detail in the biographic sketch of John in Barton's Medical and Physical Journal. Certainly it had more influence on William than any he had made up to that time. As we learn from John's account, it was then they first saw many of the things his son was later to re-describe in the Travels. For so much did this territory attract William that he went back over the same route eight or nine years later. John's Description of East Florida is therefore a kind of first draft of parts of the Travels. There are the same floating islands

W H A T A SURPRISING FOUNTAIN!

IOI

of Pistia and water grass which Chateaubriand put in Atala; the magnolias which appear in Wordsworth's Ruth; and the jetting fountains from which flows the "Sacred River" Alph of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan." The literary history of these fountains is a strange one. Here is what John Bartram saw: . . . coasting the east-side, we soon came to a creek, up which we rode a mile, in 4 and 6 foot water, and 30 yards broad, of the colour of the sea, smelled like bilge water, tasting sweetish and loathsome, warm and very clear, but a whitish matter adhered to the fallen trees near the bottom; the spring head about 30 yards broad, and boils up from the bottom like a pot; plummed it and found four or five fathom water; multitudes of fish resort to its head, as very large gar and several other sorts; the alligators very numerous. . . . What a surprising fountain must it be, to furnish such a stream, and what a great space of ground must be taken up in the pine-lands, ponds, savannahs, and swamps, to support and maintain so constant a fountain, continually boiling up right from under the deep rocks, which continue under most part of the country at uncertain depths? And at another place he found a flow of water . . . very convenient to turn a mill. . . . three of the heads boil up like a pot in a pure white sand, every minute it boils up about the surface of the common pond or bason, then the surrounding sand slips into the cavity, which presses down the spring until the water below is collected from the back underground stream so strong as to force the sand and water above the common surface, so that there is a continual periodical motion. . . . Near Spalding's Lower Store, at the end of Lake George, he "came to the main spring, where a prodigious quantity of very clear warm brackish water boiled up between vast rocks of unknown depth." When, several years later, William went back over this same territory, he may have had among the books he carried A Description of East Florida with a Journal kept by John Bartram of Philadelphia. Either that, or he had his father's book by heart,

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for he remembered the names given by John to various places. And in describing one of these same springs, he used some of his father's exact language: The water is perfectly diaphanous, and here are continually a prodigious number and variety of fish; they appear as plain as though lying on a table before your eyes, although many feet deep in the water. The tepid water has a most disagreeable taste, brass and vitriolic, and very offensive to the smell, much like bilge water or the washings of a gun-barrel, and is smelt at a great distance. A pale bluish or pearl coloured substance that lies in the water, as logs, limbs or trees, &c. Alligators and gar were numerous in the bason, even at the aperatures where the ebulition emerges through the rocks, as also many other tribes of fish.2 Likewise William again visited the spring near Spalding's Lower Store: . . . in front, just under my feet was the enchanting and amazing chrystal fountain, which incessantly threw up, from the dark, rocky caverns below, tons of water every minute, forming a bason, capacious enough for large shallops to ride in, and a creek of four or five feet depth of water, near twenty yards over, which meanders six miles through green meadows, pouring its limpid waters into the great Lake George, where they seem to remain pure and unmixed. About twenty yards from the upper edge of the bason, and directly opposite to the mouth or outlet of the creek, is a continual and amazing ebullition, where the waters are thrown up in such abundance and amazing force, as to jet and swell up two or three feet about the common surface: white sand and small particles of shells are thrown up with the waters, near to the top, when they diverge from the center, subside with the expanding flood, and gently sink again. . . . This fountain, along with others described by William, was, as Professor Lowes has abundantly shown, the source of a still more famous description. Before he dreamed "Kubla Khan," Coleridge had been reading the above description. It is not strange then that his language echoes and reechoes Bartram: 2

(Italics mine, to indicate phrasing similar to John Bartram's account.)

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And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething. As if the earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail; And 'mid these dancing rocks at once,and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean. Behind Coleridge's fountain is William Bartram's, and behind William's is the ghost of John's. The very fact that, as Professor Lowes says, "Bartram was inordinately fond of letting himself go on the subject of ebullient fountains" is partly due to a similar fondness of John's. Few things in John's book are given as much attention as the fountains. He was in Florida chiefly to study plants, but his love of the strange and the picturesque was strong. In his Table Talk, long after he first read the Travels, Coleridge remarked: "The latest book of travels I know, written in the spirit of the old travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the Floridas." No small part of that "spirit of the old travellers" is traceable to John Bartram.

X

THE WANDERER How many the fictitious shores Before the harbor lie. Emily Dickinson: i M A N Y T I M E S THOUGHT

PEACE

B A R T R A M did not return home with his father; nor did he go back to North Carolina. Whether this was because he found the exotic scenery of Florida more to his taste, or because of an unhappy love affair in North Carolina, is impossible to determine. Certainly it was not John's idea. In June 1766 he wrote to Collinson: WILLIAM

I have left my son Billy in Florida. Nothing will do with him now, but he will be a planter upon St. John's River, about twenty-four miles from Augustine, and six from the Fort of Picolata. This frolic of his, and our maintenance, hath drove me to great straits; so that I was forced to draw upon thee, at Augustine, and twice at Charleston. As Collinson owed John several hundred pounds, the latter's irritation was due less to financial problems than to a sense that William's scheme was foolish. He could afford to help his son, but he had worked too hard for money to throw it away lightly. In August he again wrote to Collinson, thanking him for accepting a bill of over 150 pounds drawn at St. Augustine, and asking the acceptance of two more. Furthermore John wanted to know how their accounts stood. All or most of the money was used to finance William's indigo plantation—or as John feared was "thrown away." In contrast to his usual behavior was William's stubborn refusal to take anyone's advice. So set was he on adopting a hermit-like existence that, much to his father's disgust, he turned down a chance to become draughtsman for a Mr. De Br who was making a survey of Florida. This would have given him an excellent opportunity to explore the country 104

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and study its productions: exactly the things that a few years later he passionately longed to do—alone. John's fears about his son's success as a planter were only too well justified. That same month his friend Henry Laurens wrote from Charleston: Since you left Carolina, I have prosecuted my long-intended voyage and journey through the southern parts of this country, and Georgia, to East Florida; and was near five weeks in the last mentioned province; in which time I thrice visited the River St. John . . . and you may be sure I did not carelessly pass by your son's habitation. I called upon him twice; and as a confirmation of it, you will find enclosed in this, a letter from him, wrote after my second visit. Your knowledge of that country, together with the addition of Mr. William Bartram's remarks upon his further experience, renders it unnecessary, as it would be unedifying, for me to trouble you with my few general observations; but I hope you will not think me quite impertinent, if I detain you to say a word or two touching the particular situation and circumstances of that poor young man; and the less so, when you know it is done partly at his request. His situation on the river is the least agreeable of all the places that I have seen—on a low sheet of sandy pine barren, verging on the swamp, which before his door is very narrow, in a bight or cove of the river, so shoal, and covered with umbrellas, that the common current is lost and the water almost stagnated, exceedingly foul, and absolutely stank, when stirred up by our oars, on both days of my landing there, though, at the same times, the river was said to be rather high, and the stream running down strong, beyond the cove. This, I should think, must make the place always unhealthy, as well as troublesome to come at by water carriage, especially in dry seasons. The swamp and adjoining marsh which I walked into, will without doubt, produce good rice, when properly cleared and cultivated; but both seem to be narrow, and will require more strength to put them in tolerable order, than Mr. Bartram is at present possessed of, to make any progress above daily bread, and that of a coarse kind, too. There is some cypress, which if he had a little more strength, he might soon convert into shingles and ready money. The pine land (I am sorry to differ in opinion with you) is

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very ordinary; indeed I saw none good in the whole country; but that piece of his may justly be ranked in an inferior class, even there. A t my first visit, your son showed me the growth of some peas, beans, corn, and yams, planted only four days before, in the sand on the swamp edge, which then looked very flourishing; but when I called three weeks after, although there had been much rain in the mean time, the progress was barely perceptible; a remark that we both concurred in. I found that he had, according to my advice, continued to clear the swamp, and in that time cut down part of an acre of trees; but that sort of work goes on very heavily, f o r want of strong hands. He assured me that he had but two, among the six negroes that you gave him, that could handle an axe tolerably; and one of those two had been exceedingly insolent. I encouraged and pressed him to put a little rice in the ground, even at that late day (5th or 6th J u l y ) ; and he promised to do so the day following. T h e house, or rather hovel, that he lives in, is extremely confined, and not proof against the weather. He has not the proper assistance to make a better, and from its situation is very hot, the only disagreeably hot place that I found in East Florida; but it should be remarked that the weather has been uncommonly temperate. His provision of grain, flesh, and spirits, is scanty, even to penury, the latter article very much so. His own health is very imperfect. He had the fever when I was first with him, and looked very poorly the second visit. I am determined, b y the next conveyance, to send him a little rum, wine, sugar, tea, cheese, biscuit, and other trifles, and charge the small amount to your account; though I would most freefy give him the whole, but f o r fear that you should take it amiss. Possibly, sir, your son, though a worthy, ingenious man, may not have resolution, or not that sort of resolution, that is necessary to encounter the difficulties incident to, and unavoidable in his present state of life. Y o u and I, probably, could surmount all those hardships without much chagrin. I verily believe that I could. But, at the same time, I protest that I should think it less grievous to disinherit m y own son, and turn him into the wide world, if he was of a tender and delicate frame of body and intellects, as yours seems to be, than to restrict him, in my favour, just in the state that your son is reduced to. This is no doubt more than ever you apprehended; and admitting that m y account is in part erroneous, (which I do not admit, meaning to

THE WANDERER

speak nothing but the truth) yet the general outlines of the foregoing description must affect and grieve you. But it is by no means my design or intention to compass any particular end by colouring too strongly. In fact according to my ideas, no colouring can do justice to the forlorn state of poor Billy Bartram. A gentle, mild young man, no wife, no friend, no companion, no neighbour, no human inhabitant within nine miles of him, the nearest by water, no boat to come at them, and those only common soldiers seated upon a beggarly spot of land, scant of the bare necessaries, and totally void of all the comforts of life, except an inimitable degree of patience, for which he deserves a thousand times better fate; an unpleasant, unhealthy situation; six negroes, rather plagues than aids to him, of whom one is so insolent as to threaten his life, one a useless expense, one a helpless child in arms; . . . distant thirty long miles from the metropolis, no money to pay the expense of a journey there upon the most important occasions, over a road always bad, and in wet weather wholly impassible, to which might be enumerated a great many smaller, and perhaps some imaginary evils, the natural offspring of so many substantial ones; these, I say, are discouragements enough to break the spirits of any modest young man; and more than any man should be exposed to, without his own free acceptance, unless his crimes had been so great as to merit a state of exile. I had been informed, indeed, before my visit to Mr. W . B., that he had felt the pressure of his solitary and hopeless condition so heavily as almost to drive him to despondency. He expressed an inclination to decamp from the place that I have endeavoured to describe; but was supported by the advice of a friend, to wait until he should see me, who was then daily expected in East Florida. He did not open his mind so fully to myself; but rather modestly appealed to me, upon his circumstances and situation, accompanying his complaints with the most dutiful and affectionate mention of his father, to whom he requested I would take some notice of them in my next letter: in answer to which I gave him my sentiments very candidly, encouraging him at the same time to persevere until he should hear from you. . . . A f t e r this account of your son's circumstances, I might add a list of several necessary articles besides exchange of good negroes, in place of almost useless ones, that are wanting and will be wanted to mend them a little; but no doubt he has given some needful hints on that head, and if his modesty has restrained his pen, you will, if you pay any regard to what I have been

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so bold as to write upon so slight an acquaintance as ours, cheerfully and quickly give orders to supply him with such things as shall be necessary to make his banishment less galling, and present him with some prospect of reaping the fruits of his labours. From some of the statements in this letter, it would seem that John, after financing his son's foolish scheme, had told him that he must lie in the bed he had made. However, by the end of the year, or the first of 1767, William was again at home. Collinson as usual, after giving advice, devoted his energies to aiding his friends. He wrote that he was "much concerned for William's unsteady conduct. Nothing but marrying will settle him. With a prudent, discreet woman, he may return to Florida, and amend his conduct." He particularly recommended a farmer's daughter. With her, Billy was advised "to return to his estate, and set his shoulders heartily to work to improve it. A moderate industry goes a great way, too (in so fine a climate) to supply the belly, as little is wanting for the back." But, as he told William: "I can truly say I have never had thee long from my mind, and watched for any opening that might prove advantageous." He sent a guinea for some drawings, and, as we have seen, showed the work to influential friends. For a time, however, William's fortunes continued at low ebb. He became a day laborer. This much disturbed Collinson, who hoped "his virtuous mind will support him under it," and that his industry and humility would be rewarded. Such was not the result. A letter from John, April 25, 1771, tells the story: Dear Son Billy I received thy letter of September about three months after the date & never heard the least account of thee after thee left us so unaturaly. But it was satisfaction to hear where thee was but it concerned us to hear of Cousen William's death in the prime of life. I have sent thy chest to town to put on board of Captain Dyer. W e have prevailed on thy Creditors to take one hundred pounds ready cash & give a full discharge forever & George Bartram hath paid it on my account; he also paid that

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troublesome man who threatened thee on his own account, I think the day before thee went away. All thy papers is to be sent according to thy desire. W e are as well as when thee left us, but my sight is much worse, but my brother James is very poorly 8c very likely to go off soon; has not had one well day since thee went away. I expect thy brothers will write more fully; its with difficulty I can see to write at all. W e have had the most constant winds & high tides I ever knew hath tore our banks from end to end, so that they want to be got in good order again this year. T h y brother John hath passed one meeting & intends to pass the other in a f e w days. T h y mother joyns with me in love to thee, sister and cousins 8c remain & remain thy loving parents. JOHN

BARTRAM

T h e key of thy chest is taken to town & is to be enclosed in the letter by Grace or Moses. It was this same year that John deeded his beloved garden to John, J r . For the next two years William apparently stayed at Cape Fear. Dr. Fothergill reported to John that he had received drawings from William in Carolina. Dr. John Fothergill had been in correspondence with John Bartram since about 1743. A Quaker, and a graduate of Edinburgh, he had begun to practise medicine in London about 1740. As a physician he attained considerable distinction, and was noted for his success in treating malignant sore throat. BrettJames believes that Fothergill was one of the two or three most distinguished physicians of his day. His work was so well thought of that he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians at Edinburgh ( 1 7 5 4 ) ; a fellow of the Royal Society of London ( 1 7 6 3 ) ; and one of the few foreign members of the Royal Medical Society at Paris (1776). He was one of the earliest members of the American Philosophical Society. As he became affluent, he laid out a five- or six-acre garden at his estate at Upton, in Essex. Here he planted rare plants from all over the world. H e was the patron of scholars and scientists,

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notably Philip Miller, whose Gardeners Dictionary was produced under his patronage. In addition he projected and helped to finance the Seminary at Ackworth. In politics he was friendly to the colonies. With Collinson and Franklin he used to meet at the "Club of Honest Whigs" on alternate Thursday evenings at the Queen's Head Coffee House. Among the other members were Dr. Priestley and Dr. Richard Price, both strong political liberals. Like the American Philosophical Society, this club seems to have discussed with equal relish religion, politics, and science. Through Collinson, Fothergill had become interested in William Bartram's drawings in 1768. While the latter was making a series of drawings of American turtles, Fothergill wrote to John generously offering to take the whole series accompanied by accounts of the natural history of the animals. Billy was to take his own time and set his own price. As John's letter to his son shows, however, neither Fothergill's orders nor those of the Duchess of Portland were able to keep William in funds. After he had been in Carolina about two years, William again began to long to travel. He especially wanted to see Florida once more, and evidently wrote to Dr. Fothergill on the subject. The latter had no particular interest in the productions of that section, but he had a curiosity for new things, and he wanted to help his friend. Somewhat troubled, he wrote to John. William's drawings and remarks indicated ability, and it seemed a pity that such a genius should be in distress. What was the trouble: was the young man sober and diligent? Strange as the question was to ask a father, Fothergill knew enough of John's integrity to expect an honest reply. If William was trustworthy, the cautious doctor was willing to assist him—but he warned John not to mislead his son with hopes of full support. A search throughout Florida such as William proposed would benefit science, but Fothergill admitted to a certain selfishness; he wanted practical value as well. His real interest was in introducing hardy plants which would endure the English winter. Perhaps after the Florida venture, William could be induced to search the wilds

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of Canada. Perhaps, however, Florida might have some plants which would grow anywhere. T o William he wrote telling what kinds of plants and shells to look for, and adding some pious admonitions. Apparently, he still had doubts about the young man's character. T h e benevolent doctor might be a scientist, and a fashionable physician, but he was also a Quaker. He advised William to remember his Maker, and to "be much alone." If in later years William ever re-read the letter, he must have smiled at the unconscious irony of the last phrase. Dr. Fothergill referred William to Dr. Lionel Chalmers of Charleston, who was to act as his agent in supplying Bartram with funds. So it was that the following spring ( 1 7 7 3 ) , Dr. Chalmers wrote to John saying that he had invited William to dinner to meet some friends—no doubt influential people who could give the traveler letters of introduction to plantation owners along the way. Chalmers reported that Fothergill had promised William fifty pounds a year and would in addition pay f o r drawings. According to instructions he advanced ten guineas, and set the young man going. Thus William began the travels that were to make him famous.

