Transcript of Bernard McMahon's Republican Seeds
Today I want to talk about Bernard McMahon, who some of you know. If Jefferson was a shadowy figure, and this is proof positive he was, McMahon is, is much more of, of a shadowy figure. And McMahon is tied in as, most of the people in this crowd, and this is probably the only crowd in the country I can say this, as most people in this crowd know, tied in deeply with Lewis and Clark expedition. I want to start off, and I, I'm trying to decide even as I am speaking here whether I'm gonna read, or, or talk more.
But I'll start off reading a little bit, just to sort of set the stage for thinking about Lewis and Clark. When I think about Jefferson back in 1803, sitting on top of Monticello as we were doing last night, looking out over the landscape, I think one of the things that Jefferson would have imagined was this "Empire of Liberty". That's his phrase. Or in Benjamin Smith Barton's phrase, this empire of rational liberty, would be streaming across the country, perhaps even in his lifetime, going from coast to coast. (1:04)
It would form out of the mutual interests and natural sociability of liberty loving Republicans. It would enable the nation to come together into a "harmonious union of free states of America." And that's Jefferson's phrase, "harmonious union of free states in America." Now, in part, and only in a small part, because I don't want to get into political things, if it's bad enough to talk about Bernard McMahon in front of this crowd, it's even worse to talk about Jefferson at Monticello. (1:32)
So I'm gonna skip, this is my second slide, but this will do. Yes, this is the America Philosophical Society right here, by the way. Just in case you're going, it's gotten ahead of itself somehow. But what I wanted to focus on, in terms of thinking about the "Empire of Liberty", is the role of commerce that Jefferson and more than Jefferson, his peers, thought would play in the extension of the "Empire of Liberty" across the continent. A lot of thinking about commerce in the eighteenth century, as I say, was derived from the thinking of Scots philosophers, and particularly people like Adam Smith, who viewed commercial exchange, and emotional exchange, as essential for the formation of society. And essential for the formation of a political state. (2:22)
They viewed exchange of all sorts, particularly commercial exchange, as the mechanism for producing networks of reciprocal indebtedness, and expectancy, that made it possible for people to come together in society. So commerce had an important role to play, when they were thinking about the extension of the nation across the continent. They were thinking of, in particular, the extension of commercial ties as being the "equivalent of affection among people." And that's another Jefferson quote there, "the equivalent of affection." (2:58)
Now, Lewis and Clark has meant a lot of things to a lot of people, but the two themes that have just struck, the "Empire of Liberty", and commerce, have played an important role in thinking about Lewis and Clark for at least 70 years. The corps of discovery, though, really has deeper roots than that. And this is the purpose for showing this slide of the American Philosophical Society here. It's, it's, Philadelphia apparently is undergoing earthquake here. (3:22)
But, where was I, yes, so talking about the, Lewis and Clark expedition. People like to say Lewis and Clark developed out of the mind of Thomas Jefferson. But I'd like to instead say that it grew out of the mind of the botanist Humphrey Marshall, who's already been mentioned a couple times today. Humphrey Marshall can't be mentioned nearly enough. Marshall was a member of the American Philosophical Society from 1769, and he began talking about taking a continental expedition, an expedition all the way across the country, going down the Ohio to the Mississippi, up the Mississippi to the Missouri and out to the Pacific shore, as early as 1778, and possibly even before that. (4:03)
In 1778 Marshall approached members of the APS, and he said send me. Let me take this expedition, because Marshall himself was a great expeditionary botanist. Now, that didn't go anywhere. He wanted to go to the Mississippi, and westward, but it didn't take traction. In 1778 a little revolutionary war had something to do with delaying it. So in 1785, Marshall came back to the APS, and he said well, I'm getting a little bit older. Why don't you send me, he was already fifty-something at, actually sixty at that point almost, and he said send me and my nephew Moses, and send us all the way across the country. And I think also in this expedition he talked about the young William Bartram accompanying them, who was a cousin of his. A cousin in a sort of a general sense. (4:47)
