John Bartram (1699 - 1777)

John Bartram, born in nearby Darby to a Quaker family, moved to this farm on the Schuylkill River in 1728 and began cultivating a botanical garden that became part of America’s pioneering family tradition of naturalists, botanists, and explorers. A widower with two children, he married Ann Mendenhall in 1729, and together they raised nine children to adulthood. Over the next several decades, he made numerous expeditions in search of plants and natural history specimens, traveling as far north as Lake Ontario, south to Florida, and west to the Ohio River, and he shipped plants and seeds to other collectors at home and abroad. His international reputation as a plantsman attracted the notice of England’s King George III, who in 1765 appointed him “His Majesty’s Botanist for North America.” He also developed a wide circle of acquaintances through his travels and correspondence, including James Logan, Benjamin Franklin, with whom he founded the American Philosophical Society in 1743, Peter Collinson, and Peter Kalm.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · United States