XI

THE TRAVELS The groves of Eden, vanished now so long, Live in description, and look green in song. Alexander Pope: WINDSOR FOREST In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Sidney Smith, 1820

B A R T R A M had visited Philadelphia before setting out to meet Dr. Chalmers. Thus it was that he began his account with the voyage from Philadelphia to Charleston. Almost at once, he sets the tone of his book with descriptions of scenes at sea: WILLIAM

For the first twenty-four hours, we had a prosperous gale, and were cheerful and happy in the prospects of a quick and pleasant voyage; but alas! how vain and uncertain are human expectations! how quickly is the flattering scene changed! T h e powerful winds, now rushing forth from their secret abodes, suddenly spread terror and devastation; and the wide ocean, which a few moments past, was gentle and placid, is now thrown into disorder and heaped into mountains, whose white curling crests seem to sweep the skies! . . . There are few objects out at sea to attract the notice of the traveller, but what are sublime, awful, and majestic: the seas themselves, in a tempest exhibit a tremendous scene, where the winds exert their power, and in furious conflict, seem to set the ocean on fire. On the other hand, nothing can be more sublime than the view of the encircling horizon, after the turbulent winds have taken their flight, and the lately agitated bosom of the deep has again become calm and pacific; the gentle moon rising in dignity from the east, attended by millions of glittering orbs; the luminous appearance of the seas at night, when all the waters seem transmuted into liquid silver; the prodigious bands of porpoises forboding tempest, that appear to cover the ocean; the mighty whale, sovereign of the watery realms, who cleaves the sea in his course; the sudden appearance of land from the sea, the strand stretching each way, beyond the uttermost reach of sight; the alternate appearance and recess of the coast, 112

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whilst the far distant blue hills slowly retreat and disappear; or as we approach the coast, the capes and promontories first strike our sight, emerging from the watery expanse, and like mighty giants, elevating their crests towards the skies; the water suddenly alive with its scaly inhabitants; squadrons of sea-fowl sweeping through the air, impregnated with the health of fragrant aromatic trees and flowers; the amplitude and magnificence of these scenes are great indeed, and may present to the imagination an idea of the first appearance of the earth to man at the creation. A n d this is but the opening bar of the symphony.

After leaving Dr. Chalmers at Charleston, he sailed to Savannah to begin a tour of Georgia. He introduced himself to Governor Wright, who furnished him with letters of introduction to important persons. At his lodging house were several members of the Assembly, with whom he became acquainted and who invited him to visit their homes on his travels. Obviously William had lost some of his shyness; he was no longer a mere satellite of his father. Here he bought a horse, and equipped himself for his journey. Next he went to Sunbury from where, as he put it (for the temptation to quote the Travels is frequently overwhelming): "Obedient to my attendant spirit, curiosity, as well as to gratify the expectations of my worthy patron, I again set off on my southern excursion." Near Darien, he stopped at a small plantation belonging to a family named M'Intosh. The father recommended his son, John M'Intosh, as a companion for Bartram, who said of him: "He was a sensible virtuous youth, and a very agreeable companion through a long and toilsome journey of near a thousand miles." The only difficulty was Mrs. M'Intosh, who was slow in consenting that her son make so long and dangerous a trip. While the young man was enthusiastically preparing for the expedition, Bartram went alone to the Altamaha River, which he explored as far as Fort Barrinton. From there he went south and followed the St. Mary's River to its source in the Okefinokee (or as he spells it, Ouaquaphenoqaw) Swamp.

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Quite in the spirit of the old travelers is Bartram's account of an Indian legend about this swamp: T h e y say it is inhabited by a peculiar race of Indians, whose women are incomparably beautiful; they also tell you, that this terrestrial paradise has been seen by some of their enterprising hunters, when in pursuit of game, who being lost in inextricable swamps and bogs, and on the point of perishing, were unexpectedly relieved by a company of beautiful women, whom they call daughters of the sun, who kindly gave them such provisions as they had with them, which were chiefly fruit, oranges, dates, &c., and some corn cakes, and then enjoined them to fly f o r safety to their own country; for that their husbands were fierce men, and cruel to strangers; they further say, that these hunters had a view of their settlements, situated on the elevated banks of an island, or promontory, in a beautiful lake; but that in their endeavors to approach it they were involved in perpetual labyrinths, and, like inchanted land, still as they imagined they had just gained it, it seemed to fly before them, alternately appearing and disappearing. 1 One is again reminded of Josselyn's New England Rarities which William surely read, except that Josselyn would have told the legend as a fact. Bartram with all his taste for the picturesque is always cautious in accepting information. Beyond the white settlements, he was pursued and caught b y a Seminole Indian who, having been ill-used at a trading post, had vowed to kill the next white man he saw. However, Bartram's amiable manner, and the fact that he was unarmed, led the Indian to spare his life. It is small wonder that Mrs. M'Intosh hesitated to permit her son to accompany William still farther into the wilderness. 1 This passage inspired the young authors of a little known American poem, Ytrmoyden, A Tale of the Wars of King Philip. This work of six cantos appearing in 1820, was by James Eastburn and Robert Sands. Professor Keiser (the Indian in American Literature, pp. 40-41) says that the poem 'for some time maintained its position as America's most popular literary production.' Eastburn and Sands used not only the story of the earthly paradise, but also scenery drawn from numerous places in the Travels. Cf. particularly the Indian mother's song to her child, Yamoyden, N e w York, 1820, pp. 297-98.

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H o w e v e r , they finally g o t started, going first to Savannah and then up the Savannah River to Augusta. As usual, he gives a list of the varieties of trees and plants in that locality, and describes the soil and c h a r a c t e r of the terrain. A t Augusta he attended a congress at w h i c h the Creeks and Cherokees made over large territories to the whites in payment o f their debts to merchants. Bartram was introduced to the chiefs and warriors w h o were informed of his mission. Surveyors were appointed to lay out the boundaries of this land, and the travelers were invited to a c c o m p a n y them. T h i s gave them a chance to explore the territory around Broad River and the G r e a t R i d g e . Bartram returned to Savannah in high spirits; he had e n j o y e d uninterrupted good health; had escaped accidents and the Indians; and he had a large collection of botanical discoveries. H e r e he says he completed his Hortus Siccus, and sent his c o l lections o f seeds and roots to Charleston t o be forwarded to Europe. Apparently, however, he delayed making the shipment until he was on the w a y to Florida, for D r . Chalmers did n o t hear f r o m him until April. H e replied: " N o t having heard f r o m y o u for many months, I feared the Creeks must have catched you, in some o f y o u r peregrinations." As f o r the seeds, F o t h e r gill complained to J o h n that he had "received about one hundred dried specimens o f plants, and some o f them very curious; a very few drawings, but neither a seed nor a plant." B e f o r e setting out f o r Florida, he b o r r o w e d a canoe and made a trip up the Altamaha R i v e r , a trip that gave rise to a chapter dithyrambic in praise o f the beauties of nature, and containing a discussion of Indian mounds. In M a r c h , almost a y e a r after beginning his travels, he sailed f o r St. Augustine. F r o m here he retraced the route that he and his father had covered eight years before. His a c c o u n t o f this frequently mentions J o h n and, as we have seen, even recalls his father's descriptions o f remarkable fountains. W i l l i a m was again alone. His fellow traveler, though the more robust o f the t w o , had repented of his promise to go along as far as the Indian trading houses. Fearing the dangers and hard-

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ships of such a journey, and wishing to settle down as a mechanic, M'Intosh remained in the settlements. As Bartram tolerantly admitted that the young man's occupation might be as laudable as his own, they parted on good terms. Undeterred by his loss of a companion, Bartram set off up the St. John's River, impelled as he says by "a restless spirit of curiosity." As with his father, this took the form of a combined desire to find in nature the power and perfection of God, and to discover new plants which might prove useful. This time it was not the Creeks but the alligators which nearly "catched" him. His vivid account of this experience, and his description of their roaring, was long questioned. However, the late A. N. Leeds, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, told me that Bartram's account has been verified in every particular. Certainly, the alligators impressed Coleridge, who transferred them and their earth-shaking roar from the Travels to his notebook. And it is reported that throughout his life Bartram heard their bellowing in his nightmares. In all conscience the experience was exciting enough: Behold him rushing forth from the flags and reeds. His enormous body swells. His plaited tail brandished high, floats upon the lake. The waters like a cataract descend from his opening jaws. Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils. The earth trembles with his thunder. When immediately from the opposite coast of the lagoon, emerges from the deep his rival champion. They suddenly dart upon each other. The boiling surface of the lake marks their rapid course, and a terrific conflict commences. They now sink to the bottom folded together in horrid wreaths. The water becomes thick and discoloured. Again they rise, their jaws clap together, re-echoing through the deep surrounding forests. Again they sink, when the contest ends at the muddy bottom of the lake, and the vanquished makes a hazardous escape, hiding himself in the muddy turbulent waters and sedge on a distant shore. The proud victor exulting returns to the place of action. The shores and forests resound his dreadful roar, together with the triumphing shouts of the plaited tribes around, witness of the horrid combat.

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And there are pages more of alligators. More often, however, William, like his father, found terrestrial paradises. "How supremely blessed were our hours at this time!" is typical of the tone of this account. One scene in particular appealed to Coleridge and probably to Wordsworth. It was: . . . the enchanting little Isle of Palms. This delightful spot, planted by nature, is almost an entire grove of Palms, with a few pyramidal Magnolias, Live Oaks, golden Orange, and the animating Zanthoxilon; what a beautiful retreat is here! blessed unviolated spot of earth! rising from the limpid waters of the lake; its fragrant groves and blooming lawns invested and protected by encircling ranks of the Yucca gloriosa; a fascinating atmosphere surrounds this blissful garden; the balmy Lantana, ambrosial Gtra, perfumed Crinum, perspiring their mingled odours, wafted through Zanthoxilon groves. Along this river, beautiful scenes and ambrosial odors mingle with "seraphic music." And so keen was Bartram's eye for color effects that the water snakes in the Ancient Mariner borrow some of their livery from fish seen in this River St. Johns. What a most beautiful creature is this fish before me! gliding too and fro, and figuring in the still clear waters, with his orient attendants and associates: the yellow bream or sunfish. . . . the whole fish is of a pale gold (or burnished brass) colour, darker on the back and sides; the scales are of a proportionable size, regularly placed, and everywhere variably powdered with red, russet, silver, blue and green specks, so laid on the scales as to appear like real dust or opaque bodies, each apparent particle being so projected by light and shade, and the various attitudes of the fish, as to deceive the sight; . . . the fins are of an Orange colour; and like all the species of the bream, the ultimate angle of the branchiostega terminate by a little spatula, the extreme end of which represents a crescent of the finest ultramarine blue, encircled with silver, and velvet black, like the eye in the feathers of a peacock's train. The description is like one of Bartram's paintings. This particular trip, reinforced with recollections of the ear-

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lier one with his father, led William to write one of the finest chapters in his whole book. Professor Lowes says of it: Probably none of the books which Coleridge was. reading during the gestation of the Ancient Mariner left more lively images in his memory than Bartram's Travels. The fascinating fifth chapter of Part T w o in particular had awakened him to all manner of poetic possibilities, and prompted copious transcriptions in the Note Book. And these transcripts form, as it hap>ens, a significant cluster. The alligators (punctuated by Hartey's moonlight tears) were set down from pages 127-30 of the Travels; the "little peaceable community" of snake-birds, from pages 132-33; the antiphonal roarings of the crocodiles and the thunder, from page 140; 2 the wilderness plot, green, fountainous, and unviolated, from page 157; and the Gordonia lasianthus, from pages 161-62. Coleridge's memory, it is clear, had been greedily absorbing impressions from these thirty-odd pages, as Gideon's fleece drank up the dew.

[

On this excursion up the St. John's River, he had made a side trip across country to New Smyrna. On his return he set out for still arcther part of Florida. A trading company was setting out for the Indian town of Cuscowilla to treat with the Indians on the subject of reestablishing trade, and Bartram accompanied them. They went westward from the upper store on Lake George. As usual he found much to describe. At once place there was a . . . vast grotto or bason of transparent waters, which is called by the traders a sink-hole, a singular kind of vortex or conduit, to the subterranean receptacles of the waters. . . . There is always a meandering channel winding through the Savannas or meadows, which receives the waters spread over them, by several lateral smaller branches, slowly conveying them along into the lake, and finally into the bason, and with them nations of the finny tribes. . . . Behold now at still evening, the sun yet streaking the embroidered Savanna, armies of fish pursuing their pilgrimage to the grand pellucid fountain, and when here arrived, all quiet and peaceable, encircle the little cerulean hemisphere, descend into 2

Apparently a mistake for p. 141.

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the dark caverns of the earth; where probably they are separated from each other, by innumerable paths, or secret rocky avenues; and after encountering various obstacles, and beholding new and unthought of scenes of pleasure and disgust, after many days absence from the surface of the world, emerge again from the dreary vaults, and appear exulting in gladness, and sporting in the transparent waters of some distant lake. There are links here: "meandering" and "caverns" which indicate that Coleridge combined in " K u b l a K h a n " these great caverns with others Bartram observed on a trip to Tallahassee, and the fountains near Lake George. Bartram was interested in many things besides scenery. H e attended the conference with the Indians held on the borders of the Alachua Savanna. Chief Cowkeeper, whom Bartram describes, gave him "unlimited permission to travel over the country for the purpose of collecting flowers, medicinal plants, &c.," and saluted him by the name Puc Puggy, or the Flower Hunter. Bartram notices the mixture of Spanish and Indian customs among the Alachua tribe, describes their dwellings, and tells the menu of a feast. Like his father, he was always interested in new dishes. In this case he enjoyed the barbecued beef, but disliked tripe soup, a dish he thought "the least agreeable they have amongst them." On his return to the trading post on the St. John's he found that the trading schooner would not return to Georgia until autumn. H e therefore found he might at leisure plan excursions to collect seeds and roots. It would seem that he had been more interested in collecting material for his book and, unwittingly, for the Romantic poets, than he had been in collecting seeds and roots for Dr. Fothergill. This leisure he occupied with a journey from the lower trading house on the St. John's River to Talahasochte (Tallahassee). T w o years of traveling had left his enthusiasm undimmed: joyously he pressed forward to the "delightful fields and groves of Apalatche." A s in all his other trips, he found much to describe. Again there is a remarkable spring, delightful groves, under-

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ground caverns, and charming savannas. His zest never falters, but so many of such scenes has he given us that they tend to become bewildering. Not always can the reader's enthusiasm keep pace with Bartram's, although Coleridge's did, for he took several hints from these chapters. T h e journey was made in company with some traders on their way to purchase Seminole horses. On one occasion some of them killed a savanna crane which William describes in detail. Perhaps it is the same one which, in the spirit of the old geographers, he drew in his map of East Florida. W e had this fowl dressed for supper and it made excellent soup; nevertheless as long as I can get any other necessary food I shall prefer his seraphic music in the etherial skies, and my eyes and understanding gratified in observing their economy and social communities, in the expansive green savannas of Florida. He attended an Indian council and feast at Talahasochte. T h e menu was " T h e ribs and choice pieces of the three great fat bears already well barbecued or broiled . . . with hot bread; and honeyed water for drink." Later in the evening they had coffee and pipes of tobacco with the chief. Afterwards they met a party of young Indians who "entertained us during the night with their music, vocal and instrumental. There is a languishing softness and melancholy air in the Indian convivial songs, especially of the amorous class, irresistibly moving, attractive, and exquisitely pleasing, especially in these solitary recesses when all nature is silent." Back at the trading house he found a war party of Lower Creeks on an expedition against the Chactaws. Here the traders and the Indians went on a ten-day spree. Bartram describes it in pseudo-classic language with classical allusions. In a few days this festival exhibited one of the most ludicrous bachanalian scenes that is possible to be conceived, white and red men and women with distinction, passed the day merrily with these jovial, amorous topers, and tne nights in convivial songs,