That 1785 expedition also failed to gain traction at the APS, so Marshall then turned very rapidly to the Royal Society, and he wrote off, he wrote off to Joseph Banks, up in the Royal Society. And he said why don't you send me to explore the western regions in search of minerals, fossils, or inflammables, and objects of natural history, etcetera. (5:07)
It failed. The Royal Society was no more willing to take it on than the APS was. Now, Marshall continued to stew about this, and in 1792 he returned yet again to the APS, and he said yet again, let's mount an expedition to go out to the Pacific shore. 1792 he had the good fortune to have Thomas Jefferson, who had been made a member of the society in 1780, and Jefferson picked up this theme, and he took it to completion. And what they did is, they went out, and they contracted with a French botanist, Andre Michaux, whom I think has already been mentioned once or twice today. And Michaux agreed to take this expedition that would flow down the Ohio, to the Mississippi, up the Mississippi to the Missouri, and all the way out to the Pacific shore, and back again. (5:53)
Now, that expedition ultimately failed as well, for a variety of political reasons that I really don't need to go into here. But the instructions that Jefferson drafted for Michaux in 1793 were dusted off 10 years later in 1803 to use for Lewis and Clark. Now, there's acertain continuity in all these expeditions beyond simply Jefferson's thinking about continental expeditions, and Marshalls thinking about continental expeditions. (6:20)
But they are, in at least one sense, quite distinct. And I think you can see that distinction between the 1793 expedition of Michaux, and the 1803 expedition of Lewis and Clark, if you look at the little paragraph that Jefferson wrote that epitomized those expeditions. To Michaux in 1793 Jefferson wrote, "the chief objects of your journey are to find the shortest and most convenient route of communication between the U.S. and the Pacific Ocean, within the temperate latitudes, and to learn such particulars as you can be, as can be obtained in the country through which it passes, its productions, inhabitants, and their interesting circumstances."
So two, two ideas, find the shortest route, and make observations along the way. To Lewis and Clark, he's changed it slightly. He says "the object," singular, of your mission, is to explore Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, (WORD?) offer the most direct and practical water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce." (7:21)
And there he's flattened things. He says it is finding the shortest route for the purpose of commerce is the reason we take these expeditions. So when Jefferson dusts these off, he suddenly changes the reason for this expedition. Between the, between the time of Michaux and the time of Lewis and Clark, commerce enters into it. Now almost seventy years ago, Ralph Guinness wrote that the Lewis and Clark expedition was really a political commercial enterprise. And that idea has stuck ever since. And what Guinness meant, primarily, and what most historians since have meant by commerce, was creating trade routes, creating networks of trade, subverting British and Spanish ability to trade out in that area, gathering trade goods, doing all the sorts of nasty economic enterprise that almost any MBA today knows. That's my next degree. (8:20)
This is also the American Philosophical Society, right next to Independence Hall there's some Indians here, in the foreground, some visitors to Independence Hall. And what I want to do is, is, rather than talk about seeds for the moment, to, to sort of drive home this point about commerce, so that I can then drop it, I want to talk about Jefferson's instructions regarding the Indians in this expedition of Lewis and Clark. (8:48)
Now, when he talked about Indians, Jefferson famously said to Lewis and Clark, he said be benevolent to them. Try to cultivate them. Try to convince them, in his phrase, "of our peaceful and commercial dispositions. Try to convince them that we are neighborly, friendly, and useful to them. "Useful, in this case, meant providing a means for Indians to elevate their social culture, socio-cultural status, as laid out by stated historians also, of the Scots enlightenment, to raise themselves up in the bar of civilization to European standards, so that the, these children of the forests could become more like us White Virginians. (9:29)
By encouraging Indians to abandon hunting, the cause and effect of barbarity, to make, take up sedentary agriculture, Jefferson believed that he could drive home to them a central advantage of civilization, that "less land and labor," in, in Jefferson's words, will maintain them better than their former mode of living. At the same time, the federal government would instill a desire for ownership, and for commercial goods, among Indians, through the establishment of well, well placed trading posts throughout the western -- , throughout the western reaches. (10:00)
