Bartram's Garden
Encyclopedia
Bartram's Garden which covers 46 acres (18.6 ha) is the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, including an historic botanical garden
Botanical garden
A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

 and arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

 (8 acres (3.2 ha), established circa 1728), located on the west bank of the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...

 in Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with , all overseen by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, successor to the Fairmount Park Commission in 2010.-Fairmount Park proper:...

, near the intersection of 54th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

. Special events at the Garden include an annual spring plant sale, Mother's Day festivities, and a holiday gifts & greens sale. The John Bowman Bartram Special Collections Library contains a vast collection of documents and materials related to the history of the Garden, as well the history of Philadelphia and the development of the field of botany. The non-profit John Bartram Association operates the Garden in cooperation with the Philadelphia Department of Parks & Recreation.

The garden

The garden is on the site of noted American botanist John Bartram
John Bartram
*Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. ....

's stone house and farm on the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...

. He built the original house between 1728–1731; then greatly expanded it, adding a kitchen ca. 1740, and a Palladian-inspired, carved facade between 1758-1770. The house still stands, as does his original garden (circa 1728) and greenhouse (1760). Three generations of the Bartram family continued the garden as the premier collection of North American plant species in the world.

The current collection contains a wide variety of native and exotic species of herbaceous and woody plants. Most were listed in the Bartrams' 1783 broadside Catalogue of American Trees, Shrubs and Herbacious Plants and subsequent editions.

The garden also contains three notable trees:
  • Franklinia alatamaha - John and William Bartram
    William Bartram
    William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...

     discovered a small grove of this tree in October 1765 by Georgia's Altamaha River
    Altamaha River
    The Altamaha River is a major river of the American state of Georgia. It flows generally eastward for 137 miles from its origin at the confluence of the Oconee River and Ocmulgee River towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it empties into the ocean near Brunswick, Georgia. There are no dams...

    . At that time John and William—after an overnight of camping proximate to the tree (then with reddish leaves) were unsuccessful in locating any flowers or seeds. William subsequently brought seeds to the garden for planting (which he did in 1777 with John shortly before his death in September of that year). The tree was named in honor of John Bartram's friend, Benjamin Franklin
    Benjamin Franklin
    Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

    . Franklinia was last seen in the wild in 1803. All Franklinia growing today are descended from those propagated and distributed by the Bartrams, and they are credited with saving it from extinction.

  • Cladrastis
    Cladrastis
    Cladrastis kentukea, the Kentucky Yellowwood or American Yellowwood , is a species of Cladrastis native to the Southeastern United States, with a restricted range from western North Carolina west to eastern Oklahoma, and from southern Missouri and Indiana south to central Alabama...

     kentukea
    - A notably old tree, possibly collected by French plant explorer André Michaux
    André Michaux
    André Michaux was a French botanist and explorer.-Biography:Michaux was born in Satory, now part of Versailles, Yvelines. After the death of his wife within a year of their marriage he took up the study of botany and was a student of Bernard de Jussieu...

     in Tennessee
    Tennessee
    Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

     and sent to William Bartram in the 1790s.

  • Ginkgo biloba - This male ginkgo is believed to be the last of three original ginkgoes introduced to the United States from China, via London, in 1785.

Landscape history

Bartram's Garden is the oldest surviving botanic garden in the United States. John Bartram (1699–1777), the well-known early American botanist, explorer, and plant collector, founded the garden in September 1728 when he purchased a 102 acre (0.41277972 km²) farm in Kingsessing Township, Philadelphia County. John Bartram's garden began as a personal landscape. With his lifelong devotion to plants, it grew to become a systematic collection as he devoted more time to exploration and the discovery of new North American species and examples. Its evolution over time both reflected and fostered Bartram's vital scientific achievements and important intellectual exchange. Although not the first botanic collection in North America, by the middle of the eighteenth century Bartram's Garden contained the most varied collection of North American plants in the world. John Bartram was at the center of a lucrative business centered on the transatlantic transfer of plants.

Following the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

, Bartram's sons John Bartram, Jr. (1743–1812) and William Bartram
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...

