illiam Bartram, America’s first native-born naturalist/artist, was born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, on February 9, 1739.(1) He was the seventh of eleven children born to the botanist John Bartram (1699–1777) and his two successive wives Mary Maris and Ann Mendenhall.
The first member of the Bartram family to arrive in America was another John Bartram (William’s great-grandfather) who immigrated from England about 1682. This elder Bartram produced three sons: John and Isaac, who remained bachelors, and William, who had four sons and two wives.
According to a family history, the William Bartram in question (grandfather of the William Bartram in this report) moved to North Carolina in about 1709 soon after his second marriage, leaving two sons, John and James, in Pennsylvania. While in the South, William was killed by Indians. His widow and youngest children (another William and Elizabeth) were carried away as captives.(2) Eventually, all three were ransomed and returned to Philadelphia where the half brothers and sisters were united. Years later, William Bartram, Jr., one of the kidnapped children, returned to North Carolina where he was visited frequently by his nephew and namesake, the subject of this report.
John, III (the botanist, 1699–1777) whose own mother had died when he was only two, was not taken to North Carolina in 1709, but raised by his grandmother on a Pennsylvania farm originally owned by his Uncle Isaac and eventually inherited by himself.
The repetition of names in the Bartram genealogy is confusing, to say the least, and has occasionally prompted misunderstandings in the literature. For the purposes of this report, William Bartram (1739–1823) will be the primary focus, and all relationships will be discussed from his perspective (i. e., it was William’s grandfather who was killed by Indians and his uncle who resettled in Cape Fear, North Carolina, etc.).
Because much of William Bartram’s early career was shaped by the interests of his father, it is important to pause and briefly recount John Bartram’s remarkable life.
1. There has been some confusion on this date, for according to the old Quaker calendar, the birthdate recorded in the records of the Darby Monthly Meeting as “2 mo. 9,” is actually April 9th, not February 9th; April 9th by the old calendar is the equivalent of April 20th by the new. To be entirely accurate, therefore, one should cite William Bartram’s birthdate as April 20, 1739. Since John was content to enter February 9th as the date in his family bible, however, most of the Bartram literature cites it as the official date of birth and, for the purposes of this report, it is the one that will be used. For further information, see: Francis Harper, “William Bartram’s Bicentennial,” Scientific Monthly, April 1939, Vol. XLVIII, p. 380.
2. Ernest Earnest, John and William Bartram, Philadelphia 1940, pp. 5–7.
|
|