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dances and sacrifices to Venus, as long as they could stand or move. Before the uproar had entirely cooled down, some of the Indians, finding a rattlesnake in their camp, started calling for "Puc-Puggy." Bartram tried to sneak out a back door, but "a party consisting of three young fellows, richly dressed and ornamented, stepped in, and with a countenance and action of noble simplicity, amity and complaisance, requested me to accompany them to their encampment." After making excuses, William was prevailed upon to go. At the camp he took a stick and killed the reptile. Shortly after he left, the three Indians came after him. " T h e young champion stood by his two associates, one on each side of him, the two affecting a countenance and air of displeasure and importance, instantly presenting their scratching instruments, and flourishing them, spoke boldly, and said that I was too heroic and violent, that it would be good for me to loose some of my blood to make me more mild and tame, and for that purpose they were come to scratch me." After a moment or two of this attempted horseplay, "they all whooped in chorus, took me friendly by the hand, clapped me on the shoulder and laid their hands on their breasts in token of sincere friendship, and laughing aloud, said I was a sincere friend to the Seminóles, a worthy and brave warrior, and that no one should hereafter attempt to injure me; they then all three joined arm and arm again and went off, shouting and proclaiming PucPuggv was their friend, &c." This incident leads Bartram into a discussion of the magnanimity of the rattlesnake. T o illustrate, he tells of one encountered in the Catskill Mountains on his trip there with his father, and of another on their trip to Florida together. From the rattlesnake he goes on to list and describe other snakes found in the South. Next he takes up the subject of frogs, and follows this with a list of birds found from Pennsylvania to Florida. Dr. Witmer Stone calls this "a landmark in

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the progress of American ornithology—and the first ornithological contribution, worthy of the name, written by a native American." This section of the Travels concludes with a short chapter on a trip to an Indian town twelve miles from the trading house. In it we find another indication of Bartram's ability to look out for himself. A "gang of horses," most of them wild, were being taken across the river. Becoming frightened and unmanageable most of them plunged into the river, knocking overboard one of them. William, being as he says a pretty good swimmer, dived off the boat and caught hold of the dock of one of the horses, and was thus towed safely to an island. It will be remembered that William grew up on the banks of the Schuylkill. He found that a ship was sailing from Sunbury to Liverpool, so that he was able to ship his collections to Dr. Fothergill. Then he embarked for Charleston, where he spent the winter. A t last, then, Dr. Fothergill got his plants. As a matter of fact, while he was still in East Florida, William had received a letter from the doctor, expressing satisfaction at some of the things he had received. In any case, Bartram was not a great expense to him. Dr. Chalmers had written to John some time before, saying that he had heard nothing of William for three months, but, "Be where he will, an excellent oeconomist he must be; for he has not drawn on me for more than 12 pounds flat since the first money I advanced him. So that [by] this time he must have near 40 pounds flat due." From Charleston William wrote a long letter beginning: Honour'd and Benevolent Father I am happy by the blessings of the Almight God by whose care I have been protected & led safe through a Pilgrimage these three & twenty months . . . There follows a résumé of his travels, with some additional details not in his book. On the Altamaha River he had been taken ill with a fever of which he did not recover so as to be

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able to travel for nearly two months. He had been further delayed by Indian troubles in starting for Florida. At last, even after meeting numerous traders returning from the Indian country, whence they had been driven by the Indians, he started out for the River St. Johns. The letter concludes: Dear Father it is the greatest pleasure that I hear by my worthy Dr. Chalmers that you are alive & well with my Dear mother which I pray may continue. I beg leave to acquaint my benevolent parents that I am resolved with the concurence of Dr. Chalmers to continue my travels another year. I intend to go through the Cherokee & Creek Counties to Pensacola where I shall send my necessary baggage, & if it please God to spare my life & health I may go to the Mississippi River; I have been often with Doctor concerning it & he promises to assist me with proper recommentatory letters through the Nations; please to excuse this long tedious letter I am ever your faithful Son I have not had the favour of a line from my Father or Mother whom God ever preserve. So it was that April 22, 1776, he set off from Charleston for the Cherokee nation. He followed the Savannah River to Augusta which, "seated at the head of navigation, and just below the conflux of several of its most considerable branches, without a competitor, commands the trade and commerce of vast fruitful regions above it, and from every side to a great distance; and I do not hesitate to pronounce as my opinion, will very soon become the metropolis of Georgia." William was not solely an artist. Nor was he, in spite of his love for scenes "of primitive nature, as yet unmodified by the hand of man," a Daniel Boone hating the advance of civilization. In Florida he had seen a vast plain which "if permitted (by the Seminóles who are sovereigns of these realms) to be in possession and under the culture of industrious planters and mechanicks, would in a little time exhibit other scenes than it does at present, delightful as it is; for by the arts of agri-

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culture and commerce, almost every desirable thing in life might be produced and made plentiful here, and thereby establish a rich populous and delightful region." From Augusta he went to Fort James near Dartmouth at the junction of the Broad and Savannah rivers. Usually he found his progress "agreeably entertaining," but there were less pleasant scenes: . . . chains of hills whose gravelly, dry, barren summits present detached piles of rocks, which delude and flatter the hopes and expectations of the solitary traveller, full sure of hospitable hab itations; heaps of white, gnawed bones of the ancient buffaloe, elk, and deer, indiscriminately mixed with those of men, half-grown over with moss, altogether, exhibit scenes of uncultivated nature, on reflection, perhaps, rather disagreeable to a mind of delicate feelings and sensibility, since some of these objects recognize past transactions and events, perhaps not altogether reconcilable to justice and humanity. Above Fort James he found some ancient Indian tumuli, which led him into a discussion of their origin. He saw the "flaming Azalea" which "suddenly opening to view from dark shades, we are alarmed with the apprehension of the hills being set on fire"—the same Azaleas that in Wordsworth's Ruth "set the hills on fire." At Fort Prince George, after waiting vainly for an Indian guide, he "rather than be detained and thereby frustrated in my purposes, determined to set off alone and run all risks." He crossed the mountains and valleys to the Tanase (Tennessee) River. He was entertained by . . . the Chief of Whatoga, a man universally beloved, and particularly esteemed by the whites for his pacific and equitable disposition, and revered by all for his exemplary virtues, just, moderate, magnanamous and intrepid. . . . During my continuance here, about half an hour, I experienced the most perfect and agreeable hospitality conferred on me by these happy people; I mean happy in their dispositions, in their apprehensions of rectitude with regard to our social or moral conduct: O divine simplicity and truth, friendship without fallacy or

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guile, hospitality disinterested, native, undefiled, unmodified by artificial refinements. He saw "the enchanting Vale of Keowe" which brought to his mind "the Fields of Parsalia or the Vale of Tempe." In company with an honest trader, "somewhat of a prodigy," he met the "sylvan nymphs" gathering strawberries. After parting with the trader, Mr. Gallahan, Bartram began to tire of traveling alone. And in spite of the divine simplicity of Indian character, the friendship without guile, the hospitality without artificial refinements, he found himself longing for the society of the amiable and polite inhabitants of Charleston. In fact he compared himself to Nebuchadnezzar banished from the society of men, and forced to live with the wild beasts of the forest. However, before starting back he resolved to climb the Jore Mountain. This involved some dangerous going for a lone man on horseback: there were bogs and rushing streams to cross where the fords held slippery, shelving rocks and treacherous holes; there were steep ascents and cliffs—and there were Indians. But Bartram, even with his limited stock of Cherokee words, had a knack of making friends with a young warrior out hunting. And when he met Chief Little Carpenter traveling in state with his caravan, Bartram respectfully turned aside from the path, with the result that the pleased chief stopped to shake hands and enquire after mutual acquaintances. As his father would have done, he noted a kind of clay used for making porcelain, some strata of lead ore, and isinglass suitable for making lantern windows. Then there were superb views—"a world of mountains piled upon mountains." There were brooks lined with glorious magnolias and aromatic shrubs—magnolias that bloom again in Wordsworth's "Ruth," and the incense-bearing trees of "Kubla Khan"; "spacious high forests and flowery lawns" which become Coleridge's "forests ancient as the hills, enfolding sunny spots of greenery." William far surpassed his father in descriptive power. Returning to Cowe he attended an Indian festival in the

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council hall. This was a rotunda thirty or forty feet tall, built upon an ancient mound shaped like a truncated pyramid. His study of this and of other mounds led him to the theory of an earlier race of mound builders—a theory which has been debated by ethnologists ever since. He made drawings of the mounds and gathered what information he could from the Cherokees. With a perspicacity rare among early travelers he recognized that much of what they told him was legend or conjecture. The festival he saw was in preparation for a ball-play or lacrosse match with a neighboring town. It began with a speech by the chief in praise of the manly sport of ball-play, and a recounting of past victories—exactly in the fashion of a football rally preceding a modern college game. A further parallel was the dance which followed. The girls were "dressed in clean white robes and ornamented with beads, bracelets and a profusion of gay ribbands." The evolutions of the dance are described in considerable detail and Bartram adds, "Indeed all their dances and musical entertainments seem to be theatrical exhibitions or plays, varied with comic and sometimes lascivious interludes." Among the many things that Chateaubriand took from the Travels was the description of the council hall upon a mound, and an account of this festival, with the original addition of swan feathers as the material for the maidens' robes. This contribution to ethnology was perhaps less remarkable than the one to zoology a few pages earlier. T o Bartram's alligators in a fountain he added "a slight perfume of amber emitted by the crocodiles asleep." Most readers, however, have found the Travels sufficiently picturesque. This picturesqueness has sometimes obscured the care Bartram used in collecting information. Following the account of the ball-play festival is a list of forty-three Cherokee towns, grouped according to their location. And throughout the discussion of Indians, he is always careful to distinguish between what he has seen, and what he has been told.

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Back at Dartmouth he found that a company of traders were to set off in a f e w weeks f o r W e s t Florida, which gave him little time to provision and equip himself f o r the prosecution of so long and hazardous a journey. On J u n e 22 he set out. A t the Ogeechee R i v e r his party met t w o other companies of traders with whom they decided to unite. T h e y struck across Georgia, crossing the upper branches of the Oconee River, the Flint R i v e r to the Chata Uche (Chattahooche). H e r e the Indians ferried their goods across. Bartram pauses in his narrative to tell us that in the village of Uche the "national language is altogether radically different f r o m the Creek or Muscogulge tongue, and is called the Savanna or Savanuca tongue; I was told b y the traders it was the same or a dialect of the Shawanese. T h e y are in confedera c y with the Creeks, but do not mix with them . . ." This is typical of his study of the Indian. H e is careful to give his sources of information. " M y intelligent friend, the trader of Apalachucla, having f r o m a long residence amongst these Indians acquired an extensive knowledge of their customs and affairs, I enquired of him what w e r e his sentiments with respect to their wandering, unsettled disposition . . ." T h e trader believed it was due to their need f o r new land f o r agriculture, and f o r new hunting grounds. A f t e r a week's stay in an Apalachucla Indian town, they traveled to the Tallapoosa River, and then turned south toward Mobile. A b o u t thirty miles north of the city Bartram took a boat d o w n the river. H e reached Mobile the end of

July,

1 7 7 7 . ' A f e w days later he took a trading boat up river to the plantation of M a j o r Farmer. Here he b o r r o w e d a canoe, and set off alone on up the river, following the T o m b i g b e e about t w o days. On this excursion he contracted a fever. H e took another side trip to Pensacola, where he was introduced to the governor, w h o offered to finance researches throughout W e s t Florida. Bartram, however, chose to return to Mobile so as not to lose his chance of going to the Mississippi. His father • (The date, 1778, in the Travels, p. 404, is obviously wrong.)

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had once hoped to travel there, but had not been able to do so. By the time he arrived at Pearl River, an inflammation of the eyes had made it impossible to bear any light, while the pain and want of sleep had nearly driven him frantic. At a time when Bartram had despaired of his life, he was taken to an English gentleman who cared for him four or five weeks, and cured the disease. He left Pearl Island in a boat navigated by three Negroes. T h e y followed a creek into Lake Pontchartrain, then to Lake Maurepas, and the Amite River. From this stream he crossed to the Mississippi River, which of course he describes. He followed the river to Baton Rouge. Here a severe infection of his eyes kept him from continuing southwest as he had planned. Much disappointed, he decided to return to Carolina. Because he had to pass nearly two hundred miles through an uninhabited wilderness to reach the first town, he joined a caravan of traders. Leaving his collections to be forwarded to Dr. Fothergill, he left Mobile November 27, 1777. As he had traveled about six thousand miles on his horse, it was unable to keep up the mad pace set by the traders. Another company of traders appearing, he was able to buy a new horse, and turn his old one out to graze. At an Indian town on the Tallapoosa River he spent a week waiting for a party of traders who were going to Augusta. This gave him an opportunity to attend an Indian council, the ritual of which was quite different from others he had seen. With the traders he traveled to Augusta, and then set out for Savannah, which he reached in five days' time. During the spring and summer he revisited several districts of Georgia and the eastern borders of Florida, collecting plants for shipment to England. In the fall he went to Charleston, where he spent only a few days and then started for home. On the way he stopped at his uncle's plantation on the Cape Fear River. The visit must have been a sad one. Both his aunt and uncle, and probably his

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cousin William, were dead. And either at Charleston or here he must have heard of his father's death, which had taken place September 22, 1777. John Bartram's illness had been a short one, so that William could not have reached home in time, even if he heard of it. It was believed by the family that the approach of the British after the battle of Brandywine hastened the end of the aged botanist who feared for the safety of his beloved garden. Near the end of the Travels William, upon seeing some Dionaea muscipula is reminded of his father, to whom he pays another tribute: This wonderful plant seems to be distinguished in the creation, by the author of nature, with faculties eminently superior to every other vegetable production; specimens of it were first communicated to the curious of the old world by John Bartram, the American botanist and traveller, who contributed as much if not more than any other man towards enriching the North American botanical nomenclature, as well as its natural history. This plant had formed an important link in John Bartram's theory of nature, and, as we shall see, in William's. And this theory, like the plant itself, was exported to Europe. Its history will appear in the next chapter. After the visit to Cape Fear, he journeyed north across country and "arrived at my father's house on the banks of the river Schuylkill, within four miles of the city, January, 1778." His travels were over, but the book does not conclude there. The last part is devoted to "An Account of the Persons, Manners, Customs and Government of the Muscogulges or Creeks, Cherokees, Chactaws, &c., Aboriginees of the Continent of North America." But of this more later. It is of course impossible to include in a summary of this kind the whole of a book 522 pages long. Some side trips, and countless observations on a variety of things must perforce be omitted. In making a selection, I have tried to give some idea of the extent and nature of Bartram's journeys, and to include some of the rich flavor of the book that tells of them. T o

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enjoy the Travels fully, one must read it as Bartram traveled —unhurriedly. It is well worth it. The book has had an interesting history. Characteristically William took his time about publishing it. In 1788 Benjamin Smith Barton wrote to Bartram defending himself against William Storey's accusation that Barton was going to publish it in Europe without permission. He then offered to print the Journal at his own expense, and with additions of his own, each to share equally in the profits. William was apparently not quite that lacking in business shrewdness. It was first published in 1791 by James & Johnson, Philadelphia. The next year it came out in London, and in 1793 there followed a Dublin edition. In 1794 the London edition was reprinted. An edition in German appeared in 1793; one in Dutch, 1794-97; and another in French, 1799, with a reprint in 1801. More recently there has been an American reprint of the London edition, edited by Mark Van Dören, 1928, and another with an introduction by John Livingston Lowes, 1940. Evidently many people found it, as does Professor Lowes, "one of the most delightful books which he [Coleridge] or anybody ever read." We have seen something of the gusto with which Wordsworth and Coleridge devoured it. And Cartyle, writing to Emerson, said: "Do you know Bartram's 'Travels'? Treats of Florida chiefly, has a wonderful kind of floundering eloquence in it; and has grown immeasurably old. All American libraries ought to provide themselves with that kind of book; and keep them as a future biblical article." Dr. Fagin has found many other authors who knew and used the Travels, and has shown in detail the extent of their borrowings. But others, beside literary men, read him. His accounts of alligators were reprinted in the Anthologia Hibernica, and in the Wonderful Magazine, even though the London reviewer of the Travels objected to the "somewhat too luxuriant and poetical language" used in describing them. An unknown

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reader was stirred to put comments in his copy of the 1794 edition: "Bravo Yankee Doudle this out-Herods Herod." American anthologists of their own literature show less interest in Bartram. Although the Travels is one of the earliest books which could refute Sidney Smith's sneer, there is no selection from it in at least two of the standard college texts, nor is it mentioned by those literary historians who believe that American literature was written exclusively in New England. Interesting and important as is the book, its author is even more interesting. There is a strong lyric quality that makes the Travels throughout a revelation of the personality of William Bartram. Few books are so completely synonymous with their creators.

