Peter Collinson—Memorials of John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall [pp. 416-450]

Peter Collinson.
birth to John Bartram and Humphry Marshall, and it was fit and
proper that their natal soil should also produce for them a memorialist. Its capital town, from whence this work originates, is
not a little signalized for its attention to botanical and horticultural pursuits. It has its Hall of the Cabinet of Natural Science
and its Horticultural Hall, with extensive collections in the
various departments of the works of nature. A taste for the
study of the natural sciences, and special delight in the cultivation of trees, plants, fruits and flowers, would seem to be indigenous with the dwellers in that region. Their anniversary horticultural exhibition is a great gala day, bringing together thousands of the substantial citizens, with wives and children, their
countenances lighted up with a smile which indicates the joy
they take in it.
Bartram and Marshall were farmers, and the sons of farmers;
they cultivated their own acres and built their own houses " with
their own hands." The woodcuts of these houses as they now
stand, which we see in Dr. Darlington's book, give some idea
of the substantial and the comfortable which prevailed among
Friends in the construction of their dwellings, in Chester county,
a hundred years gone by. In mind, and in reputation, these
sons of the soil and distinguished naturalists were also selfcultivated, self-educated men. Brought into intimate contact,
by their daily avocations, with some of the most interesting
works of nature, they did not close their eyes, as so many of us
do, to the beauties and wonders by which they were surrounded.
They regarded with scrutinizing curiosity the springing blade,
the opening bud, the blooming flower, the ripening fruit, with
which nature seemed alive in all but infinite varieties. They
soon found it to be among their highest earthly pleasures to
make themselves acquainted with the secrets, principles, and
and unnumbered varieties of the system, in this department of
nature's wonder-workings. The enthusiasm with which respectively and successively they devoted themselves to the study,
and the industry and perseverance with which they followed it,
was accompanied with a modesty, prudence, worth, and other
sterling virtues, which must endear their memory to all who
read their lives, and give it a place in the inner shrine of every
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