Places within their reach, which were placed within their reach, I'm sorry, those things which will contribute more toward their domestic comfort than the possession of extensive but uncultivated wilds. Now, Indians not being fools, in Jefferson's book, would soon recognize the wisdom of exchanging what they, what they can spare, and what we want, as Jefferson said, for what we can spare, and what they want, capitalism writ large. And they'd be drawn ever deeper into the circulatory system of White America. (10:31)
Indians would exchange goods and desires with Whites, they would forge ever stronger social bonds in that Adam Smith sense, and Jefferson predicted that they would soon exchange physical bodies as well. He suggested to Lewis and Clark that if they could find Indians who'd be willing to send their children back east, to be educated back, back here, that he should by all means encourage them. Bring back Indian kids. Great souvenir. (10:56)
Now, all this exchange would bring Indians within the White economy, which in turn, as Jefferson wrote to Henry Dearborn, would allow the government to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them. Now, once agriculture had elevated them from barbarity into civilization, Jefferson would perform that final integral in his benevolent calculus. He said when they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, "they will perceive how useless to them are their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time to exchange for necessaries for their farms and families. To promote this disposition to exchange lands which have had, which they have to spare, and we want, we shall push our treating uses, and be glad to see them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they'll become willing to lop off by accession of lands." (11:47)
Now that's Jefferson being fairly crass. But that's Jefferson. So what Jefferson hoped, though, was not that he would simply steal land from the Indians, but that Indians would be drawn into the larger national product, project, I'm sorry. He said to a visiting delegation of Delaware Indians in 1802 that he hoped they would soon "join in our councils and form one people with us, and we shall all be Americans. He said to them, you will mix with us by marriage, your blood will mix with ours, and will spread with ours over this great island." And in fact, a great deal of Indian blood was spread over the island, but in a different way than Jefferson intended. (12:29)
Jefferson's idea is that commerce, with that function, that synthetic function, that, that gathering function, of people into society, would enable us to extend the nation across the continent, and incorporate the Indians into our economy, into our political circles, into our personal circles, and bring us all together. (12:49)
Now, what role do seeds play in all this? These are spirits, not seeds (LAUGH) at all. I didn't have pictures of seeds, so I used spirits, which I had several pictures. Now, the role of plants in all this is, is not, not necessarily clear. It, it's a little murky, a little hazy at times. But plants in fact are critical to this project that Jefferson had in mind. To begin with, it's agriculture, sedentary agriculture, and the plants that go along with it, that is the key in helping Indians raise themselves from savagery, which is, relies upon hunting for subsistence, into civilization, which relies upon agriculture and trade for their existence. (13:37)
So plants are critical in that function. But plants are also critical because they themselves are commodities that are exchanged on this national scale. They themselves create networks. Plants circulated among friends, political allies, co religionists, gardeners, botanists, and other curious colleagues, all over, to bind relationships, and to form communities of knowledge. Plants served as gifts that bound individuals into webs of reciprocity, and they served as tokens of scientific prestige, and as signifiers of a cultivated intellect. (14:09)
They were tangible, they were fungible, they were commercial and intellectual product. They're there to be possessed, they're there to be traded, co-opted, and sometimes subverted. And what we find is that the convoluted history of seeds in, and plants to a lesser degree, in the story of Lewis and Clark, reflects all these ideas. (14:30)
