by Howard Pyle
JOHN BARTRAM. 1770.
This distich was wrought in the botanist’s later years, and long after the house was built, for the age of the building is attested by another stone sunk in the wall, bearing the date
1734.
Between the two projecting wings of the house runs a wooden colonnade porch, supported by a massive stone pillar, the front covered with an aged but still lusty Virginia creeper; a colony of bees inhabiting a cranny of the wood-work fill the sun-lit air with their drowsy yet busy hum; three old dormer windows peep over the wrinkled eves at one as if surprised at modern intrusion; chimney-swallows glide in swift gyrations across the blue sweep of sky; the busy bustle of outside life comes but faintly to the ear; and altogether a breath, an atmosphere of old-time life seems to inwrap one there, shut in as all is by the thickly surrounding trees.
Such is the old Bartram house, the stones of which were hewn from the solid rock and the house built by the naturalist’s own hands; for among his other accomplishments he reckoned that of practical stone-mason. It was very evidently a labor of love with him, too: the amount of care bestowed upon the carved work around the windows and doors and the stone pillar under the porch, and the general air of completeness about the whole structure, could hardly have been produced by mere bought labor. And labor, indeed, it must have been, for the slow and difficult way of quarrying stone in those days can scarcely be realized in these. It is thus that Bartram himself describes his method, in a letter to one of his many correspondents:
‘I have split rocks seventeen feet long, and built four houses of hewn stone split out of the rock with mine own hands. My method is to bore the rock about sixteen inches deep; the holes should be about an inch and a quarter diameter, if the rock be two feet thick; but if it be four or six feet thick, the holes should be an inch and three - quarters diameter. There should be provided twice as many iron wedges as holes, and one-half of them must be made full as long as the hole is deep, and made round at one end, just fit to drop into the hole; the other half may be made a little longer, and thicker one way, and sharp-pointed. All the holes must have their wedges drove together, one after the other, gently, that they may strain all alike. You may hear from their ringing when they strain well. Then with the sharp edge of the sledge strike hard on the rock in the line between each wedge, which will crack the rock; then drive the wedges again.”
This method of splitting rock, primitive as it sounds, is still used occasionally along the Brandywine River.
The old Bartram house stands in a wonderful state of preservation. The wanton hand of the destructive present seems to have passed it by in its shady retreat. Some of the rooms are papered; the great open fireplace, in which John and his wife Ann used to sit on each side the blazing fire, he smoking and reading, she smoking and spinning, has been tilled up; the old Franklin stove in the sitting-room — a present from Benjamin himself, like enough — has been removed; but, beyond this, the old house, the grounds, and the surrounding out-houses stand in a state of inviolate preservation, so far as the hand of modern vandalism is concerned. On the sunny old porch, a hundred and thirty years ago, standing then as it does now, John Bartram sat in the warm light, assorting his specimens or reading some volume — a present from Linnæus, perhaps — spectacles on nose, pipe in mouth, deliciously absorbed.
The old house abounds in quirks and turns of building — a sudden ascent of stairs where you would scarce expect it, cunning cupboards, and closets set in the thick walls. On one side of where once stood the Franklin stove in the sitting-room is a curious old cubby-hole, with a recess behind it in the solid wall, running back of the chimney. Here during the winter the naturalist was wont to keep such specimens as an accidental frost might injure.
A film place it was also for drying nuts; and one can imagine the old gentleman grumbling testily as he hauled out a stocking full of chestnuts from among his choice chemicals, secreted there, by one of his twelve children, to sweeten in the generous warmth.
Back of this room, in the wing of the building, looking toward the south, is an airy apartment with large windows — the conservatory, where rare plants, collected, no doubt, in his journeys to Florida and the Carolinas, bloomed with their pristine luxuriance — gaudy lilies, cacti, meat-eating plants, and others, filling the close air with their rank fragrance.
