Bartram Got It Right

We're prepping for a trip to Philadelphia in the spring which will include a pilgrimage to the house and garden of America's first great botanist, John Bartram, who collected hundreds of new American flowering species and shipped plants, seeds, and root stocks to wealthy English gardeners over the course of several decades in the 18th century. His son William Bartram followed in his father's footsteps -- discovered one of our favorite flowering natives, the oak-leaf hydrangea, in North Georgia -- and died in his father's garden in 1823. We expect to commune there with his ghost in the same garden in April.

Father John Bartram (1699-1777) was a Quaker who got thrown out of fellowship with the church because he had a low opinion of preachers who dictated right behavior to their fellow believers, plus he said he doubted the divinity of Christ. At least, they tried to throw him out of the church. After the Quaker meeting voted to expel John, he continued to attend church regularly, sitting in his pew as though nothing had happened. You've got to admire that kind of stubborn, independent belief.

We've been reading a wonderful book by Thomas Slaughter about these pioneering American characters, "The Natures of John and William Bartram." Slaughter quotes old John, who said there were three types of Americans:

1. "The first class are those whose thought and study is entirely upon getting and laying up large estates, and any other attainment that doesn't turn immediately upon that hinge, they think is not worth their notice."

2. The children (primarily) of the 1st class, who spend what their parents amass as rapidly as they can, "in luxury."

3. Everybody else, obliged by "necessity" to "hard labour ... for a moderate and happy maintenance of their family."

Early America was effectively run by the 1st class, primarily for the benefit of the 2nd class, on the backs of the 3rd. Not much has changed since Bartram's day.

But at least we can celebrate the occasional working-class maverick who refused to be thrown out of fellowship with God and who recognized the unity and beauty of all God's creation. And we get to pay tribute to this American original in a blue state, to boot!