Now, we know that beginning with Jefferson and Lewis, the seeds passed through the hands of quite a number of people. And several people have been mentioned already today. The Landreths seem somehow to have been involved. Benjamin Smith Barton, whom I hope to show right here, was centrally involved, the man with the very bad hair. (LAUGH) William Hamilton, who's been mentioned several times today, has been, is deeply involved. And the man whom I'm about to refer to, Bernard McMahon, of whom I don't have the photograph, or picture, is, is the man whom I'm really quite interested in, in talking about here. (15:10)
So let's shift back for a moment. Even before the core of discovery headed west from Saint Louis, the botanical specimens began to flow eastward. In March 1804, Lewis packed up and shipped back several slips of maclara ponifera, the osage orange, and the wild plum, and sent them back to Jefferson for distribution. For, for raising and distribution, requesting that some of each be given to William Hamilton, that Philadelphia, gentleman gardener, for cultivation. And his suggestion was not random. (15:40)
Lewis of course had received has botanical training in Philadelphia under Barton, and he knew the botanical community, the horticultural community, in Philadelphia, that was already beginning to diverge. Botany and horticulture were already beginning to be separate enterprises in Philadelphia by 1800, I would say. He's well aware of who's who in the Philadelphia botanical community, and he was well aware in particular that Hamilton was an important figure in here. (16:08)
He knew that Hamilton had, had the Woodlands, his great estate, this massive garden with hundreds if not thousands of specimens of almost every variety of exotic and native plant that you could imagine. Barton took his classes there to, to tour through the grounds, and tour through the greenhouses, just as he took them to Landreth seed house in a later period. Not in the later period, not much later. About the same period. (16:35)
Who was Hamilton? Barton and Hamilton are odd figures. Just a side comment on Barton, whenever you have Barton involved, you have trouble involved. He's a choleric figure. He is a very, very prickly individual. As long as he likes you, he's willing to be relatively nice. But if he doesn't, he can be very caustic. Barton, some of you may know the story of his degree. He claimed to have studied in London and gotten a medical degree in Edinburgh. All that's false. He seems to have run out of Edinburgh after borrowing money and not repaying it, and becoming offended when the, his debtors requested that he repay. (17:15)
He then went to Germany for a while, and claimed to have gotten a degree at Gehrtinge (sp), and of which there's no evidence whatsoever. Later he was given an honorary degree at University of Kiel, so he really did have a German medical degree. But Barton's tendency to borrow money and not repay, and to be somewhat truculent about being asked for repayment, is something that we'll return to in a moment. (17:36)
Hamilton, on the other hand, came from a very, very wealthy family. An illustrious Philadelphia family. His grandfather had been the attorney who defended [John] Peter Zenger back in the 1730's. And Hamilton had transformed the Woodlands, himself, into one of the first great examples of picturesque land design in the English style in America. Situated almost 600 acres of land on the wet bank of the Schuylkill near Gray's Ferry. The Woodlands was designed to dazzle, not only in its rambling course of romantic vistas and river views, but in the sheer profusion of species and varieties of plants that are supported. These were culled from all corners of the New World, and from the old. (18:16)
They were tended by a succession of talented gardeners that included the Scotsman John Lyon, whom I won't talk about anymore, and Frederick Pursh, a German botanist whom I will talk about a little bit. And these displays were so impressive in greenhouse and ground that one writer quipped that the curious person views it with delight, the naturalist quits it with regret. Barton, as I say, and his students, repeatedly regretted going there. (18:40)
Now, it was important for any scientifically inclined visitor in the 1790's to visit the Woodlands, and certainly Jefferson did. But Jefferson and Hamilton really didn't always see eye to eye. They're usually described as friends. But that really doesn't get at the gist of their relationship. Hamilton was himself as prickly as Barton was. I don't have a picture of Hamilton, so I unfortunately can't show Hamilton. Hamilton, in fact, expressed a strong jealousy of any person's attempt to vie with him in a collection of plants, according to McMahon. (19:15)