Beside this room is the botanist’s study, with cheerful windows looking toward the south and east. It was here, in later years, that Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, wrote the initiative pages of his great work, under the patronage and aided by the suggestions of William Bartram, [William Bart ram, son of John Bart ram, the naturalist, a botanist of note; born 1789, died 1823; companion of his father in the latter’s journeys of discovery, and in constant correspondence with Dr. Fothergill, to whom he forwarded his drawings and specimens. Published travels in Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, London, 1791.] the successor of his father John, upon whom the mantle of natural science seems to have fallen. To one side of the mansion stands a long hot-house, now empty of its flowers and curious plants, the receptacle of old lumber and tools.
Surrounding the old house, and shutting it in on all sides, stands the grove of trees, rare and various, of native and foreign growth, the once well-known botanical garden, the first one on this continent: deciduous trees and evergreens of many varieties, blossoming shrubs, white and red cedars, spruce, pines, and firs, thick with shade and spicy of odor. In the very centre of the grounds stands a cypress, rising sheer and stark above the others in smooth pinnacles of branches, the gigantic bole, seven or eight feet in diameter, wrinkled and gnarled, deeply indented like the skinny ribs of an octogenarian. It looks as if centuries old, with its deep-rooted strength and its mighty girth. Were one to come upon it in the forest, rearing itself aloft in its majesty, one would think it had shaded the lesser growth of forest trees long before the Pilgrims placed their feet upon the well-known and immortal rock; but it was planted from a slip of cypress that John Bartram brought home with him from the Carolinas in 1766, so that, after all, it is but one hundred and thirteen years old. It raises the query whether many great elms and oaks, reputedly of extraordinary age, may not be the subjects of slight exaggeration. Certainly, as the tree stands, it impresses one with a sense of great antiquity.
All the surroundings add to this feeling; the green and stagnant pool at its base, the solitary heron that flaps sluggishly from the upper maze of its great branches, to rest, with its long legs and bewildered look, on the top of some neighboring pine.
Against the front of the house grows a Jerusalem “Christ’s-thorn,” and on one side of it a gnarled and tangled yew-tree, each a present from Peter Collinson, and planted by John Bartram’s hands. The former was one of a few slips sent direct from Palestine to Peter Collinson, and by him to Bartram.
Gently terraced at intervals, the garden slopes softly downward to the banks of the Schuylkill River, placid and glassy, the distant spires of Philadelphia reflected in its mirroring surface. Here, close to the river, once stood an old cider mill, all now left of it being a great imbedded rock, hewn flat, with a circular groove in it in which a great stone wheel dragged by horses resolved, crushing the apples to a pulp. A channel cut through the rock leading from the groove served to convey the juice from the mill. It was a piece of John Bartram’s own handiwork, another example of the combining of the practical and the ideal in his sturdy nature, taking good heed to keep a shrewd eye upon the present, not to stumble over the every-day things of life to the detriment of his mental shins.
Not far from the old cider mill stands a stone marking the grave of one of John Bartram’s servants, an aged black, one time a slave, for even the Pennsylvania Quakers had slaves in those days. At the time of the old negro’s death, however, he was a freeman, and had been for years, for Bartram was one of the earliest emancipators of slaves in the colony. It was thus he spoke to a friend upon the subject:
“Though our erroneous prejudices and opinions once induced
us to look upon them as fit only for slavery, though ancient custom had very unfortunately taught us to keep them in bondage, yet of late, in consequence of the remonstrance of several Friends, and of the good books they have published upon the subject, our society (of Friends) treats them very differently. With us they are now free. I give those whom thee saw of mine eighteen pounds a year, with victuals and clothes, and all other privileges which white men enjoy.”
At the death of the old servitor referred to above, he implored “Mars’ John” not even then to remove him from the beloved grounds he had so often tilled, nor from among the trees he had seen growing so lustily beneath his hands; so Mars’ John laid him to rest beneath the ground whereon he had wrought for so many years, there to sleep his last sleep in peace.