XII

THE SPIRIT OF NATURE Had there been no Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shakespeare, or a different one. Carlyle: SARTOR R E S A R T U S

seems to have liked neither Pennsylvanians nor the poetry of Alexander Pope. Yet through the strange alembic of the Travels, the ideas of a Pennsylvania farmer and the poetry of the pseudo-classic school were distilled into "Ruth," The Prelude, and numerous other poems. Not only did he go to Bartram for exotic scenery, but possibly also for philosophy of nature. Beginning with Wordsworth's American editor, Henry Reed, in 1837, various scholars have pointed out passages in which the poet has drawn upon Bartram. In Methods and Aims in the Study of Literature, Professor Lane Cooper discussed this influence, both upon descriptive passages and upon Wordsworth's philosophy. The later studies of Lowes and Fagin have shown other parallels. Characteristically Coleridge seems to have been the discoverer of Bartram, and the one who introduced him to Wordsworth. Professor Lowes, using an early manuscript version of "Lewti," dating from 1794, shows phraseology pointing to the Travels. In 1798, however, Bartram was again much in Coleridge's mind. During that wonderful year when he and the Wordsworths were "three people but one soul," he was transmuting passage after passage from the Travels into "Kubla Khan," "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Fears in Solitude," and "The Wanderings of Cain." He and Wordsworth tried at first to collaborate on "Cain." And as Coleridge's notebook was filled with Bartram, it is impossible to believe that his conversation was not. The first of Wordsworth's poems that is unmistakably in '3*

W I L L I A M WORDSWORTH

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I 33

debt to the Travels is "Ruth," written in Germany in the winter of 1798-99. The extent of the borrowing is so great that one must agree with Professor Cooper, who says: "If he did not carry Bartram's Travels . . . with him to Germany, he must have had that entertaining journal almost by heart before he started." Dr. Fagin, however, thinks The Borderers (179596) "seems tinged with Bartram, and the pelican of the desert in iii, 220, is very much the bird which later, more elaborately comes out of Bartram into his third book of the Prelude." Both Wordsworth and Coleridge, like most writers who have used the Travels, went to it first for exotic scenery. As we have seen, Coleridge found there his jetting fountains, his meandering river, and his "caverns measureless to man." From the same source he drew the alligators, the "immense gulph filled with water," and the "immense meadow" which he put into "The Wanderings of Cain." Bartram supplied him with some of the colors of the fish and with much of the strange thunderstorm in the "Ancient Mariner." Wordsworth borrowed the Indian girls gathering strawberries, the magnolias, the savannas, the endless lakes, and the fiery azalea which he described in ''Ruth." Even the betrayer of Ruth is "the young Mustee" of the Travels, and his crest of feathers is taken from the frontispiece—Bartram's own drawing of Mico Chlucco, King of the Seminoles. There are borrowings in the Prelude and the Excursion of the same type. Wordsworth, however, found more in Bartram than mere scenery. As we know from his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth sought for a scientific foundation for his poetry. To find this he went to the associationist psychologists of his day. In like manner he may well have found in Bartram a writer who presented a theory of nature based upon scientific study. In many particulars Wordsworth's doctrines of man and nature are much less close to those of Rousseau than to those of William Bartram. It was in the poems written at the time he and Coleridge were both using Bartram that Wordsworth most clearly set

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forth the theory of nature that has come to be regarded as characteristic of him. Professor Harper describes it thus: "Its peculiarity lay in the fact that he substituted the idea of Nature for the idea of God. To hiip in those early years, Nature seemed alive, unified, conscious, purposeful, and moral." One of the most striking elements of this doctrine is that consciousness is attributed not only to some abstract deity called Nature, but to all living things, notably vegetation. Through primrose tufts in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The budding twigs spread out their fan T o catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield T o the bare trees, and mountains bare, And grass in the green field. And of the "host of golden daffodils": The waves beside them danced; but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company. Wordsworth got his daffodils from Dorothy's Journal, but J. L. Lowes suggests that she saw them partly through Bartram's eyes. Now if Wordsworth had in 1798 read nothing of Bartram but the introduction, he would have come upon: But admirable are the properties of the Dionea muscipula! A great extent on each side of that serpentine rivulet is occupied by these sportive vegetables—let us advance to the spot in which nature has seated them. Astonishing production! see the incarnate lobes expanding, how gay and sportive they appear!

T H E SPIRIT OF NATURE

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35

. . . Can we after viewing this object, hesitate a moment to confess, that vegetable beings are endued with some sensible faculties or attributes, similar to those that dignify animal nature, they are organical, living, and self-moving bodies, for we see here in this plant, motion and volition. And for several paragraphs the botanist amplifies his theory, backing it up with illustrations drawn from his observation. Thus it appears that Wordsworth has excellent scientific authority for an idea that many people have regarded as so much romantic, poetic nonsense. Not only was nature alive and conscious, but according to both Wordsworth and Bartram it was unified. Bart ram states it thus: If then the visible, the mechanical part of the animal creation, the mere material part, is so admirably beautiful, harmonious, and incomprehensible, what must be the intellectual system? that inexpressibly more essential principle, which secretly operates within? that which animates the inimitable machines, which gives them motion, impowers them to act, speak and perform, this must be divine and immortal? This, believes Professor Cooper, is similar to Wordsworth's "moral life in every natural form." It is not unlike, even in phrasing to: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Bartram comes back to this idea in his hymn to the sun: At the return of morning, by the powerful influence of the light; the pulse of nature becomes more active, and the universal vibration of life insensibly and irresistibly moves the wonderous machine; how cheerful and gay all nature appears. N o w it has long been known that this passage gave Wordsworth his phrasing, "pulse of the machine," in "She Was a Phantom of Delight" when he wrote: And now I see with eye serene T h e very pulse of the machine.

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This "pulse of nature" may well be a gloss to the line W e see into the life of things. Here in Bartram Wordsworth had found a scientist who preached a religion based on scientific principles. The poet had tried Godwinism as an explanation of life based upon what seemed to be scientific principles, but he had found it sterile and incomplete. Bartram united science and poetry; his solution was ideally suited to the young poet trying to fit together his love of sensuous beauty with his desire for order and morality. Bartram has much to say on this point, some of it the usual eighteenth-century illustrations of the wisdom and goodness of God as shown by nature. The point is, however, that these doctrines are always in Bartram drawn from accurate and minute observation of plants and animals. After a long list of illustrations, he says: In every order of nature we perceive a variety of qualities distributed amongst individuals, designed for different purposes and uses; yet it appears evident, that the great author has impartially distributed his favours to his creatures, so that the attributes of each one seem to be of sufficient importance to manifest the divine and inimitable workmanship. In another place, after discussing the faculty of plants to adapt themselves to conditions, he concludes: " . . . is it sense or instinct that influences their actions? it must be some impulse; or does the hand of the Almighty act and perform this work in our sight?" Is not this the same "impulse" Wordsworth meant when he wrote: One impulse from the vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Thus he is Well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense

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T h e anchor of m y purest thought, the nurse, T h e guide, the guardian of m y heart, and soul O f all m y moral being. T h i s highly radical doctrine b e c o m e s m o r e intelligible if we read it in the light of Bartram's teaching. F o r "nature and the language of the s e n s e " were exactly the sources f r o m which Bartram collected his divinity. It seems highly probable then that Professor C o o p e r is correct when he says: " W o r d s worth's 'pantheism' is m o r e likely to have c o m e f r o m the Travels than f r o m other sources sometimes a d v a n c e d . " T h e Prelude

shows the practical application of this to the

education of youth. Professor C o o p e r shows h o w

Words-

worth, after censuring C a m b r i d g e and its uninspiring landscape, presents a contrasting picture of an ideal place of learning: Oh, w h a t j o y T o see a sanctuary f o r our country's y o u t h Informed with such a spirit as might be Its o w n protection, a primeval grove, Where, though the shades with cheerfulness w e r e filled, N o r indigent of songs warbled f r o m c r o w d s In under-coverts, y e t the countenance O f the whole place should bear a stamp of a w e ; A habitation sober and demure F o r ruminating creatures; a domain F o r quiet things to w a n d e r in; a haunt In which the heron should delight t o f e e d B y the shy rivers, and the pelican U p o n the cypress spire in lonely thought M i g h t sit and sun himself. T h e scene—cheerful shades, ruminating creatures, shy

rivers,

and the pelican upon his spire—is all Bartram. Describing the Altahama River, he w r o t e : I ascended this beautiful river, on whose fruitful banks the generous and true sons of liberty, securely dwell, f i f t y miles above the white settlements. . . . M y progress was rendered delightful b y the sylvan elegance of the groves, cheerful meado w s , and high distant forests, which in g r a n d order presented

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themselves to view. The winding banks of the river, and the high projecting promontories, unfolded fresh scenes of grandeur and sublimity. The deep forests and distant hills re-echoed the cheering social lowings of domestic herds. The air was filled with tne loud and shrill hooping of the wary sharp-sighted crane. Behold, on yon decayed, defoliated cypress tree, the solitary wood pelican, dejectedly perched upon its utmost elevated spire. Thus, says Professor Cooper, Wordsworth is mentally transporting the youth of England, not merely to the land of social freedom, America, but to an aboriginal landscape and the home of the natural man, the "naked Indian." It is significant that in the poet's mind the doctrine of nature the teacher is closely linked with Bartram's Travels. Bartram's faith survived the perils of a journey in the wilderness; it endured despite alligators and Indians. A few paragraphs after a particularly vivid account of his narrow escape from being eaten by alligators, he wrote: Having agreeably diverted away the intolerable heats of sultry noon in fruitful fragrant groves, with renewed vigor I again resume my sylvan pilgrimage. The afternoon and evening moderately warm, and exceedingly pleasant views from the river and its varied shores. I passed Battle lagoon and the bluff, without much opposition [from alligators]; but the crocodiles were already assembling in the pass. Before night I came to, at a charming Orange grove bluff, on the east side of the little lake, and after fixing my camp on a high open situation, and collecting plenty of dry wood for fuel, I haa time to get some fine trout for supper and joyfully returned to my camp. What a most beautiful creature is this fish before me! gliding to and fro, and figuring in the still clear waters, with his orient attendants and associates: the yellow bream or sun fish. . . . How harmonious and soothing is this native sylvan music now at still evening! inexpressibly tender are the responsive cooings of the innocent dove, in the fragrant Zantnoxilon groves, and the variable and tuneful warblings of the nonparel; with the more sprightly and elevated strains of the blue linnet and golden icterus; this is indeed harmony even amid the incessant croakings of the frogs; the shades or silent night are made

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more chearful, with the shrill voice of the whip-poor-will and active mock-bird. Yet Mr. Aldous Huxley has written a whole essay upon the theme: " T h e Wordsworthian who exports his pantheistic worship of Nature to the tropics is liable to have his religious convictions somewhat rudely shattered." Wordsworth's pantheism was an interlude in his life; Bartram's was bred in him. T h e source of it is revealed in a remarkable letter written to Dr. Benjamin Rush b y John Bartram, and containing a postscript by William: Dec. 5, 1-164. Respected Friend: I saw the letter thee wrote to my son Isack & am much pleased with your discovery of the nerves in plants & their sensation which I hope b y a more diligent search will lead y o u into the knowledge of more certain truths than all the pretended Revelations of our Mistery mongers & their inspirations; its certain many Animals hath a large degree of Cunning and is endowed with most faculties & passions & several particular intellect beyond many of our species; but I have been many years upon the enquiry after the operation of plants & wrote to curious persons upon the subject, that if they had not absolute sence yet they had such faculties as came so near to it that we wanted a proper Epithet of explanation. I have been also much delighted in the curious observation of minerals their wonderful combinations their long and exquisite intestine [illegible] duration and decay in which contemplations I have queried whether there is not a portion of universal intellect diffused in all life & self motion adequate to its particular organization. But plants hath the appearance of a wonderful sensation particularly in the Mimosas 8c the Tipitinwitchet of Carolina nay even most of the plants with Penated leaves close up in the evening & many flowers open & shut at different hours both day and night. . . . Remarkable is the blew Ixia of Florida which my son William (who resided there near a year and a half) hath fully described in this letter f o r your amusement. . . . Quere what instinct or nature or what you please to call it directs our shrubs that spreads much under the surface of the ground.

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Thus the threads draw together, and the Pennsylvania farmer-botanist is revealed as the probable ultimate source of Wordsworth's religion of nature. It is all there in the letter: sensation and volition in plants, a universal spirit throughout the whole creation, and the study of nature as the source of true religion. Surely this is that same telescope which Mr. Pope had a small hand in making; that Nature of which John Bartram wrote: "It is through this telescope, I see God in his glory."

XIII

THE SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY were other elements in William Bartxam's philosophy besides those which attracted Wordsworth. Nor can all of the former's beliefs be traced to John Bartram or to his own experiences. Unlike his father, William was a believer in the essential goodness of the Indian, and in spite of his experiences as a plantation owner he was a friend to the Negro. Even when it is impossible to trace the immediate source of many of his ideas, it is easy to recognize their similarity to those of other eighteenth-century thinkers. His familiarity with the thought currents of the age is explained by his education and by his association with his father and his father's friends. Various names have been given to the streams of eighteenthcentury thought, but two opposing tendencies are always visible: pseudo-classicism with its emphasis on reason; and romanticism with its emphasis on emotion and intuition. This antithesis is seen in Thomas Paine and John Wesley; in the writings of Godwin and the novels of Richardson; in Voltaire and Rousseau. In William Bartram's background there is the rationalism of his father and the men of the Philosophical Society; while his own poetic temperament supplied a strong emotional bent, augmented by his training and associations at the College of Philadelphia. It is not surprising then to find both tendencies strong in his thought. The remarkable element in his philosophy is his attempt to solve the dilemma created by these two opposing schools of thought. There are evidences of this in the Travels, but the solution is more completely worked out in an unpublished manuscript found among his papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The exact purpose of this rather lengthy manuscript is difficult to determine. Perhaps it was originally intended for his uncle, with whom he frequently discussed philosophy, and who asked William to "honour me with a few THERE

'4*

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lines—Philosophy, &c." However, as William refers to his residence among the Indians, the paper must date after 1774, several years after his uncle's death. In any case it amplifies and clarifies many of the theories sketched in the Travels. Near the beginning is what might be called the major premise: "The Almighty being the Sovereign Creator, His divine Intelligence is diffused through every part of his works, which directs and rules all." T h e pantheistic implications of this are further strengthened by the passages from the Travels, quoted in the preceding chapter. And in John Bartram's letter to Benjamin Rush we have seen something of the same idea. T h e belief in sensation and intelligence in plants, which strengthens this pantheism, is again set forth in this manuscript. It was, as has been shown, held by both father and son. On this subject the Travels even echoes John's language: "is it sense or instinct that influences their actions? . . . or does the hand of the Almighty act and perform this work in our sight?" T h e next step, "the Dignity of Animal Nature," is much more fully developed here than in the Travels. William attacks especially the theories of Buffon, especially those which minimized the intellectual and rational powers of animals. His arguments, William believes, simply served to establish the even more remarkable power of instinct. Bartram agreed that man too shared this quality; it was, he asserted, the most useful and divine part of man's nature. This leads him to a still more radical doctrine; an attack upon man's bland assumption that he is the pinnacle of creation. Religious teaching tended to emphasize the distinction between man and the animals; he alone had a soul. T h e chainof-being theory broke down this marked division, but it too pictured man as the pinnacle of earthly creation. Bartram, however, argues that the behavior of animals proceeds from exactly the same causes as that of man. Man has been able to subjugate and tyrannize over other animals merely because of his peculiar combination of powers, not because of superiority.

