William Bartram
William Bartram was an influential American botanist and naturalist, born on April 20, 1739, near Philadelphia, at his father's botanical garden, the first established in North America. He was the son of renowned botanist John Bartram and received a solid education, displaying early talent in drawing and natural observation. William's exploration career began in earnest when he accompanied his father on a botanical expedition to Florida after it came under British control in 1763. His passion for botany earned him the nickname "Pucpuggy," or Billy the Flower Hunter, from the Seminole Indians.
In 1773, Bartram embarked on a significant four-year journey across the southeastern United States, focusing on plant collection and documenting Native American cultures, particularly those of the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole peoples. His travels culminated in the publication of "Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida," which, despite limited initial popularity in America, garnered him notable recognition in Europe. The romantic style of his writing influenced many literary figures, and his observations greatly contributed to the fields of botany and ornithology. Bartram's legacy includes the naming of Bartram's Sandpiper in his honor, reflecting his lasting impact on natural history.
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William Bartram
Botanist
- Born: February 9, 1739
- Birthplace: Kingessing, Pennsylvania
- Died: July 22, 1823
- Place of death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Biography
William Bartram was the son of the noted botanist John Bartram and his second wife, Anne Mendenhall. Bartram was born near Philadelphia at Kingsessing, the botanical garden established by his father and the first established in North America. According to records, he was born on "2 mo. 9" by the old Quaker calendar, which his father marked in the family Bible as February 9. However, the date actually translates to April 20 on the modern calendar. Bartlett enjoyed an excellent education at the Philadelphia Academy where he learned Latin and French classics. Bartram displayed an early talent for drawing natural objects, and Benjamin Franklin suggested that he become an engraver.
His father was appointed botanist to George III in 1765, and William joined his father on an exploration of Florida, which had come under British control in 1763. Florida then extended as far west as the Mississippi River, but this exploration concentrated on the area around the St. John’s River. The St. John’s expedition was described in his father’s journal, which was appended to third edition of William Stork’s Description of East Florida (1769). William’s enthusiasm for botanical exploration led the Seminole Indians to nickname him “Pucpuggy,” or Billy the Flower Hunter.
The British naturalist Peter Collinson showed Bartram’s drawings to Dr. John Fothergill, who decided to sponsor Bartram’s exploration of the southeastern United States. In 1773, Bartram began a four-year and twenty-four-hundred-mile trip into the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Bartram’s primary assignment was to collect and to ship to England new species of plants, but he also made observations on Native American people. His observations on the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole people are especially valuable. An account of his travels and detailed drawings of collections were published in 1791 as Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws: Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians. Bartram’s Travels did not sell well in America, where it was not reprinted until 1928, but it earned Bartram a European reputation. In addition to a London edition in 1792, it was followed by editions in Dublin, Berlin, and Vienna in 1793, and by Dutch (1794, 1797) and French (1799, 1801) editions.
Bartram’s romantic prose style won the admiration of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, and François-René de Chateaubriand. His manuscripts influenced the work of B. S. Barton, many of whose illustrations for his Elements of Botany (1803) were engraved from Bartram’s drawings. His list of 215 native species of birds inspired Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology (1808-1814). Wilson, who lived in Bartram’s house while preparing his compendium on ornithology, named a species of the upland plover, Bartram’s Sandpiper, after his mentor. The field notes and journals from Bartram’s Travels were lost, but a two-volume manuscript summary, which he sent to Fothergill, survives in the Library of the Natural History Museum, London.