The grounds have gone down somewhat of late years. Some trees were uprooted in the great September gale of 1875; the stone-faced terraces have become overgrown here and there with thick matted brambles or moss; the stone steps that led down them have gaped apart, and lusty clumps of grass, burdock, and plantain have grown up between them; the stony paths leading through the glades have become almost obliterated by leaves, grass, and pine slats; but still the Bartram Botanical Gardens remain a fair proof of the energy, the perseverance, the taste, and the learning of their founder.
Bartram’s life was of the simplest character. In spite of his position during the closing years of his life as the peer and fellow of the greatest natural scientists of his day, he retained even to the last the habits and customs of the simple farmer folk of whom he accounted himself one. A Russian gentleman, who visited the Botanical Gardens during the lifetime of their founder, in a letter to England thus graphically described the man and his surroundings:
“I was received at the door by a woman dressed extremely neat and simple, who, without courtesying, or any other ceremonial, asked me, with an air of benignity, who I wanted. I answered, ‘I should be glad to see Mr. Bertram.’
“‘ If thee will step in and take a chair, I will send for him.’
“‘ No,’ I said, ‘I had rather have the pleasure of walking through his farm; I shall easily find him out, with your directions.’
“After a little time I perceived the Schuylkill winding through delightful meadows, and soon cast my eyes upon a new-made bank, which seemed greatly to confine the stream. After having walked upon its top a considerable way, I at last reached the place where ten men were at work. I asked if they could tell me where Mr. Bertram was. An elderly looking man, with wide trousers and leathern apron on, looking at me, said, ‘My name is Bertram: dost thee want me?’
‘“Sir, I am come on purpose to converse with you, if you can be spared from your labor.’
“‘ Very easily,’ he answered. ‘I direct and advise more than I work.’
“We walked toward the house, where he made me sit down while he went to put on clean clothes, after which he returned and sat down by me.
“‘The fame of your knowledge,’ said I, ‘in American botany, and your well-known hospitality, have induced me to pay you a visit, which I hope you will not find troublesome. I should be glad to spend a few hours in your garden.’
“‘The greatest advantage,’ replied he, ‘which I receive from what thee callest my botanical fame, is the pleasure which it often procureth me in receiving the visits of friends and foreigners. But our jaunt in the garden must be postponed for the present, as the bell is ringing for dinner.’
“We entered into a large hall, where there was a long table full of victuals; at the lowest part sat his negroes, his hired men were next, then the family and myself, and at the head the venerable father and his wife presided. Each reclined his head and said his prayers, divested of the tedious cant of some, and of the ostentatious style of others.
“‘After the luxuries of our cities,’ observed he, ‘this plain fare must appear to thee a severe fast.’ “‘By no means, Mr. Bertram; this honest country dinner convinces me that you receive me as a friend and old acquaintance.’
“‘I am glad of it, for thee art heartily welcome. I never know how to use ceremonies; they are insufficient proofs of sincerity. Our society, besides, are utterly strangers to what are called polite expressions. We treat others as we treat ourselves. I received yesterday a letter from Philadelphia by which I understand thee art a Russian, and hast been a great traveller for a man of thy years.’
“‘Few years, Sir, will make anybody to journey over a great tract of country, but it requires a superior degree of knowledge to gather harvests as we go. Pray, Mr. Bertram, what banks are those you are making? to what purpose is so much expense and so much labor bestowed?’
“‘Friend I wan, no branch of industry was ever more profitable to any country, as well as the proprietors. The Schuylkill, in its many windings, though its waters were but shallow even in its highest tides, and though some parts were always dry, yet the whole of this great tract presented to the eye nothing but a putrid swampy soil, useless either for the plough or the scythe. Now many thousand acres of meadow have been rescued from the Schuylkill and the Delaware, which both enricheth and embellisheth so much of the neighborhood of our city. Such is the excellence of these bottoms, and the goodness of the grass for fattening of cattle, that the produce of three years pays all advances.’
