John Bartram, First Great American Botanist and Founder of Bartram Gardens, Born at Darby, March 23, 1699 It is not generally known, at least outside of Pennsylvania, that that State was the birth place of a man whom the celebrated Linnaeus pronounced the greatest natural botanist in the world. This man was John Bartram, a native of Delaware County. August 30, 1685 John Bartram bought three hundred acres of land from Thomas Brassey, which land was situated along Darby Creek, in now Delaware County. Here John Bartram was born March 23, 1699. His early attention was first directed to botanical studies by one of those accidents which seem to shape the destinies of all great men. When a mere lad and helping his father with the work about the farm he plowed up a daisy. Despite everything the modest little flower kept intruding itself on his consideration, until after several days he hired a man to plow while he rode to Philadelphia to procure a treatise on botany and a Latin grammar. Fortunately for himself and the world he inherited a farm from a bachelor uncle, which gave him the means to marry early, and purchase the land where he afterwards established the noted “Botanical Gardens.” His wife was Mary, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Maris; they were married April 25, 1723. Mrs. Bartram died within a few years, and he then married Ann Mendenhall, February 11, 1729. Bartram bought his piece of ground at Gray’s Ferry in 1728. On this estate he built with his own hands a stone house, and on one of the stones in the gable was cut “John * Ann Bartram, 1731.” Here he pursued his studious habits, his reputation spreading abroad until correspondence was solicited by the leading botanists of the Old World,—Linnaeus, Dr. Fothergill, and others,—while in the colonies, all scientific men in the same line of study sought his favor, advice and opinions. Dr. Benjamin Franklin was his earnest friend, and constantly urged Bartram to authorship. His fame had so extended that in 1765 King George III appointed him botanist to the King. He transmitted both his talents and tastes to his son William, and their joint labors during a period of nearly one hundred years were the most valuable contributions that this country has made to the science in whose behalf they were devoted. They were pious Quakers, admired and loved by their acquaintances. James Logan was probably the first person who directed the mind of John Bartram seriously to botany as the pursuit of a lifetime. Logan was a lover of plants and flowers and enjoyed a wonderful garden at “Stenton,” and Bartram was a welcome guest. Logan, in 1729, sent to England for a copy of “Parkinson’s Herbal,” saying he wanted to present it to John Bartram, who was a person worthier of a heavier purse than fortune had yet allowed him, and had “a genius perfectly well turned for botany.”