William Bartram - Return To Philadelphia

Return To Philadelphia

Bartram returned to Philadelphia in January 1777, and assisted his brother John in all aspects of running Bartram's Garden.

In the late 1780s, he completed the book for which he became most famous, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc.. It was considered at the time to be one of the foremost books on American natural history. Many of Bartram's accounts of historical sites were the earliest records, including the Georgia mound site of Ocmulgee. In addition to his contributions to scientific knowledge, Travels is noted for its original descriptions of the American countryside. Bartram's writing influenced many of the Romantic writers of the day. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and François René de Chateaubriand are known to have read the book, and its influence can be seen in many of their works.

Although Bartram has often been characterized as a recluse, all evidence shows that he remained active in commercial, scientific, and intellectual pursuits well into the nineteenth century. He tutored nieces and nephews, penned a number of essays, contributed to several works anonymously, and helped run the family horticultural business. In 1802 Bartram met the school teacher Alexander Wilson and began to teach him the rudiments of ornithology and natural history illustration. Wilson's American Ornithology includes many references to Bartram and the area around Bartram's Garden. Among Bartram's more significant later contributions were the illustrations for his friend Benjamin Smith Barton's explanation of the Linnaean system, Elements of Botany (1803–04).

After the War of 1812, when many of his colleagues, contacts, and friends had died, William Bartram settled into a long period of work, observation and study at the family's garden in Kingsessing. He maintained a "Diary" that records bird migrations, plant life, and the weather. He refused a request to teach botany at the University of Pennsylvania, and in his sixties, declined an invitation from President Thomas Jefferson to accompany an expedition up the Red River in the Louisiana Territory in 1806. He died at his home at the age of 84.

Numerous places and sites are named in his honor:

• The William Bartram Scenic & Historic Highway runs along the east side of the St. Johns River from Jacksonville, Florida south in to northwestern St. Johns County on State Road 13.
• Bartram Trail High School in Switzerland, Florida (just south of Jacksonville.)
• The Bartram Trail is a hiking trail in North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina that commemorates his journeys through the area.
• The Bartram Canoe Trail system of canoe and kayak trails in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, operated by the Alabama Department of Conservation.
• The William Bartram Arboretum is located within Fort Toulouse Park, near Wetumpka, Alabama.
• Bartram Hall on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, Florida.

Bartram died on July 22, 1823, at Bartram’s Garden.

The standard author abbreviation W.Bartram is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.