If you were a plantsman, Hamilton was suspicious. And Hamilton was very glad to accept specimens from his fellow enthusiasts, and, but he was notoriously reticent to part with any of his own. He, he shows to engage and exchange only on select occasions. There's that word exchange again. But the, the arrival of the osage orange in, in 1804, seems to have qualified as one of those, those select occasions in which Hamilton felt it was okay to part with some plants. And what he did is he sent his nephew Andrew Hamilton down to Jefferson with specimens of the gingko, which he introduced to America, the paper mulberry, and the silk tree of Constantinople. And he offered these great treasures to Jefferson, and asked only for some slips of this beautiful western osage orange in return. (20:04)
And this is noteworthy not only because Hamilton very rarely did this, but because it says very succinctly four things. First it says something about Hamilton as a connoisseur of plants. These are not ordinary plants he's sending over, these are great treasures. Secondly, it says very succinctly how much esteem he holes the President in, in 1803 -- 1804, pardon me. Because only a man so esteemed would be willing, or would be deemed good enough to receive these great specimens. And it, it simplifies, there's a fourth one here I'll skip over, it exemplifies also his attachment to their budding relationship. So Hamilton and Jefferson, Hamilton sees himself as developing a relationship through this exchange with Jefferson. (20:54)
Now, Hamilton's concern for the relationship is actually very well founded, because even though they had known one another for a number of years, they were not necessarily great friends. While Jefferson labored in the cause of independence back in the 1770s, Hamilton was actually probably a Loyalist. He was at least suspected of it, and suspected so strongly at being a Loyalist, being against the Revolutionary cause, that he was expelled from Philadelphia in 1780. (21:22)
Now, though it's very difficult to prove why he might have gone to England in 1784 and '85, it's at least probably not coincidental that he left right at the end of the Revolution when a lot of other Loyalists went into exile. He traveled around in 1784 and '85 learning about English gardening, but it's also a convenient time to get away from the sort of pressure on Loyalists. Now, Hamilton made it through all this crisis in the post Revolutionary period, when Loyalists were, were, were, had their estates taken away from them. Hamilton didn't have any of that happen to him. (21:54)
But Jefferson and Hamilton certainly were never close. And whether it's these political differences, or personality differences that were, were caused, there was always a certain reserve, and a defensiveness on both their parts. When Jefferson wrote to Hamilton in April 1800, after a three year hiatus, he apologized enormously for the neglect of their relationship. He's, you know, he's just, he's just falling over himself. (22:18)
He, he was complaining, in fact, of the battering he sustained in, in partisan struggles, political struggles in 1800, to, to old Hamilton, and he sought to reassure Hamilton that their differences would not make any difference in their friendship as it was developing. He said "I never considered a difference in, of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friend." He said during the Revolution, which was trying enough, I didn't know the Revolution was trying, but apparently it was, he, Jefferson said he never deserted a friend because he had taken the opposite side. Loyalist Virginians he said were his best, his best support. He said all of them can attest to my unremitting zeal in saving their property, and can print out the laws in the statute book which I drew, and carried through in their favor. (23:05)
Jefferson is saying is that science, in this case, his scientific interests, mutual scientific interests with Hamilton, would trump any of these political or social differences. Now, as Hamilton was tendering these osage oranges to the care of David Landreth, apparently, a more likely Jeffersonian enters the picture, and that's Bernard McMahon. (23:25)
McMahon had been a regularly educated, regularly educated gardener, of considerable skill and experience. He was an Irish immigrant who in a half decade after he arrived in Philadelphia established himself as one of the nation's most adventurous seedsman. But he details of his life are still shrouded in the fogs of temporal distance and discretion, but McMahon developed a very strong trade in seeds and plants in the decade prior to the War Of 1812 in Philadelphia, the center of the seed trade. (23:54)
Earning your reputation among this wide circle of peers and friends, for horticultural and botanical acumen. He was so well connected in the networks of botanists, and gardeners in Philadelphia as, as a matter of fact, that many historians, including Liberty Hyde Bailey (SP?) , have suggested that the Lewis and Clark expedition was actually planned at McMahon's shop on Second Street. I'm not sure that's true. But that's what Bailey says. (24:19)