 (1739–1823), continued the international trade in plants. They expanded the family's botanic garden and nursery business. Following his father's lead, William became an important naturalist, artist, and author in his own right. Under his influence the garden became an educational center that aided in training a new generation of natural scientists and explorers. William's Travels, published in 1791, chronicled his explorations in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 and remains a milestone in American literature.

After 1812, Ann Bartram Carr (1779–1858), a daughter of John Bartram, Jr., maintained the family garden and business with her husband Colonel Robert Carr
Robert Carr
Leonard Robert Carr, Baron Carr of Hadley, PC is a British Conservative politician.Robert Carr was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge where he read Natural Sciences, graduating in 1938....

 (1778–1866) and his son John Bartram Carr (1804–1839). Their commercial activities remained focused on international trade in native North American plants. Domestic demand also grew under their management.

In 1850, financial difficulties led to the historic garden's sale outside the family to Andrew M. Eastwick (1811–1879), who preserved it as a private park for his estate. Upon Eastwick's 1879 death, a campaign to preserve the garden was organized by Thomas Meehan
Thomas Meehan
Thomas Meehan , was a noted British-born nurseryman, botanist and author. He worked as a Kew gardener in 1846–1848, and thereafter he moved to Germantown in Philadelphia...

 (1826–1901), in Philadelphia. A national campaign for funds was aided by Charles S. Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1891, control of the site was turned over to the City of Philadelphia. It remains protected as a city park. Since that time, the John Bartram Association, formally organized in 1893, has overseen preservation efforts and historical interpretation of the garden, the John Bartram House, and a number of surviving outbuildings.

The garden's plant collection includes only a few extant examples dating from the Bartram family occupancy; however, documentation for what was once in cultivation is rich. The first century of public ownership left the garden wanting in terms of care and interpretation. Despite the disappearance of a number of subsidiary physical elements in the landscape, the garden's rectilinear framework designed and laid out by Bartram during the second quarter of the eighteenth century is still recognizable. Bartram's Garden's physical endurance and resonant associative meanings make the site an unparalleled location for comprehending an array of historical facets related to John Bartram, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century botanic studies, the North American plant and seed business, and period domestic life in Philadelphia.

Rambo's Rock

Rambo's Rock was a large boulder on the edge of the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...

 directly across from Bartram's Garden on the plantation of Peter and Brita Rambo just south of what is now known as Grays Ferry
Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Grays Ferry, also known as Gray's Ferry, is a neighborhood in South Philadelphia bounded by 25th Street on the east, the Schuylkill River on the west, Vare Avenue on the south, and Grays Ferry Avenue on the north. The section of this neighborhood west of 34th Street is also known as The Forgotten...

. The rock no longer exists and has been replaced with a wharf.39.93°N 75.208°W

Further reading

  • Joel T. Fry, "An International Catalogue of North American Trees and Shrubs: The Bartram Broadside, 1783," The Journal of Garden History, vol. 16, no. 1 (January–March 1996), p. 3–66.
  • _____, "John Bartram and His Garden: Would John Bartram Recognize His Garden Today?" in Nancy E. Hoffmann and John C. Van Horne, eds. America's Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. The American Philosophical Society, 2004, Philadelphia, p. 155-183.
  • _____, "Historic American Landscapes Survey, John Bartram House and Garden (Bartram's Garden), HALS No. PA-1, History Report," MS report, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, HABS/HAER/HALS/CRGIS Division, Washington, D.C.., 2004.
  • James A. Jacobs, "Historic American Landscapes Survey, John Bartram House and Garden, House, HALS No. PA-1, History Report," MS report, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, HABS/HAER/HALS/CRGIS Division, Washington, D.C.., 2001.

See also

  • Schuylkill River Trail
    Schuylkill River Trail
    The Schuylkill River Trail is a multi-use trail under construction for expansion along the banks of the Schuylkill River in southeastern Pennsylvania...

  • Bartram Village
    Bartram Village, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Bartram Village is a small neighborhood in Southwest Philadelphia. It is located in the vicinity of South 56th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard. The neighborhood takes its name from noted botanist John Bartram, whose historical home and gardens, Bartram's Garden, are located nearby.Bartram Village is...

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