The Bartrams understood plants as valuable not only in the landscape but also for medicine, industry, and food. After John Bartram's death in 1777, his sons John Jr. and William turned Bartram's Garden into a commercial nursery, publishing the first catalogue of American plants for sale in 1783 and filling orders for the Constitutional Convention, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. Andrew M. Eastwick later acted to preserve the property, purchasing Bartram's Garden in 1850, building the thirty-four-room Bartram Hall, and keeping the original Bartram house and Garden intact, which allowed the site to survive the industrialization of the lower Schuylkill River. In 1891, City Councilman Thomas Meehan led the effort to acquire Bartram's Garden from the Eastwick estate as a public park, and in 1893 John Bartram's descendants held their first family reunion and formed the John Bartram Association to help the city preserve their ancestor's house and garden. Today, Historic Bartram's Garden is administered as a museum and public garden by the John Bartram Association in cooperation with the Fairmount Park Commission.