Now, McMahon shared very little with Hamilton, as I've suggested, Hamilton shared almost nothing with McMahon. But on several levels, McMahon saw eye to eye with their mutual friend, Jefferson. And despite the brevity of McMahon's residence in the U.S., there was a set of political, social, and botanical relationships that brought the two together. (24:37)
And the precise year of McMahon's arrival in the United States is not entirely clear. It's, this is 1799. This is at the corner of Second Street Market and, and McMahon's house is just, just outside the frame. This is a William Birch print. He, he is said by Darlington, he's, Darlington says that he first met McMahon during the summer of 1797. Pardon me, 1799, in Dilworth Town in Chester County, where McMahon had gone to escape the ravages of yellow fever in the city. But more importantly, he says he, he, he recalls that McMahon was one of the so called 'Exiles of Erin' who sought refuge in, in, in our country. One of those radical republicans, like Thomas Paine, or William Duane, or others, who fled Ireland and England in the 1790s, to escape British persecution. (25:37)
Although, McMahon's personal political affiliations are even more obscure than his origins. The evidence suggests that he did indeed swim in the radical stream. Even in the 1850s, when radicalism was a sensitive subject again, the editor of the 11th edition of McMahon's American Gardener's Calendar, McMahon had fled Ireland from political motives, adding very coyly that what these motives are has not been determined. Most probably it was necessary to fly from the persecution of government. And flying from persecution is always a good thing in America. (26:06)
If McMahon was typical of his refugees, he was an Ulsterman, and a Protestant by birth, and he had a mix who, he mixed a Painite egalitarianism with an antipathy to religious establishment, and a rabid Anglophobia. And I think you can see some of this in, in McMahon, McMahon's writings. Regardless of the details, he, his skills and beliefs, found abundant company in Philadelphia, where there were seedsmen, and radical Irish Democrats abounding. And he found a community that almost immediately embraced him. (26:39)
By the late 1790s, Philadelphia Irish had already entrenched themselves as a force in the rough and tumble of partisan politics. In the 1800 they were credited with giving that razor thin margin that brought Jefferson the presidential election in that year. Now, the, the democracy in Philadelphia split rather rapidly, after that election. Split into a radical camp and a more conservative camp. McMahon's allies, McMahon's best friends, all seemed to be in that radical camp. (27:06)
There's two other little pieces that suggest something about McMahon's, McMahon's political affiliations. His son, Thomas P. McMahon, was thought by Jefferson to be Thomas Paine McMahon, named after the arch radical. He's listed in the American army, the army register as Thomas Patrick McMahon, but Jefferson addressed him as Thomas Paine McMahon. Secondly, McMahon gave two books to the American Philosophical Society that we know about, his American Gardener's Calendar, which as I say, is, I will say is a political tract, and secondly a tract on the regicides who had killed Charles I and emigrated to America. So there is a little Anglophobic tinge there. (27:52)
So what I say is if it looks like a rat, (LAUGH) and it smells like a rat, it probably is a rat-ical. So almost certainly McMahon is one of the rabid republican Irishmen from that period of time. Now, in 1802, McMahon first appears in city directories of Philadelphia as an accountant living at 69 New Street. And Joseph Ewan has suggested that he worked with this man, William Duane. (28:18)
William Duane is important in all this mess. He's one of McMahon's closest friends. And Duane himself was the arch radical in Philadelphia. He was the head of Philadelphia radical politics. He was a member of the London Corresponding Society, a Painite organization when he was there, and he has the distinction of having been thrown out of two continents before arriving here for radical activity. He was booted out of India for, for radical publishing, and then booted out of his native Ireland. He was actually born in New York to an Irish family, moved back to Ireland. But he was booted out of Ireland. (28:50)
When he came here he immediately picked up the Philadelphia Aurora, the newspaper, and was almost closed down by anti sedition activity here. Duane manages to escape all this, marrying the widow of Benjamin Franklin's grandson, and, and marrying well, and becoming very well connected. But he himself is one of these 'Exiles of Erin,' these radical republicans from that period.