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Had God not prevented him he would have destroyed the whole animal creation. Man is the most powerful animal; not the most divine. The Quaker is not apt to associate might with right. As he had done in the Travels, Bartram then introduces his pantheistic doctrine: W e say this Divine Intelligence permeates and animates the universe. This is the immortal soul of nature, or living moving beings of vegetables and in the elements. I cannot believe: I cannot be so impious; nay my soul revolts, is destroyed by such conjectures as to desire or imagine that man who is guilty of more mischief and wickedness than all the other animals together in this world, should be exclusively endued with the knowledge of the Creator, and capable of expressing his love and gratitude and homage to the Great Author of Being who continually feeds and delights us and all his creatures with every good and enjoyment. This instinct or intuitive knowledge, being a manifestation of the divine spirit, is essentially good. In support of this he introduced into the Travels numerous incidents to show the benevolent and peaceful nature of the animal creation in general. He gives several accounts of magnanimous rattlesnakes, and tells of a case where his father tried to spare the life of one. And in the Introduction there is the story of the killing of a bear. The cub "appearing in agony, fell to weeping and looking upwards, then towards us, and cried out like a child." Bartram charged himself with being "accessary to what now appeared to be a cruel murder." This has obvious similarities to the "sensibility" of a number of writers of the period who preached kindness to animals. One is reminded of Pope's lines in "Windsor Forest," picturing the cruel hunter, and Thomson's on the hunted hare beset By death in varying forms, dark snares, and dogs, And more unpitying men. . . . What distinguishes Bartram is that his doctrine grows out of a wealth of observation of the life and characteristics of

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animals. A n d the doctrine itself is not merely the tenderhearted benevolence of the sensibility school; it is part of his radical view of the nature of the animal creation. In this he agreed with his father who believed that "the creatures commonly called brutes possess higher qualifications, and more exalted ideas than our traditional mystery mongers will allow them." William's manuscript continues: Various animals tutor and educate their offspring or young, teaching them the proper means of self defense and of procuring their prey or food, and even pointing out to them what is salutory or noxious. T h e y have the faculty and powers of improving, altering or modifying their manners and art according to circumstances. T h e y cannot only improve one another, but are taught and improved b y mankind in an infinite variety of instances. Their actions, voice and movements demonstrate understanding, i. e., the Power of Reasoning Or deduction by a wise, perfect comparison and arrangement of ideas or notions. Every animal hath a language, both b y words or sounds, perfectly articulate, which is perfectly understood apparently without error or mistake by every individual both old and young of the same tribe or race. T h e y appear to have besides an universal language understood and intelligible to every tribe, at least of the same order; i. e., all birds understand this common language, and in like manner, all the tribes and families of quadrupeds, and without doubt reptiles, amphibia, insects, and fish have a common or universal language. N o w if animals have a vocal language, it's self-evident that they have intelligence, they have ideas and understanding. T h e r e is something so aristocratic if a philosopher use the expression or the epithet of the Dignity of Human Nature. Because a man as viewed in the chain of animal beings according to the common notions of philosophers, acts the part of an absolute tyrant. His actions and movements must, I think, impress such an idea on the minds of all animals, or intelligent beings. Man is cruel, hypocritical, a dissembler, he is dissimulation itself. Moreover he curses and damns dissimulation in order more completely to dissemble and deceive. H e calls to his

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aid the sacred name of the Supreme Being and attributes all the virtues, the more completely to cover his purpose. Nay the whole of human or worldly wisdom is a continual series or practice of deceit, fraud, dissimulation, and hypocricy. The more any man or woman approaches to honesty and simplicity, the more he is accounted a fool, and he is in the broad road, and hastening on to poverty, contempt and misery until death relieves him from oppression and disgrace. Behold a picture or representation of the Dignity of Human Nature. Dean Swift has scarcely given a more scathing indictment of human nature. Bartram, however, has a solution for the problem of human conduct. The good life, as he pictures it, come from a proper balance between the emotional or instinctive side of man and the intellectual. Instinct, as he has tried to show, is of divine origin, and must be heeded. A primitive people like the Indians is often better in this respect than is civilized man. He therefore asks . . . what is the catalogue or enumeration of the passions or affections that we are allowed to associate with the mind? Perhaps all of them, in some degree or other, but must be regulated by Reason, or that divine monitor. He speaks of . . . a necessary and indispensible intercourse, connection and harmony existing between our material and human, and our intellectual nature—in our present life, they are equally divine as being the effect and production of the Creator. There is a mutual dependence, for one could not exist without the other, here in our present substance and form, and perhaps after this life, in a future state of existence, perhaps in another world or planet.—The Divine Monitor (Reason), the mind (or soul); and the corporeal part or System of Sensation have a mutual dependence, connection, and intercourse. Our errors then, come from disturbing this balance: . . . the mind is often seduced by the interposition of our passions, and affections by which means we can't sufficiently attend to and obey the dictates of Reason.

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Here then is an attempt to reconcile instinct and intellect at a time when most men took one side or the other. Voltaire stands at one pole; Rousseau at the other. In the nineteenth century the battle grow noisier than ever with Carlyle's attacks upon the Utilitarians. At almost the same time that Godwin was writing "the voluntary actions of men are in all instances conformable to the deductions of their understanding"; and Wordsworth was telling Coleridge: Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of things: — We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves: Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives— William Bartram quietly jotted down his belief that there is "a necessary and indispensible intercourse, connection and harmony existing between our material and human, and our intellectual nature—in our present life, they are equally divine." In this Bartram is evidently drawing from Pope's Essay on Man, as his father had done before him. That the poem was in his mind is witnessed by his use of the quotation, "The proper study of mankind is man." Like Bartram, Pope had discussed the problem of instinct and intelligence in animals; he used the illustrations of the spider web and the honey bee; and he pictured the animal creation: Nature to these without profusion kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate; . . . And for man also: Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather man's as perfect as he ought;

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His knowledge measured to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space. Not unlike this is Bartram's "every part of His works may be in themselves perfect, agreeable to the intent and design for which they were created, yet imperfect in comparison to their Creator or universal system." Bartram's theory of the essential goodness of instinct is foreshadowed in Pope's lines: Say, where full instinct is th' unerring guide. What Pope or Council can they need beside? Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when prest, Stays till we call, and then not often near; But honest Instinct comes a volunteer, Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short is human wit . . . And Pope too had tried to reconcile the emotional and the rational sides of man's nature: Two principles in Human Nature reign. Self-love to urge, and Reason to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call; Each works its end, to move or govern all. . . . Modes of Self-love the passions we may call; 'Tis real good or seeming moves them all: But since not every good we can divide, And Reason bids us for our own provide, Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair, List under Reason, and deserve her care . . . Although William might have drawn similar ideas from various eighteenth-century sources, there is a strong probability that he used Pope, who must have been a favorite author with the Bartrams. John had used a couplet from the Essay on Man over his greenhouse; the only direct quotation in William's manuscript is from the same poem; in one of his letters William used a line from the Essay on Criticism; and the Moral Essays was in his library. In addition to the parallels in thought

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discussed above, there are similarities in phrasing in the philosophical manuscript and Pope's Essay. Bartram's "Immortal soul of Nature, of living moving beings of Vegetables and in the Elements" is similar to Pope's: One all-extending, all preserving soul Connects each being, greatest with the least. Bartram says that man "as viewed in the chain of animal beings . . . acts the part of an absolute tyrant"; and Pope after discussing "the chain" of animal beings says: Be Man the wit and tyrant of the whole. On this widespread eighteenth-century concept of the chain of being, Bartram is closer to Pope's doctrine of the immutability of species than to Erasmus Darwin's hypothesis of evolution toward greater perfection. But Bartram follows no leader slavishly. What distinguishes him from the other writers on the chain of being is that whereas they stress the infinite gradations, he emphasizes the similarities in all forms of life—the "unerring uniformity." Thus while other philosophers preach the superiority of man, Bartram praises the intellectual powers of animals. His doctrine is that all forms of life partake of the "Divine Intelligence [which] permeates and animates the universe." Man's superiority is largely that of superior might, but "this does not prove because he is most powerful that he is most divine." What Bartram has done with Pope's ideas is to weave them into his own pantheistic philosophy. He rejects completely Pope's mechanistic universe. "Thus the Divine Intelligence may act arbitrarily or independently of the system of order established by himself." His theories of volition and sensation in plants, and intelligence in animals, derive in large measure from his father, but he is in complete disagreement with John on the subject of Indians. In religion, he draws his deistic tendency and his pantheism from his father; but his theory of the innate

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moral principle is most probably related to the Quaker doctrine of "light." His use of scientific sources shows the same independence. In the Introduction to the Travels, some of his remarks recall Buffon, who wrote: "The most apparent difference between animals and vegetables seems to be the faculty of moving from place to place, which animals are endowed with and vegetables not." Bartram too begins a paragraph with: "The most apparent difference between animals and vegetables is that animals have the power of sound, and are locomotive, whereas vegetables are not able to shift themselves from the places where nature has planted them." But as we have seen, he then goes on to attack the theories of the French scientist. Another element of eighteenth-century thought which Bartram plainly shows is the doctrine of the noble savage. The origin of this cult is often attributed to Rousseau, who undoubtedly did much to popularize it. Freudian psychology or the corrupt state of French society under Louis X V (according to one's taste) are cited to explain this strange delusion. This delightful aborigine was, however, a literary property before Rousseau's birth. Montaigne in 1580 had given an idealized picture of some Iroquois ambassadors to the court of Charles IX of France. In England Mrs. Aphra Behn had entertained the rakes of the Restoration with Oroonoko, who lived in "the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin." And Pope, whose glittering surface seldom failed to reflect in some form everything in his age, described in the poem which we have found Bartram quoting, the Indian who sees God in the clouds and hears his voice in the winds. Rousseau himself pointed to an earlier writer's noble savage in his statement that Montaigne preferred the simple and natural government of the American savages to the laws of Plato. So popular was this savage in the eighteenth century that he became the butt for ridicule. Voltaire in Candide and Smollett in Hunt-

I50

JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM

phrey Clinker both gave satirical pictures of the savages whom they painted as cannibals delighting in torture. At first glance, Bartram's Indian seems like this literary creation of the sentimentalists. Thus: How happily situated is this retired spot of earth! What an elisium it is! where the wandering Seminole, the naked red warrior roams at large, and after the vigorous chase retires from the heat of the meridian sun. Here he reclines, and reposes under the odoriferous shades of Zanthoxilon, his verdant couch guarded by the Deity, Liberty, and the Muses, inspiring him with wisdom and valour, whilst the balmy zephyrs fan him to sleep. But as we shall see in the next chapter, Bartram's Indians are no mere literary properties. He could have found the noble savage in so many places that it is dangerous to try to link his ideas with any one source. One, however, needs to be mentioned. Throughout Quaker thought and practice there was a strong tendency to vindicate the Indian. William Penn spoke of the dignity of the Indian language, and in his "A General Description of the said Province," consistently showed his belief in the essential dignity and brotherhood of man. The Quaker belief as stated by George Fox was that Christ "had enlightened all men and women with his divine and saving light." Friends believed that this inward saving light of Christ was universal and came to both heathen and Christian. This doctrine applied to the Indians was quite different from the more usual one of "Why should these heathens have lands which Christians want?" Nor were the Friends inclined to share Franklin's pious reflection that God had apparently chosen rum as the means to exterminate the Indians to make way for the cultivators of the earth. William Bartram's language on the subject points clearly to the Quaker doctrine of "light." After an encounter with a menacing Indian he mused:

T H E S P I R I T OF THE C E N T U R Y

15 I

Can it be denied, but that the moral principle, which directs the savages to virtuous and praiseworthy actions, is natural or innate? It is certain they have not the assistance of letters, or those means of education in the schools of philosophy where the virtuous sentiments and actions of the most illustrious characters are recorded, and carefully laid before the youth of civilized nations: therefore this moral principle must be innate, or they must be under the immediate influence and guidance of a more divine and powerful preceptor who, on these occasions, instantly inspires them, and as with a ray of divine light, points out to them at once the dignity, propriety, and beauty of virtue. (Italics mine) His theories of social betterment also show a similarity to Quaker ideals of simplicity. Thus in his manuscript on philosophy he wrote: The lover of Power, Magnificence and Fame . . . seem to be the sources or parents or all our moral misery, they immediately affect our bodily health, bring on diseases of body and mind, and shorten life. . . . According to the present systems of civilization, legislators affirm that the strength and prosperity of a state depends on its riches; money they say is the si?iews of war, the oil which keeps the political wheels in regular and continual motion, the mainspring of state machine &c. &c. &c. . . . I believe it is a truth that riches is not the greatest and indispensible strength of a state, any more than of private families. Quaker also was his hatred of slavery. As we have seen, he owned slaves during his disastrous venture in Florida. From the pictures drawn by Henry Laurens, it appears that the particular Negroes owned by William were not of a type to give him a high opinion of the race. Yet, on the back of a catalogue of plants in his father's garden, he jotted down what apparently was a public address in condemnation of slavery. The tone is that of a sermon: Consider God is no respecter of persons, and that black, white, red, and yellow people are equally dear to him; and

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under his protection and favour, and that sooner or later ye must render full retribution. We have seen his opposition to war, but he seems to have believed, like James Logan, that defensive war was justified. In any case he is reported to have volunteered and joined a detachment of men raised by General Lochlan Mcintosh to repel a supposed invasion of Florida. When the attack did not materialize, Bartram withdrew from the service. In politics he was said to be of republican principles. This is very probable in view of his friendshp with Thomas Jefferson and Governor Thomas Mifflin. T o the latter he dedicated his Travels. Furthermore his brothers Isaac and Moses, who were in the drug business, attached their names to the NonImportation Agreement of October 25, 1765. Moses was chairman of a committee to look after families of soldiers who had taken the field, and helped to organize the Society of Free Quakers or "Fighting Quakers." And departing from the family custom of using the names of relatives and ancestors, he named a son George Washington Bartram. It would have been strange indeed if William had been entirely outside the political currents of his day. He was too thoroughly a son of the eighteenth century not to have faith in the improvement of man's lot through political changes. And his great faith in the brotherhood of man led him directly toward democracy. William Bartram then can be completely understood only when we put him against the background of his age. Conversely his life and thought help to light up the corridors of the past. So much of what was excellent in that time is revealed to us by this man. We see more clearly the humanitarianism, the liberality of religious and political thought, the advances of science, and the discovery of new literary realms. But in that age of satirical and controversial writing, Bartram's sweetness and light are all his own, part of his Quaker heritage and of his own character.

