Darlington states that “William Bartram and John Bar-tram, Jr., were then living there in 1804; and distinctly do I recollect the venerable men, though I little dreamt I should one day have to do with the history of the family.”[1]
Dr. Barton himself erected the first Green-House in the city. It was in the rear of his residence on Chestnut Street, below Eighth.[2]
Dr. William Baldwin was indebted for his early introduction to the study of the science of Botany to the instruction received at the University. This, in after years, bore fruit in the exploration of the Flora of the Southern States, and that of South America.[3]
Another distinguished botanist, Dr. Thomas Horsfield, was a pupil of Dr. Barton. Before adventure led him abroad, he graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1798. His thesis was “An Experimental Dissertation on the Rhus vernix, Rhus radicans, and Rhus glabrum.” He was a native of Bethlehem, Pa., and went upon a trading voyage to the East Indies, where he was. induced to settle, his talents and accomplishments finding occupation as naturalist and civil agent at the hands of the enlightened British statesman at the head of the Government of Java, Sir Stamford Raffles.[4] Dr. Horsfield, among his other communications with respect
- ↑ Dr. Darlington wrote interesting Biographical Notices of John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall, and edited their correspondence. A portion of Dr. Darlington’s journal, from which the above references have been taken, is given in the life of that learned botanist by Thomas P. James, Esq., read before the American Philosophical Society, 1864. Dr. Darlington is the author of the “Flora of Chester County,” an admirable work, and a model of the kind.
- ↑ This Green-House afterwards became celebrated in the hands of Mr. George Pepper, the father of Prof. William Pepper, of the University of Pennsylvania.
- ↑ Reliquiæ Baldwinianæ, by Dr. William Darlington.
- ↑ The “New American Encyclopædia” notices Dr. Horsfield as an English traveller and naturalist. From what source this error came we are not informed. In the Philadelphia Medical Museum, edited by Dr. J. Redman Coxe, vol. i., is an account of a voyage to Batavia in the year 1800, by Dr. Horsfield. In 1802 Dr. Horsfield fixed his residence in Java, where he was found by the English when the island was taken possession of by them in 1811.