“By this time the working part of the family had finished their dinner, and had retired, with a decency and silence which pleased me much. Soon after I heard, as I thought, a distant concert of instruments.
“‘However simple and pastoral your fare was, Mr. Bertram, this is the dessert of a prince; pray what is this I hear?’
“‘Thee must not be alarmed; it is of a piece with the rest of thy treatment, friend Iwan.’
“Anxious, I followed the sound; and by ascending the staircase found that it was the effect of the wind through the strings of an Æolian harp — an instrument which I had never before seen. After dinner we quaffed an honest bottle of Madeira wine, without the irksome labor of toasts, healths, or sentiments, and then retired into his study, from which we passed into the garden, which contained a great variety of curious plants and shrubs. Some grew in a greenhouse, over the door of which was written these lines:
“‘Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.’”
The idyllic life of the Quaker farmer and botanist proved so attractive to the visitor that he ventured to hint his desire to remain several days in the family, to which desire he received the cordial answer:
“Thee art as welcome as if I was thy father; thee art no stranger; thy desire for knowledge, thy being a foreigner, besides, entitleth thee to consider my house as thy own as long as thee pleaseth. Use thy time with the most perfect freedom; I too shall do so myself.”
Making allowance for some natural warmth of coloring in the details of the visit which the young Russian describes through these and some succeeding pages, any one who is acquainted with Pennsylvania farm life among the peaceful people to whom John Bartram belonged — its quaintness, its simplicity, its freedom from ostentation and vanity, its sturdy yeomanlike honesty — can recognize this picture as the truth. A hundred years have made but little change, and such life exists now as then.
Graphic and picturesque, in spite of verbal stiffness and simplicity of diction, are Bartram’s own letters descriptive of his life, written chiefly to his life-long friend and helper, Peter Collinson, in London. Although on the terms of closest intimacy with Collinson, John Bartram never met him face to face. Their acquaintance began, flowered into friendship, and ripened into the most heart-felt sympathy entirely through written communications. Bartram’s letters pass before us in a panorama, as it were — the life, the manners, the customs, of the time in which he lived. At one time he leads us with him through strange adventures in the wilderness just back of Philadelphia, or gathering pine cones in the almost impenetrable forests of the Jerseys, or on expeditions in swamps and moorlands, coll
ecting specimens of the rank growth there — red-spotted lilies, cardinal-flowers, asters, and golden-rod. Sometimes the scene shifts to the old town of Philadelphia. Once there is an interview with the laughing philosopher Franklin in regard to Bartram’s son “Billy.” Billy’s aspirations even at that early date tended toward the natural sciences. Possessed of considerable skill as an artist, he delighted in reproducing with his pencil the beautiful objects, vegetable and animal, by which he was surrounded. This turn was, however, anything but acceptable to his father. The old man had struggled so at the beginning of his scientific life that he was strongly opposed to William’s passing through the like troubles. The youth had been apprenticed as a merchant, a planter, and a printer, and all had failed. In despair, John turned to Franklin for advice upon the subject. “He paused awhile,” wrote Bartram, “and then said that there was a profitable business, which he now thought upon the increase — that there was a very ingenious man in town who had business more than he could well manage with himself — and that was engraving, and which he thought would suit Billy well.” But it did not suit Billy, who continued in his own particular path in life, in spite of all objections.
Those wilds of Kingsessing in which John Bartram resided, now a part of the city of Philadelphia, then about four miles distant from that town, were at that time infested by panthers. “They have not yet seized any of our people,” writes the naturalist, “but many have been sadly frightened with them. They have pursued many men both on horseback and on foot. Many have shot them down, and others have escaped by running away. But I believe, as a panther doth not much fear a single man, so he hath no great desire to seize him, for, if he had, running from him would be but a poor means to escape from such a nimble, strong creature which will leap above twenty feet at a leap.”