XIV

THE CREST OF FEATHERS Much have 1 seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments. Tennyson: ULYSSES

THE frontispiece to Bartram's Travels is his own drawing of Mico Chlucco, the Long Warrior, King of the Seminoles. Upon his head he wears a circular band decorated at the back with a half-dozen hanging feathers, and above his forehead holding aloft four more in a tall crest. It is the same "gallant crest" of "splendid feathers" which nodded on the head of the young warrior in Wordsworth's "Ruth." But neither Bartram nor Wordsworth knew that this crest had been worn in the same manner by the Chief-of-Men of the ancient Aztecs; nor had they seen its like in the still more ancient Mayan sculpture at Palenque. Bartram's drawing has the exactness of detail of the careful observer. The poets and novelists who drew from the Travels were less interested in exactitude than in picturesque and novel scenes. Wordsworth, for instance, put the crest on the head of someone who was not a king; Bartram would have made no such mistake. T o the ethnologist Bartram is valuable for this reason. It was his training under his father as an accurate and careful observer which makes his account of the Southeastern Indians one of the best we have for the period. A full treatment of Bartram's contribution to ethnology is beyond the scope of this book. Any such discussion should be undertaken only by an expert in that field. Several experts have, however, testified to the importance of Bartram's observations—observations, by the way, which do not rest solely upon the Travels. In 1789, before the actual publication of the Travels, but long after much or all of it had been written, he answered a series of questions about Indians, almost certainly '53

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put to him by Dr. Benjamin S. Barton who, as we have seen, had offered to finance the publication of the Travels. Himself a scientist, Barton's questions are well chosen and lead William to give fuller information on a number of points than he does in his book. This manuscript was later sent to Dr. S. G. Morton of Philadelphia by a gentleman in Mobile who had found it used as packing in a box of books. Morton turned it over to Dr. E. G. Squier, who rearranged the material for greater clarity, and published it in the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society for 1853. Even here the vicissitudes of the paper were not ended. After only twenty-five copies of the Transactions had been distributed, the rest of the edition was destroyed by fire. Thus it was not until the republication of Bartram's paper in the Transactions for 1909 that it had wide circulation. Like Barton, Squier had a high opinion of the value of Bartram's observations, and said that he had drawn upon them in writing his Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley and his Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York. Bartram's most discussed contribution to ethnology was his theory of a race of mound builders, a theory set forth in both the Travels and the Observations. Bartram believed that the Indians now inhabiting the southeastern United States were not the descendants of the builders of the great earthworks which he found there. In describing the council house or rotunda at Cowe, he said that it stood upon an ancient artificial mound of earth about twenty feet high. The Cherokees could give no explanation of the purpose for which this mound and others like it had been built, but they, in common with the neighboring tribes, had a tradition that their forefathers, when they migrated from the west, found these mounds already there. And the Indians whom they conquered had told the same story: the mounds were older even than their traditions. Bartram therefore concluded that the builders were a people antedating those found in that region by the Creeks and Cherokees.

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Bartram's theory of this early race of Mound Builders has been debated for a hundred and fifty years. John R. Swanton, of the American Ethnological Society, in the report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1927, attributed the wide circulation of Bartram's theory to the fascination of his style and the air of mystery which he built up around the antiquities he described. One of the first to accept this theory was the aged Franklin. On a journey to Lancaster in 1787 to attend the dedication of the new college named in his honor, he entertained Crevecoeur with an account of terraces, pyramids, and artificial hills found in Georgia and Florida. Their origin, he said, was unknown to the early inhabitants driven out by the Cherokees at the time of their invasion two centuries earlier. He spoke of these as proofs of the existence there of powerful ancient nations. As this was two years before the manuscript answers to Professor Barton's questions, and four years before the publication of the Travels, there can be no doubt that Franklin had been talking to William Bartram. Franklin's account is detailed even to the names of Indian villages. William must have found him the same eager listener that John Bartram had known more than fifty years before. Even those who have tried to refute the theory have found Bartram's data valuable. In a long paper on the problem in the Smithsonian Report for 1891, Lucien Carr cites Bartram frequently, even though his conclusions are that no separate race of mound builders existed. John R. Swanton in the Report for 1927 points out that Bartram's theory flourished until the investigation by Cyrus Thomas in the eighties. Swanton, who agrees with Thomas and Carr, nevertheless uses Bartram's findings and his drawings of mounds as evidence against the theory. Swanton regards the Travels as one of the best early works upon the southeastern Indians. As Fagin points out, this use of Bartram's findings even by those who disagree with his conclusions is a tribute to the skill with which they were gathered. He notes that in one work, the Early History of the Creek Indians and their Neighbors, Swanton has invoked Bar-

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tram's authority fifty-three times, often quoting whole pages from the Travels. But Bartram's theory of a separate race of mound builders is by no means dead. Paul Radin in his study of Indian culture argues that the opponents of the Mound Builder theory were forced to minimize the engineering skill of the builders and the culture that must have accompanied this. Furthermore, excavations yield increasing evidence "that their builders belong to a civilization far superior to anything known to-day in the United States, or to anything that was encountered when the Europeans first came to this country." Bartram, too, had recognized the superiority of the ancient culture, not only because of its engineering, but also because of its pottery and other manufactures. Radin, however, with the advantage of modern research in the field of Mayan civilization, is able to form a theory of the probable origin of Mound Builder culture. He believes that Mayan culture, stopped in its northward movement by the region beyond Vera Cruz, crossed the Gulf to the lower Mississippi. Here the trail of Mayan culture is again picked up, and extends throughout the area where the mounds appear. Their typical form, as noted also by Bartram, is that of a truncated, quadrangular pyramid. Some have terraces from one or two sides; others have a roadway leading to the top. Radin therefore points out their similarity to the pyramidal foundations of the sacred buildings of the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec, and suggests that these mounds had once been covered with temples. This was exactly Bartram's opinion, though in his day the truncated pyramids were either without buildings or were surmounted by council houses. "Perhaps they were designed and appropriated," he writes, "by the people who constructed them, to some religious purpose, as great altars and temples similar to the high places and sacred groves anciently amongst the Canaanites and other nations of Palestine and Judea." The Mound Builders, Radin believes, were eventually de-

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stroyed by the more primitive peoples around them, but not before the barbarians had themselves absorbed part of the culture of the invaders, notably agriculture. But among the more complicated techniques which were lost was the art of constructing elaborate mounds. Radin, therefore, is in substantial agreement with Bartram on the theory of a Mound Builder culture older, and belonging to a different people, than the tribes occupying the region when the white man came. Bartram even had some idea of the ways in which early American cultures were related. In answer to Barton's question whether any of the tribes he had visited were descended from the Mexicans or Peruvians, he replied that the culture of the Natchez seemed most nearly like that of Old Mexico. As evidence he cited Du Pratz, an authority extensively quoted by modern ethnologists. And Radin, also using Du Pratz, arrives at exactly the same conclusion, that "Their [the Natchez] social organization has the most marked affinities with that of the ancient Mexicans." Bartram's discussion of Indians is by no means confined to antiquities. His chief purpose was, he tells us, to determine for himself "whether they were deserving of the severe censure, which prevailed against them among the white people, that they were incapable of civilization." He tried to discover first whether they were inclined to adopt European civilization; next, whether this revolution could be achieved without violence; and last, whether it would produce any real benefit to them. These led him to a systematic investigation of the racial characteristics of the various tribes; their modes of government and civil society; their dress, social life, and amusements; their economic life; their rites and ceremonies; and the nature and relationships of their language groups. This analysis takes up forty pages of the Travels, not to speak of frequent accounts of ceremonies and other characteristics of Indian life scattered throughout the book. His Observations add still further information. As it is therefore impossible to give any full account of his

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findings, it may be well to mention certain ones which throw light on little-known sides of Indian life and character. The usual conception of the Indian as a taciturn, silent fellow is not borne out by the Travels. Thus of some Indians who accompanied a group of traders, he says they "were merry agreeable guests as long as they staid." And on another occasion his party was joined by some Indians returning from a fishing trip. "They were cheerful merry fellows, and insisted on our accepting of part of their fish." That Bartram is not simply generalizing about Indians is shown by his care in distinguishing the characteristics of the various tribes. Thus: The Muscogules [Creeks] are under a more strict government or regular civilization than the Indians in general. They lie near their potent and declared enemy, the Chactaws; their country having a vast frontier, naturally accessible and open to the incursions of their enemies on all sides, they find themselves under the necessity of associating in large, populous towns, and these towns as near together as convenient that they may be enabled to succor and defend one another in case of sudden invasion; this consequently occasions dear and bear to be scarce and difficult to procure, which obliges them to be vigilant and industrious; this naturally begets care and serious attention, which we may suppose in some degree forms their natural disposition and manners, and gives them that air of dignified gravity, so strikingly characteristic of their aged people, and that steadiness, just and cheerful reverence in the middle age and youth, which sits so easy upon them, and appears so natural . . . The Seminoles, on the other hand, . . . enjoy a superabundance of the necessaries and conveniences of life, with the security of person and property, the two great concerns of mankind. . . . Thus contented and undisturbed, they appear as blithe and free as the birds of the air, and like them as volatile and active, tuneful and vociferous. The visage, action and deportment of a Seminole, being the most striking picture of happiness in this life; joy, contentment, love and friendship, without guile or affectation, seem

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inherent in them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them but with the last breath of life. It even seems imposing a constraint upon their ancient chiefs and senators, to maintain a necessary decorum and solemnity, in their public councils; not even the debility and decrepitude of extreme old age, is sufficient to erase from their visages, this youthful, joyous simplicity; but like the grey eve of a serene and calm day, a gladdening, cheering blush remains on the Western horrizon after the sun is set. N o r did William find the Indians lazy, as John Bartram had charged. Only during hunting season did the women do the heavy work such as bringing home wood. They were not compelled to labor in the fields. As hunting season was not until after harvest, the men did most of the field work. Three times as many men as women would be seen at such tasks. "There is no people who love their women more," he wrote to Barton. They are "courteous, polite and gentle, tender and fondling to women." Never did he know an Indian to beat his wife or even use harsh language to her. "The condition of the women is as happy, compared with that of the men, as the condition of women in any part of the world." Fearing that some people will charge him "with partiality or prejudice in their favor," he then endeavors "to exhibit their vices, immoralities and imperfections" not only from his own experience, but from the accounts of traders living among them. For instance: The Indians make war against, kill and destroy their own species and their motives spring from the same erroneous source as it does in all other nations of mankind; that is, the ambition of exhibiting to their fellows, a superior character of personal and national valour, . . . or in revenge of their enemy . . . or lastly, to extend the borders and boundaries of their territories. . . . They do indeed scalp their slain enemy, but they do not kill the females or children of either sex. More important to ethnologists are his accounts of such things as the tribal organization with the mico or king at the head, and the war chief as second in power, a dual organiza-

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tion now recognized as similar to that of the Aztecs, and one probably harking back to the Maya. Or his full description of the feasts, dances, and games, especially the ball-play, a kind of lacrosse. He tells also of the green-corn feast or busk beginning with elaborate purification ceremonies in which all wornout clothes, leftover grain, and all the trash in each house were burned in a common heap. This was followed by a period of fasting, the extinguishing of all hearth fires, and the rekindling of new fires from a sacred fire which was never allowed to die. It is upon such material that ethnologists base their studies of cultural relationships. Bartram had a keen eye for the significant, and a magnificent ability to describe what he saw. His investigation led him to the conclusion that the Indians wished to become part of the civil and religious life of the white community. He therefore proposed that the government send friendly investigators to learn their languages, study their manners and customs, both religious and civil; their system of legislation and police; their traditions and history. On the basis of this study Congress should prepare and present to the Indians a plan for their civilization and union with the whites. Thus Bartram was no mere Rousseauistic dreamer of savage Utopias. He might believe that the moral principle was innate, and that "The same spirit that dictated to Montesquieu the idea of a rational government seems to superintend and guide the Indians," but his plan is one based upon knowledge and practical good sense. Had its principles been adopted, much of the nauseous subsequent history of Indian affairs would have been avoided. As Professor Macleod has shown in his The American Indian Frontier, the policies of Indian segregation and constant removal to remoter areas destroyed his morale, and prevented his learning the ways of white civilization. Bartram's plan would have provided a real understanding of the Indian problem, and a basis for developing methods of civilizing people. The white man may admire the noble savage, but he ends by wishing to civilize him.

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It is worth noting however that Bartram, unlike many missionaries, did not wish to substitute the white man's culture for that of the native. He not only admired much that he found in Indian life, but he advocated further study of it. His plan for union predicated a full understanding of Indian culture. H e certainly implies that much of it should be preserved. Bartram came from Pennsylvania where Englishmen and Palatinate German each followed his own way of life; where the meetinghouse stood on the same street with the church. The Quaker has never insisted upon making over the world in his own image.

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THE QUIET YEARS 7 also know,'1 said Candide, 'that we should cultivate our gardens.' Voltaire: CANDIDE

B A R T R A M ' S essential character is more clearly revealed in his later life. Not every modest unassuming scholar remains so after he attains fame and honors. Bartram, however, preferred to help other men to achieve fame, rather than enjoy it for himself. Back in Philadelphia, he helped his brother John to run the botanic garden, which had become a nursery. Thomas Jefferson, writing to the Prince of Parma in 1797, says: WILLIAM

Mr. Bartram . . . is the owner and keeper of a botanical garden in the neighborhood of this city and furnishes with great skill and at moderate prices such trees and shrubs of this country as the curious call for, and packs them so carefully as to preserve their vegetable powers through any length of voyage. Jefferson knew the garden well. In 1793 he had taken a house at Gray's Ferry, within sight of it. This was his residence during the epidemic of yellow fever that summer. His interest in botany, ornithology, and scientific agriculture must have made him a frequent visitor at the Bartrams. The friendship with William, which may have begun even earlier than this, lasted many years. Very likely he met Bartram at least as early as 1787, for the garden was visited by many famous people during the Constitutional Convention. General Washington was there at least twice. Under June 10, 1787, he wrote: "Breakfasted at Mr. Powell's, and in company with him rid to see the Botanical Garden of Mr. Bartram; which tho' stored with many curious plants, shrubs and trees, many of which are exotics was not 161

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laid off with much taste nor was it large." T h e General was perhaps expecting something like his own formal gardens at Mount Vernon or William Hamilton's estate, T h e Woodlands, which he also visited. This was not far from Bartram's, and Hamilton frequently came to William f o r information and f o r rare plants. Hamilton, however, tried to make his estate resemble those he had seen in England. T h e Reverend Manasseh Cutler from N e w England visited Bartram's garden that same year. When Cutler, who was something of a botanist, asked about Mr. Cox, Professor of Botany at the University, Benjamin Rush told him that Bartram had more botanical knowledge than Cox. Accordingly, the next morning, a party consisting of Dr. Cutler, Mr. Strong, G o v ernor Martin, George Mason and son, Dr. Williamson, James Madison, Mr. Rutledge, Alexander Hamilton, Mr. Vaughn, Dr. Clarkson and his son drove out to the gardens. T h e y found Bartram hoeing in his garden. H e wore a short coat and trousers, and was barefoot. Somewhat embarrassed at first by a visit from so gay and so distinguished a company, he gradually became more at ease, and showed the gentlemen about the garden, telling the names of the plants, their place of growth and properties "so far as he knew them." T h e last phrase hints that William, for all his superior education, was less of a botanist than his father had been. Bartram was only forty-eight; yet the account might be that of a much older man—a man whose chief work was over. Dr. Benjamin Rush, who sent the gentlemen, was himself destined to become famous. He had graduated from Princeton and had received his doctor's degree at Edinburgh in 1768. It was while he was studying there that John wrote him in regard to the study of nerves and sensation in plants. In 1769 he took a professorship in the new medical school in Philadelphia. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 he made himself famous for his treatment of the disease. His works on yellow fever, on climactic disorders, and on the treatment of the insane are regarded as important contributions to the

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development of medicine. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and, like Bartram, an early opponent of slavery. The Bartrams' friends tended to be among those who had favored independence. Thus even before the publication of the Travels, the modest nurseryman had become recognized as a kind of botanic sage. In 1782 he was elected Professor of Botany at the University of Pennsylvania, a post he declined because of ill health: at times a painful disorder of the eyes forced him to write with his eyes shut. The American Philosophical Society made him a member in 1786. Young Benjamin Smith Barton, the son of Thomas Barton, one of William's professors at the College of Philadelphia, came to him for information. Barton, while studying at Edinburgh in 1787, published some material on Indian mounds. He wrote to Bartram defending himself against Storey's accusation that the information came from William's still unpublished Travels. As we have seen, he even tried to attach himself to the tail of Bartram's kite, with a proposal that he publish the Travels with additions of his own. Bartram, far from snubbing the young man, sent him "an account of the Pyramidical Eminences in East Florida." And he no doubt complied with Barton's request for a drawing of the Franklinia Altamaha to be published in a thesis in Germany. Barton had great respect for the elder botanist. He wrote urging William to publish "your manuscript catalogue and description of American trees." The work was not published, however, and has disappeared. When Barton was Professor of Botany and Natural History at the University of Pennsylvania, he published a number of works on those sciences. One of them, the Elements of Botany, contained a tribute to William: The greater number of the Plates, by which the work is illustrated, have been engraved from original drawings of Mr. William Bartram, of Kingsessing, in the vicinity of Philadelphia. While I thus publicly return my thanks to the ingenious naturalist, for his kind liberality in enriching my work, I sin-

