William Bartram

1
William Bartram

• (April 20, 1739 July 22, 1823)

2
William Bartram

• Was born in Kingsessing (now Philadelphia) ,
  Pennsylvania on April 20, 1739
• Bartrams father was appointed by King George
  III as Botanist Royal in America.
• William accompanied his father on many of his
  travels
• Catskill Mountains,
• the New Jersey Pine Barrens
• New England

3
William Bartram

• Visited the Southeast in 1765 and 1766
• The elder Bartram took son William on these
  trips.
• The Bartrams discovered hundreds of specimens
  including the Venus Fly Trap
• So enamored was William of the life his father
  led that he left his Quaker roots in Philadelphia
  to explore the Southeast when he was offered
  financial support from a friend in England.

4
William Bartram

• Among the people Bartram called friend were
  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John
  Fothergill, an English surgeon whose greatest
  contributions were in the field of botany.

5
William Bartram

• William's solo journey spanned four years
  beginning in 1773 and covered parts of
  present-day Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and
  North Carolina.
• Sailing to Charles Town (now Charleston), South
  Carolina, he used this city as base for the next
  four years.
• In April of 1775 he left Charleston for Augusta
  and continued north from Augusta into Cherokee
  country.
• He reached the village of Cowee Watauga (in
  present-day North Carolina) in May, 1775, and
  returned to Savannah.
• In November, 1776, he received an urgent appeal
  from his ailing father to return to Philadelphia.
  
• The elder Bartram died shortly after William's
  return.

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William Bartram

• Although William Bartram's intention was to
  record the region's animal and plant life, his
  writings detailed life in early Georgia.
• During the trip he rarely saw white men, and the
  few he did see were traders.
• The Cherokee were so abundant along the trail
  that he would often call the Appalachian
  Mountains the Cherokee Mountains.

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William Bartram

• http//www.outdooralabama.com/watchable-wildlife/W
  atchablearticles/bartram.cfm

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William Bartram

• In addition to the scientific aspects of the
  journals, Bartram's writing also serves as some
  of the earliest descriptions of the culture of
  both the Cherokee and Creek Indians.
• He also expresses beliefs, unusual for the time,
  about man's interrelation with nature, believing
  that man shares certain emotional and
  intellectual bonds with all living things.
• During the trip he would sketch more than 200
  previously undiscovered species of birds alone.

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William Bartram

• During his "walk in the woods" Bartram recorded
  many observations in his personal journals,
  diaries of a sort that inspired many noted
  authors including Henry David Thoreau, William
  Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles
  Brockden Brown, James Fenimore Cooper and John
  Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.

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William Bartram

• Travels Through North South Carolina, Georgia,
  East West Florida, The Cherokee Country, the
  Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or
  Creek...
• The only book ever written by William Bartram and
  originally published in 1791.
• His work is almost poetic as he describes the
  wonders of nature and the nature of man.

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William Bartram

• He died in 1823.
• Although now relegated to a footnote role in
  American history, Bartram explored more of
  America than any scientist of his time, and is
  generally considered to be the first naturalist.
• Rekindled interest since the late 1970's, in part
  because of the efforts of the Bartram Society to
  mark and recreate the trail that he walked.