#william bartram

William Bartram – Scientist of the Day

William Bartram, an American explorer and naturalist, was born Apr. 20, 1739, in Kingsessing, Penn., just west of Philadelphia.  

The first science book written in British North America was the work of the botanist William Bartram (1739-1823), a Philadelphia Quaker. Still in print, the book is usually referred to as Bartram’s Travels, but its full title, in the commodious style of the eighteenth century, is https://www.bartramsgarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/guided-reading.jpg  The book was an important influence on a…

Hear the William Bartram story

On Friday, June 21, 2019, a hike along part of the Bartram Trail will impart stories of the man who inspired it, with N.C. Bartram Trail Society member Brent Martin leading the adventure. The hike is one of HCLT’s series of EcoTours available to its members. Anyone can become a member on the hike. Reserve a spot by contacting [email protected] or 828.526.1111, or reserve online at www.hicashl…

Bartram apparently had a rough time with alligators, recounting many close encounters and fearful near-brushes with them, including a battle on the Saint Johns in which he said he held off several attacking gators with an improvised club. “I was attacked on all sides, several endeavoring to overset the canoe. My situation now became precarious to the last degree: two very large ones attacked me closely, at the same instant, rushing up with their heads and part of their bodies above the water, roaring terribly and belching floods of water over me. They struck their jaws together so close to my ears, as almost to sun me, and I expected every moment to be dragged out of the boat and instantly devoured.” The next night, he said, he shot one enormous gator that climbed into his boat, and narrowly missed the grab of another.

Not everyone found this credible; alligators do not spew smoke like medieval dragons, after all, and they usually don’t mount frontal assaults on canoeists. His claim to have seen twenty-footers, and to have heard of some twenty-three feet long, met with raised eyebrows. Bartram stood by his stories, though in later years, the devout Quaker was said to be highly sensitive to any suggestion that he embellished them, especially the account of his epic fight. Clearly, the great reptiles made a deep impression on him his friend and biographer George Ord said that Bartram had recurrent alligator nightmares all his life.

- From the book “Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding” by Scott Weidensaul, pages 35-6

On February 9, 1739, William Bartram, America’s first native-born naturalist, was born near Philadelphia.

[bottom image: One of Bartram’s drawing.  Image from the Natural History Museum, London.]

In 1761, Bartram moved to Bladen County, where his uncle owned a plantation called Ashwood on the Cape Fear River.  He opened a store and spent his free time exploring the flora and fauna of the region.

Bartram, demonstrating his significant artistic talent, provided patrons in England with drawings of American plants and animals as early as 1753.  In 1773, John Fothergill, a London physician and proprietor of the largest botanical garden in England, commissioned Bartram to travel through the southeast collecting objects of natural history.  That March he set out on the trip outlined in his book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida.

While on his travels in May 1776, in what is now the Nantahala National Forest, Bartram encountered a Cherokee band led by chief Attakullakulla.  In his writings, he described not only the flora and fauna but also the native Indians, cataloging forty-three towns and villages of the Cherokee nation.  Bartram returned to Philadelphia after his expedition in 1777.  His book,Travels, published in 1791, became the most important description of the southeastern United States during the eighteenth century.

Don’t miss a brand new short story from FATES AND FURIES author Lauren Groff in The New Yorker!

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A week ago, when Meg broke up with her, they were eating ginger scones that Meg had made from scratch, and the bite in her mouth went so dry that she couldn’t swallow for a long, long time.

She just nodded as Meg spoke kindly and firmly, and she felt each rip as her heart was torn into smaller and smaller pieces in Meg’s capable hands.

Meg has enormous gray eyes and strong hips and shoulders and hair like a glass of dark honey with sunshine in it.

Meg is the best person she knows, far better than herself or her husband, maybe even better than William Bartram.

Meg is the medical director of the abortion clinic in town, and all day she has to hold her patients’ stories and their bodies, as well as the tragic lack of imagination from the chanting protesters on the sidewalk.

It would be too much for anyone, but it is not too much for Meg.

On the mantel in Meg’s house, there are pictures of Meg with her children as babies, secured on her back, all three peering at the camera like koalas.

She, too, has often felt the urge to ride nestled cozily on Meg’s back.