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cerely rejoice to have an opportunity of declaring how much of my happiness in the study of natural history, has been owing to my acquaintance with him; how often I have availed myself of his knowledge in the investigation of the natural productions of our native country; how sincerely I have loved him for the happiest union of moral integrity, with original genius, and unaspiring science, for which he is eminently distinguished. "Sero in coelum redeat." A number of William's short papers were published in Barton's Medical and Physical Journal. One of them, "Anecdotes of an American Crow," gives us an amusing picture of the elderly botanist working in his garden, attended by Tom, the pet crow. William had reared the bird from its nest, had trained it to answer to its name and come when called. The bird enjoyed seeing Bartram write, which he often did out of doors, and on one occasion stole and hid his spectacles. When it became too mischievous, he would punish it with a switch. But as Fagin points out, the study "is as cautiously worded as any modern scientist might wish." Bartram says he does not "here speak of the crow, collectively, as giving an account of the whole race," for he believes "that these birds differ as widely as men do from each other in port of talents and acquirements." Characteristically, he drew philosophical conclusions: "These senses, however, seemed as in man, to be only the organs or instruments of his intellectual powers, and of their effects, as directed toward the accomplishment of the passions." His observations of Tom, therefore, further support the doctrine of animal intelligence held by both himself and his father. Also in Barton's journal appeared his inaccurate biographical sketch of John; a "Description of an American Species of Certhia, or Creeper"; and "Conjectures relative to the scite of Bristol in Pennsylvania." Other young men besides Barton sought out the sage at Kingsessing. Thomas Nuttall, a Yorkshire Englishman who was working as a printer in Philadelphia, became interested in flowers along the Schuylkill. Both Bartram and Barton gave

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him instruction. Supported by funds from Barton and others, Nuttall traveled widely throughout the country, once going as far as the R o c k y Mountains. His publications brought him a high reputation, so that in 1822 he was appointed Professor of Natural History at Harvard. Unable to secure a leave of absence, he resigned to explore the Pacific coast. Nuttall made important additions to the American Silva of François André Michaux, increasing the size of that work from three volumes to six. Michaux also acknowledged a debt to William Bartram. In 1785, at the age of fifteen, he had come to America with his father André Michaux, w h o was studying oaks. T h e younger man subsequently returned, sent by the French Government for the purpose of finding suitable trees to introduce into European forests. As late as 1810, he wrote to William: I am sincerely obliged to our common friend, Mr. Wilson, to have give me, in his last letter, news of you and family. T h e marks of friendship that you have invariable bestow on my father and me, will be constantly present to my memory. And from Stuttgardt, Germany, November 1795, came a letter " T o Mr. Bartram the Philosopher." This was from a Dr. Autenrich (?) who expressed profuse thanks for Bartram's help while the writer was in America. Of all the aid given to other scientists, that to Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, was probably the most important. Wilson was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1766, and came to America in 1794. A f t e r teaching school a short time at Frankford and Milestown, he obtained a school at Gray's Ferry in 1802. A combination of poet and scientist, Wilson was exactly the kind of man to find Bartram a kindred spirit. Wilson's first verse had been so much in the style of Burns, that his " W a t t y and Meg" was first attributed to the author of "Tam o'Shanter." A t Gray's Ferry he turned out Spenserian stanzas on the

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order of Thomson's. In a favorite spot on a mossy cliff he did his reading: Here Milton's heavenly themes delight his soul, Or Goldsmith's simple heart bewitching lays; Now drives with Cook around the frozen pole, Or follows Bruce with marvel and amaze; Perhaps Rome's splendor sadly he surveys, Or Britain's scenes of cruelty and kings; Thro' Georgia's groves with gentle Bart ram strays, Or mounts with Newton on archangel's wings, With manly Smollet laughs, with jovial Diddon sings. His association with "gentle Bartram" was not confined to "Georgia's groves." Both William and his niece, Ann Bartram, gave Wilson instruction in drawing and painting. In November 1803 he wrote to Bartram: "I have murdered your rose. I traced the outline with great patience but in coloring and shading I got perfectly bewildered." And the following March, less than five years before the appearance of the first volume of his famous American Ornithology, Wilson sent him a collection of bird drawings with the request that he should write their names under them, as with the exception of three or four, he did not know them! Speaking of himself in The Solitary Tutor, Wilson says: One charming nymph with transport he adores, Fair Science, crown'd with many a figur'd sign; Her smiles, her sweet society implores, And mixes jocund with the encircling nine; While Mathematics solves the dark design, Sweet Music soothes him with her syren strains, Seraphic Poetry with warmth divine, Exalts him far above celestial plains, And Painting's fairy hand his mimic pencil trains. Truly life at Kingsessing must have been very pleasant during those years. Even mishaps had their pleasant side. Apparently William's study of entomology caused him to be badly stung, for Wilson wrote:

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I truly sympathize, though not without a smile, at the undeserved treatment you have experienced from your busy colony. Recollection of the horrible fate of their fathers, smothered with sulphur; or perhaps a presentiment of what awaits themselves, might have urged them to this outrage; but had they known you, my dear friend, as well as I do, they would have distilled their honey into your lips, instead of poison, and circled around you, humming grateful acknowledgments to their beloved benefactor, who spreads such a luxuriance of blossoms for their benefit. Bartram's diary covering these years strikes the same idyllic note in the opening entry: "Jan. ist, 1802. The weather serene and warm as in the month of May; after a white frosty morning; the fields and gardens green with growing vegetables; several species in flower, and abundance of insects sporting in the air, and birds singing as in Spring of the year; frogs lively about the springs." The diary as a whole, however, is disappointing to anyone familiar with Bartram's other writings'. With the exception of a few references to epidemics in Philadelphia and one to "a memorable event"—the launching of the ship General Butler at Pittsburgh—the manuscript is devoted almost entirely to records of the weather, observations of insects and of bird migrations. Valuable as these may be to later scientists, they shed little light on Bartram's life or thoughts. As the diary covers the period from January 1802 to September 1808, a month and a half in 1814, and from January 1818 to December 1822, it is seen that Bartram was carefully studying bird migrations during Wilson's association with him. William's own contribution to ornithology has been made the subject of a study by Dr. Witmer Stone. As he says in Bartonia, But William Bartram's claim to consideration as one of the pillars of American Ornithology does not rest wholly upon his Travels and his other scattered papers. It was his profound knowledge and the assistance that it enabled him to offer to others that have done more for ornithology and for other branches of zoological science than his own publications, and

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most generously and cheerfully did he share his store with those who came to him for aid. He lent Wilson his valuable books, among them the works of Catesby and Edwards. A great admirer of Jefferson, Wilson made some drawings which he got Bartram to send to the President. Bartram also wrote to Jefferson asking him to send Wilson "on any of these expeditions," referring to those of Pike and of Lewis and Clarke. The President had hoped that Bartram himself would undertake a journey of exploration. On November 30, 1803, Dr. Barton had written to his old friend: What do you say to a voyage or journey up the Red River, one of the western branches of the Mississippi? A new expedition for exploring the waters of that river, particularly with a view to its Botanical and Zoological productions, is about to take place under the patronage of the President of the United States: Your name has been particularly mentioned by the President. Mr. Freeman who is now in Philadelphia, is particularly charged with the business of enquiring what other persons are suitable for such an object. . . . I am not authorized to say what will be the compensation. But I doubt not it will be liberal, particularly if one so well known and so justly estimated as you are, will engage in the tour. . . . Come on. You are not too old. You have sufficient youth, health, and strength for the journey. You will render great and new services to Natural Science. Remember, that your venerable father continued to take botanical tours, long after he had reached your age. Wilson too tried to get Bartram to go on an expedition with him in the summer of 1806; to go down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Bartram had to decline because of delicate health and failing eyesight. If Bartram could not travel with the energetic Scotchman, he could at least help him to use the results of his trips. During the years when he was writing the Ornithology, Wilson stayed a great part of the time at the "Little Paradise," as he called the garden. The first volume appeared in 1808, five years after

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he had begun to study ornithology with Bartram. By the time of his death in 1813, seven volumes had been published, and an eighth was nearly ready. In a few years, according to Oberholtzer, "he did for the birds of United States what all the naturalists of Europe in a century had not done for theirs." Bartram was indeed a good tutor. And surely the materials of his many years of bird study helped to enrich Wilson's book. T h e low estate of ornithology outside of Philadelphia is shown by Wilson's experience in 1808 with the professor of natural history at Princeton. "I soon found, to my astonishment that he scarcely knew a sparrow from a woodpecker." T h e letters from Wilson to Bartram written during the years of their association show the younger man constantly asking for advice, information, and encouragement. It is hardly too much to say that Bartram was a collaborator in the Ornithology. A year after asking Bartram to name the birds he had drawn, Wilson wrote: I dare say you will smile at my presumption, when I tell you that I have seriously begun to make a collection of the birds to be found in Pennsylvania, or occasionally pass through it; twenty-eight as the beginning, I send for your opinion. In asking for criticism he said that no other naturalist knew "so well what they are, and how they ought to be represented." Later he sent proofs of the Ornithology to Bartram for corrections. O n April 8, 1807, Wilson wrote: I hope y o u have made a beginning, and have already a collection of heads, bills, and claws delineated. If this work should go on, it will be a five years' affair; and may open the w a y to something more extensive; for which reason I am anxious to have you with me to share the harvest. And three weeks later: T h e receipt of yours of the 1 ith inst. in which you approve of my intended publication of American Ornithology, gave

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me much satisfaction; and your promises of befriending me in the arduous attempt commands my unfeigned gratitude. From the opportunities I have had, of examining into the works of Americans, who had treated this part of our natural history, I am satisfied that none of them have bestowed such minute attention on the subject as you yourself have done. Indeed they have done little more than copy your nomenclature and observations, and referred to your authority. T o have you, therefore, to consult with in the course of this great publication I consider a most happy and even auspicious circumstance. . . . Bartram stuffed a bird so realistically that Wilson was about to skin it. Even as late as 1810, Bartram was supplying information on the natural history of numerous birds. Wilson's philosophy of nature also shows the effects of this association. In 1804 he wrote: I confess I was always an enthusiast in my admiration of the rural scenery of Nature; but since your example' and encouragement have set me to attempt to imitate her productions, I see new beauties in every bird, plant, or flower I contemplate; and find my ideas of the incomprehensible First Cause still more exalted, the more I examine His work. In "The Solitary Tutor" he speaks of "Adoring Nature's God." His locusts in "The Invitation" recall Bartram's ephemerae. Wilson describes them: Even now, emerging from their prison's deep, In countless millions to our wondering eyes The long-remembered locusts glad arise, Burst their enclosing shells, at Nature's call, And join in praise to the great God of all. In writing this Wilson may well have had in mind the Travels, which he greatly admired, particularly this scene: Solemnly and slowly move onward to the river's shore, the restling clouds of the Ephemera. How awful the procession! innumerable millions of winged beings, voluntarily verging on to destruction. . . . What eye can trace them, in their wanton amorous chaces, bounding and fluttering on the odoriferous

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air! With what peace, love, and joy, do they end the last moments of their existence! I think we may assert, without fear of exaggeration, that there are annually of these beautiful winged beings, which rise into existence, and for a few moments take a transient view of the glory of the Creator's works, a number greater than the whole race of mankind that ever existed since the creation; and that, only from the shores of this river. . . . And if we consider the very short period of that stage of existence, which we may reasonably suppose to be the only space of their life that admits of pleasure and enjoyment, what a lesson doth it afford us of the vanity of our own pursuits. Even in the Advertisement of his Ornithology, Wilson seems to have had in mind the opening passages of the Travels, and the couplet from Pope which John Bartram had put over the door of his greenhouse. Both the Advertisement and the Travels open with a discussion of the various orders or ranks in the scale of being, and speak of the importance of studying them. Wilson continued: In our social walks and rural excursions, everywhere surrounded by the wonders of creation, we seem, as it were, to hold converse with the great Author of the Universe, through the medium of his works, and with hearts glowing with devotion to "Look through Nature up to Nature's God." Nor was this all that Wilson learned from Bartram. Wilson's biographer, James Southall Wilson, believes the friendship was the most important influence in the ornithologist's life, refining both his character and his prose style. It is even possible that William's literary tastes influenced the younger man in his change from the school of Burns to that of Thomson. In any case some of his accounts of birds might have been written by Bartram himself. Speaking of the barn swallow he writes: There are but few persons in the United States unacquainted with this gay, innocent and active little bird. . . . W e welcome their first appearance with delight, as the faithful harbingers and companions of flowery spring and ruddy summer; and when after a long frost-bound and boisterous winter we

THE QUIET YEARS

173 hear it announced that the "swallows are come," what a train of charming ideas are associated with the simple tidings. There is the bald eagle, "the adopted emblem of our country": Formed by nature for braving the severest cold; feeding equally on the produce of the sea and of the land; possessing powers of flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves; unawed by anything but man; and from the ethereal heights to which he soars looking abroad at one glance on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes and ocean deep below him, he appears indifferent to the little localities of change of seasons, as in a few minutes he can pass from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the atmosphere, the abode of eternal cold; and thence descend at will to the torrid or arctic regions of the earth. He is therefore found at all seasons in the countries which he inhabits. . . . Elevated upon a high dead limb of some gigantic tree, that commands a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below: the snowy white gulls slowly winnowing the air; the busy Fringae coursing along the sands; trains of ducks streaming over the surface; silent and watchful cranes intent and wading; clamorous crows and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast magazine of nature. Still another young man bent on exploring this vast magazine of nature came to learn of Bartram. This was his grandnephew, Thomas Say, whose father's red, fortress-like house towered over the Schuylkill on the cliffs near Gray's Ferry. The twelve-year-old lad came to show his uncle the unusual specimens he had gathered from the surrounding countryside. Dr. Witmer Stone believed that it was through Bartram's help and encouragement that Say developed into the father of both American entomology and conchology. Bartram sent both the seeds of a silk tree and Thomas Say to Jefferson, who promised to plant and cherish the seeds at Monticello, and that "an esteem for his character, of very early date, as well as a respect for Mr. Bartram's friendships,

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will insure to Dr. Say the manifestation of every respect he can show him." The only evidence that Bartram ever stepped forward himself, during these years, is his address or petition against slavery. That he was deeply stirred is evident throughout the address: I am about to speak to you on a subject the most interesting and important, the most indispensibly deserving your serious consideration perhaps that ever hath or ever will come before you. . . . Recollect the fundamental principle, the first Articles of the Constitution of the United States, when we became a free, independent nation, viz: We hold it as a sacred trooth, that all men are born free, and have an equal, unalienable right to life, liberty and property, &c. If we believe in the justice of the Supreme judge and Governor of the universe that he regards all nations of mankind equally, and will do justice to the oppressed crying to him for relief; punish the inhuman oppressors for transgressing his will, and cruelly punishing his creatures, we are worse than madmen for thus increasing his displeasure, when it is in our power to obey and acquit ourselves as approved stewards and ministers and brethren of the universal family of mankind. . . . So the plea continues. As usual he was asking nothing for himself. Honors did come unsought, letters of praise or of inquiry on botanical questions. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia elected him to membership in 1812, the year of its foundation. Darlington reports that he was a member of learned societies in Europe as well. Unlike his father he wrote few letters, and seems to have kept no copies of those he did write. But he continued to cultivate his garden. When his brother John died, the garden passed into the hands of his sister Anne, the wife of Colonel Carr, but William continued to live there. Famous men continued to come: William Dunlap, the painter and playwright; and Charles Brockden Brown, the novelist and editor of the Literary Magazine and American

THE QUIET YEARS

175

Register, in which had appeared James Wilson's Solitary Tutor. Possibly Wilson suggested the visit. Dunlap tells of the meeting: Arrived at the Botanist's Garden, we approached an old man who, with a rake in his hand, was breaking the clods of earth in a tulip bed. His hat was old and flapped over his face, his coarse shirt was seen near his neck, as he wore no cravat or kerchief; his waistcoat and breeches were both of leather, and his shoes were tied with leather strings. We approached and accosted him. He ceased his work, and entered into conversation with the ease and politeness of nature's noblemen. His countenance was expressive of benignity and happiness. This was the botanist, traveller, and philosopher we have come to see. Few men have lived their philosophies as completely as did William Bartram: This world, as a glorious apartment of the boundless palace of the sovereign Creator, is furnished with an infinite variety of animated scenes, inexpressibly beautiful and pleasing, equally free to the inspection and enjoyment of all his creatures. The end was as quiet as the close of a great poem. On the morning of July 22, 1823, he went to the study where he and his father had described so many of the glories they had seen. After writing an article on the natural history of a plant, he rose to walk in the garden. A moment later he was dead. William Bartram could have said with Sir Thomas Browne: " N o w for my life, it is a miracle of [eighty] years, which to relate were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable."

XVI

THE SISTER MUSES Every recital—science, history, philosophy—is no more than a ivonder-tale told by the fireside to eager listeners. Struthers Burt:

ENTERTAINING T H E ISLANDERS

IN the eighteenth century, science had not become entirely a drudge whose duty it was to build dynamos, cure diseases and develop a better gasoline. Science then was still one of the muses, Urania, the daughter of Zeus and sister to Euterpe and Calliope, the muses of lyric and epic poetry. So instead of telling us how many horsepower were available to each person, the scientists were more likely to tell us of the "amazing distant glories disclosed in a midnight scene." W e are prone in these days to smile at such science and damn it with the term "subjective." Dr. Fagin is thoroughly modern when he writes: It becomes necessary, then, in order to gain an accurate understanding of Bartram's contribution to our knowledge of the American Indian, to separate his subjective comments from his objective facts, the romanticist from the scholar, the rhapsodist from the observer. This point of view assumes that a fact has value in itself. One of the most completely objective statements ever made was given to the world by a romantic poet. In describing a grave of an infant he said: I've measured it from side to side 'Tis three feet long and two feet wide. N o w of all the statements ever made about a grave, that is probably the least important. Both a mouse and a biologist have considerable objective knowledge of cats, but their views must differ widely as to the importance of such animals in the universe. T h e fact in .76

T H E SISTER MUSES

I 77

itself is nothing; the interpretation is everything. Anybody knows that an apple falls, but it took a Newton to tell us what it meant. In his novel, Entertaining the Islanders, Struthers Burt wrote: "Only the dull, bad writer allowed his personality to be overcome by his facts, or failed to realize that every recital—science, history, philosophy—is no more than a wonder-tale told by the fireside to eager listeners." William Bartram was well aware of this, so that even when his science has been superseded, his account remains as a vivid chapter in the history of science. The Travels is alive today while most of the scientific works of even twenty years ago are outmoded. In the eighteenth century this realization that even science was a tale of wonder was widespread. Dr. Garden wrote from Charleston, to the great Linnaeus: If seas and mountains can keep us asunder here, yet surely the Father of Wisdom and Science will take away that veil and these obstacles when the curtain of mortality drops; and probably I may find myself on the skirts of a meadow, where Linnaeus is explaining the wonders of a new world to legions of white candid spirits, glorifying their Maker for the amazing enlargement of their mental faculties. That of course may be no more an objective picture of the future than are those Utopias furnished us by contemporary economists, but it is a true picture of the human spirit. And when the botanist Collinson wrote, "How ravishing to see the swelling buds disclose the tender leaves!" he too was writing not only as a scientist but as a man. The result was that the scientists spoke not only to their own kind but to many men. The writings of Linnaeus were scarcely more interesting to other botanists than they were to the poets. True, one of the literary works that resulted was a strange and wonderful affair. Erasmus Darwin dramatized the current studies of sexual botany in his Loves of the Plants. T o this then little understood subject, we have seen James Logan and John Bartram contributing through their experi-

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ments. In the mass of notes that Darwin supplied to his poem, we find that his chief botanical source is Linnseus, who of course knew and may have used the studies of the two Americans. And the wheel makes full circle when we find Darwin's Botanic Garden in the Bartram library. A better, if less voluminous, poet who studied Linnaeus was Thomas Gray. In a letter written after the poet's death, a friend said, "He had Linnaeus's Works interleaved always before him, when I have accidentally called upon him." Charles Eliot Norton says that Gray's copy of the Systema Naturae was "annotated to such an extent that his additions and illustrations are found on almost every page of the two volumes which treat of animals and plants, and if printed would form a volume at least equal in size to one of the original." In his notes are citations from works on natural history, books of travel, and transactions of learned societies. He refers to at least one of Peter Collinson's papers in the Philosophical Transactions. If he used others, he almost certainly drew upon John Bartram, whose letters Collinson often used as the basis of his papers. On the subject of birds, Gray often cites Edwards, who as we have seen drew from William Bartram. Writing of his friend the poet, Bonstetten tells that "After breakfast appear Shakespeare and old Lineus struggling together as two ghosts would do for a damned soul. Sometimes the one gets the better, sometimes the other." Coleridge too knew the same struggle between the tales of wonder of the scientists and those of the poets. And of the two, the strangest come from the scientists. The strange star within the nether tip of the moon is from the Philosophical Transactions, the phosphorescent sea in part from Priestley; the jetting fountains and caverns measureless to man from Bartram. Wordsworth started out to create poetry that should illustrate the doctrines of the psychologists of his day. His philosophy of nature we have found to derive much from William Bartram, and through him from John Bartram.

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179

On the other hand the Bartrams were drawing ideas from literature, from Addison, from Pope, and more generally from the whole body of eighteenth-century literature. Leaving out Erasmus Darwin, it appears that both the scientists and the poets were the better for the exchange. Certainly the scientists were more readable. Alexander Wilson, who knew literature before he studied science, combines them in his description of the eagle. What modern scientist could explain as clearly and vividly why the bird is found over a wide area, and does not migrate? . . . from the ethereal heights to which he soars looking abroad at one glance on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes and ocean deep below him, he appears indifferent to the localities of change of seasons, as in a few minutes he can pass from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the atmosphere, the abode of eternal cold; and thence descend at will to the torrid or arctic regions of the earth. That is the language actually used by men. Wordsworth, once finding the poets and ordinary people speaking different tongues, demanded that they return to the language of men. One sometimes feels that modern science does not speak that language. It is more than a matter of mere words. There are plenty of scientific terms in Bartram's Travels, but they are kept in their place. T o classify a bird he uses the Latin name, but when he described its song he does not parade his learning; he writes not as a scholar, but as a man and a poet. So it was that the poets and the scientists understood each other. In the myth of the tower of Babel, after the tongues had been confounded, the people were scattered, and "they left off building the city." It is possible to labor this matter of language too much. There was, of course, bad scientific writing then, just as there is some good scientific writing today. But of the present gulf between science and literature there is little question. The hostilities are forever breaking out into open war whenever a

l8o

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college faculty discusses the curriculum. The scientist regards the study of literature as a mere frill, and the literary man believes that science is turning out robots. Such a state of affairs raises the grave question whether there is a tendency to specialize too soon. The day when a man could take all knowledge for his province is gone beyond recall; but if the work of the two Bartrams proves anything at all, it shows that a life devoted to a specialty does not necessarily require the shutting of all other "valves of the attention," and that work in a specialized field is richer for the knowledge of others. In the nineteenth century, before specialization had been made a fetish, it was possible for a scientist like Huxley to call literature to his aid in his lectures, and for Tennyson to turn geology into poetry. There is great need in our day for a scientist who can speak with the influence and authority that was Huxley's, and for a poet who can express the thought of the present as "In Memoriam" did that of the Victorians. Compared with the solemn, standardized writing of much of the science and scholarship of today, the gusto and humanity of Bartram's Travels is like a spring wind after a long winter. One is reminded of Sir Thomas Browne, who could study the anatomy of a decaying whale, and emerge to tell us that "nature is the art of G o d . " T h e Bartrams could study the structure of a plant and still see its beauty and classify a bird while listening to its "seraphic music." They knew that beyond all their knowledge there was the mystery of the universe, and that men would listen eagerly to him who could tell of adventures and discoveries in the unknown.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE THE two most important sources for material on John Bartram are William Darlington's Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall, Philadelphia, 1849, and the four volumes of Bartram Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Darlington's excellent work contains all or part of ninety-six of John's letters; part of a journal of " A journey to the Katskill Mountains with Billy, 1753"; and a brief account of troublesome weeds in Pennsylvania. It also contains many letters from Bartram's correspondents throughout Europe and America, particularly those of Peter Cofiinson. Darlington used chiefly the manuscripts now collected as the Bartram Papers at a time when they must have been considerably less faded than they are at present; consequently his book preserves some material which might otherwise be inaccessible. Fourteen of Bartram's letters to Cadwallader Colden appear in the Colden Papers: Collections of the New York Historical Society, Vols. II, III, & VI, New York, 1919, 1920, & 1923. Scattered manuscript letters are preserved elsewhere, a dozen or so being in the British Museum. Photostats of some of these are at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Two of Bartram's journals were published: Observations, etc. made by Mr. John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondago, etc., London, 1751; and An Account of East Florida, with a journal kept by John Bartram of Philadelphia, etc., London, 1767. A number of his papers appeared in periodicals, and especially in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. A list of these is given in the very complete Bartram Bibliography complied by J. H. Barnhart in Bartonia, Dec. 31, 1931. Not listed by Barnhart, however is Bartram's "An Essay for the improvement of estates, by raising a durable timber for fencing and other uses," Preface to Poor Richard Improved, 1749. Crevecceur's Letters of an American Farmer and Peter Kalm's Travels into North America give contemporary pictures of Bartram by visitors to his home. Rodney H. True has a good brief account of "John Bartram's Life and Botanical Explorations" in Bartonia, Dec. 31, 1931; and Conway Zirkle in The Beginnings of Plant Hybridization, Philadelphia, 1935, discusses Bartram's work in this field. For background I have used in addition to the standard 181

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works on the period, the Records of the Darby Meeting, the manuscript volumes of F. D. Pastorius, the Pennsylvania Gazette, an a other primary materials. For William Bartram, Darlington and the Bartram Papers are also useful. However, his Travels is by far the most important single source. Its charm and vitality have fascinated readers ever since Coleridge delightedly transferred its imagery into his notebook and his poetry. Dr. N. B. Fagin in William Bartram, Interpreter of the American Landscape, Baltimore, 1933, has made a careful study of Bartram's work and literary influence upon a dozen or so writers. Next to the Travels, William's most important published work is probably his "Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians, 1789," in Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. Ill, New York, 1853. Valuable material on William's work with Alexander Wilson is found in The Poems and Prose of Alexander Wilson, Paisley, 1876. Both Fagin and Barnhart have excellent bibliographies of William's papers in periodicals and of material relating to him. Since elaborate documentation is not a part of the plan of the Pennsylvania Lives, it has been omitted here; however, the text itself usually contains references to the sources for most statements when these sources are other than the letters and journals of the Bartrams. Nor does this bibliographical note include references to the various editions of John's journals and William's Travels. The Barnhart bibliography gives that information in full. Quotations in my book are from the 1769 edition of A Description of East Florida, and the Philadelphia, 1791, edition of William's Travels. For John's letters I follow Darlington except for those which exist only in manuscript or those which Darlington gives in expurgated form.

INDEX Addison, Joseph, 36, 63-64, 87, 89, '79 Agassiz, Jean L. R., 71 Alison, Dr. Francis, 94

by Darby Meeting, 66-67; elected to Royal Academy of Stockholm, 77; botanist to George the Third, 77-78; produces hybrid Lychnis,

Altamaha River, 113, 122, 137-138 American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle, 88 American Ornithology, 167-173 American Philosophical Society, 2,

pearance, 83; journey to Florida,

Alligators, 116-117,

133. 138

31, 68, 88, 89, 109, 110, 164

Ancient Mariner, The, 1, 117, 118, Argyll, Duke of, 35 Augusta, Ga., 115, 123, 124 "Bachelors' Hall," 19 Bacon, Francis, 35 Banks, Joseph, 40 Barclay's Apology, 8, 27-28, 66 Barnhart, J . H., 181, 182 Barton, B. S., 5, 130, 154, 155, 157, 1J9, 164-165, 169

Barton, Thomas, 164 Bartram, Ann Mendinghall, 10, 44, 72 Bartram, Ann (Mrs. Carr), 167, 174 Bartram, Archibald, 6 Bartram genealogies, 5, 11-12 Bartram, Isaac (John's son), 1 1 , 139, iji Bartram, Isaac (John's uncle), 5, 7 Bartram, John: birth, 5; education, 7-9; marries Mary Maris, 9; wife dies, 9; buys land, 10, 1 1 ; marries Ajin Mendinghall, 10; builds house, 10-11; children, 11-12; studies botany, 14-16; begins garden, 16, 21; begins association with Collinson, 24; aids Darby Library, 26-29; a founder of American Philosophical Society, 31; publishes book, 42; travels, 44J9, with Weiser, 48-54; disowned

81-82; original ideas, 82-83; a P "

99-103; death, 129

Bartram, John, Jr., 12, 93, 109, 174 Bartram, Moses, 12, 93, 97, 152 Bartram, Richard, 5, 6 Bartram, William: birth, 12, 84; travels with father, 54-55; education, 84-95; journey to Florida with father, 99-103; operates indigo plantation, 104-108; becomes day laborer, 108; begins travels, iii; explores Altamaha River, 113-115; travels in Florida, 115122; travels in Georgia, 123-127; goes to Mobile, 127-128; concludes travels, 128-129; declines professorship, 164; elected to Am. Phil. Soc., 164; aids Alexander Wilson, 166-173; opposes slavery, 174; elected to Academy of Natural Sciences, 174; death, 175 Bartram, William, Jr., of N.C., 89, 129

Bartram, William, Sr., of N.C., 5, 6, 96, 97-98, 108, 128-129, >41-142

Bartramia, 80 Bartram's Travels, editions of, 2, 130 Bedford, Duke of, 35 Bergius, Prof., 77 Blue Mountains, 29, 45, 46 Bond, Phineas, 90 Bond, Thomas, 69, 72, 90 Bouquet, Henry, 41, 57 Breintnall, Joseph, 24, 26, 35 Brett-James, N. G_, 34, 109 Brown, Charles Brockden, 174 Brown, Lancelot, 37, 38 Buffon, Georges L., 32, 41, 90, 142, 149

184

INDEX

Banting, Samuel, 66 Bumet, Thomas, 71 Bute, Earl of, 35, 92 Byrd, Col. William, 41, 81 Cape May, 54 Carlyle, Thomas, 130, 146 Carr, Lucien, 156 Catcot, Alexander, 46 Catesby, Mark, 41, 69, 74, 169 Chain of Being, 142, 144, 148, 172 Chalmers, Lionel, m , 112, 113, IIJ, 122, 123 Chateaubriand, F. A., 1, 101, 126 Child, Capt., 92, 96, 97 Chlucco, Mico (Chief), 153 Clarkson, Gerardus, 163 Clayton, John, 20, 41, 46, 56, 69, 75 Qift, Benjamin, 8 Colden, Cadwallader, 20, 31, 41, 4748, 55, 56, 68, 69, 70, 72, 75, 84 Colden Papers, 181 Coleridge, S. T., 1, ioi, 102-103, 116, 117, 118,119, 120, 125, 130,132-133, 146, 178, 182 Collinson, Michael, 79-80 Collinson, Peter, 2, 9, 23, 24, 34-43, 44-45, 62, 6$, 69, 72, 73, 74, 7j, 7778,91-92, 93,99, 103, 108, no, 177, 178 Conestoga, 45 Congaree River, 57 Cooper, Lane, 1, 132, 133, 135, 137, .38 Crèvecœur, H. St. J., 12, 14-15, 63, 76, 155, 181 Culpeper, Nicholas, 22 Custis, Col., 41 Cutler, Manasseh, 163 Dalibard, M. T . F., 32, 74 Darby Library, 26-29, 68, 84 Darby Meeting, 7-8, 66-67, 1 8 1 Darlington, William, 1, 60, 66, 80, 174, 181, 182 Darwin, Erasmus, 68, 148, 177-178, «79 Delaware River, 54 Dillenius, J. J., 74 Duché, Jacob, 87 Dudley, Paul, 81

Dunlap, William, 174-175 Du Pratz, Antoine S. L., 157 Eastburn, James, 114 Edwards, George, 73,91,97, 169, 178 Eeg Harbor, N.J., 48 Ehret, C. D., 92 Eliot, Jared, 10, 56, 94 Evans, Lewis, 45, 46, 49-51, 53, 69 Evans, Nathaniel, 87, 88, 89, 92 Fagin, N. B., 1, 130, 133, 155, 165, 176, 182 Fairchild, Thomas, 81 Fay, Bernard, 33 Florida, A Description of East Florida, with a journal kept by John Bartram, etc. (sometimes An Account of East Florida),