Now, the association between McMahon and Duane began, continued to grow from 1802, although accountancy did not. While he was attending Barton's lectures in medicine at the University Of Pennsylvania in 1802 to 1804, allegedly, McMahon returned to his old profession, if he had ever really left it, and that is seedsmanship. And he opened a seed store in the city, that as I say, this is the first, the first catalog from that seed store, that was remembered as a gathering place for an informal fraternity of young and aspiring botanists that included Thomas Nuttle, William Baldwin, William P.C. Barton, Benjamin Smith Barton's nephew, William Darlington, and others. (29:51)
Anne McMahon, his second wife, Bernard McMahon's second wife, manned the counter, and was known to be a vivid presence as well. Over the next decade, McMahon developed and diversified his trade, adopting succession of new titles as he fashioned, as he refashioned, sorry, fashioned and refashioned himself as he went along. Let me try to go to a page within the catalog. There we go. (30:22)
He first appears as a garden and grass seeds merchant in, living at 129 Chestnut Street. He adds florist to his title when he moves around the corner of the street, on, onto Second Street in 1807. Six years later he becomes botanist, grass and garden seed merchant, before finally settling on botanist nurseryman grass and garden seed merchant, in 1815. He keeps adding these titles. And the key title in all this is botanist, with the implications that McMahon offered a great deal more than the applied work of a seedsman, or a nurseryman. That he was more than a merchant, or collector, but he was a skilled observer with an awareness of theory as well as practice. (30:57)
This is Second Street, if I can get this balky thing to work here. This is more or less where McMahon's store would have been, although right where I'm standing rather than this direction. Yeah, you can't see it. It's where I'm standing. (LAUGH) So he's, he's living at this place, the, where was I, okay, so he is no mere seedsman. He's not just a merchant of goods, he's a merchant of knowledge. (31:27)
To emphasize that point, he does a couple of things. One is he buys an estate up in Germantown, in December 1808. That's a little bit, little bit later period. But he buys this estate that he names Upsal. And there's some uncertainty as to why it's named Upsal. And there's a current house there called Upsal that's very nearby, but they're unrelated. And they may be coincidentally named Upsal. But Upsal, I think, McMahon names it Upsal because Linnaeus is from Uppsala, in Sweden. And so he's paying homage to Linnaeus in the way he names his place. Back down on Second Street, McMahon offers not only seeds, but he offers books. (32:07)
He teaches classes in gardening at Madame Revard's Seminary, side by side with Barton, the, the city's great botanist. He begins to stalk all these titles that, that say something about McMahon's ideas about botany at the time. And if you look down here, you'll see everything from, I think I got a thing here, well, all the great gardening books, British Garden, Marshall's Rural Economy, all these very popular things. Works like Phytologia, and Botanic Garden from Erasmus Darwin, not Charles. You can see here Barton's Travels in North America. If I had my glasses on here I could see a great deal more than I actually do. (32:44)
These, these books actually are, are important for establishing McMahon's credentials with the botanical community. Now, McMahon also tried to further his own interests by establishing a trade with Europe. And he used his radical republican colleagues to make that trade happen. He taps Jon Vaughn (SP?) , who along with his brother were radical émigrés from England, to sell seeds to France, and to people like Andre Michaux. He sent hundred dollars worth of seeds to Michaux in 1804. (33:16)
He sent another group through Jon Vaughn a little bit later, in which he took back in exchange a group of twenty copies of Michaux's Oaks, and also six copies of the elder Michaux, André Michaux, not François André Michaux, Flora Boreali . Now, these connections with books and authors went much, much deeper than it seems here. McMahon's daughter by his first marriage, Mary, married a bookbinder, Abraham Ogden. Bernard served with William Duane, the printer and publisher, as co executors that managers of the trust, was established by the, established by the estate of the printer Patrick Mulligan. And his own, his own printers included his next door neighbor William Wyberch , who was not William Berch the printer, but another William Wyberch who was a stationer, a bookseller, and William, William John Duane, who is William Duane's son. (34:04)
Now, William Duane became very rapidly the catalyst for advancing McMahon's reputation, and a median for extending his professional relationships. The Aurora, Duane's newspaper, was the primary outlet in which McMahon advertised. And Duane himself published McMahon's second catalog of seeds, was, came out I believe in 1807. But more important were the personal connections that Duane offered. And most important of those was the relationship with, with President Jefferson. (34:34)
It was through Duane that McMahon struck up a correspondence with Jefferson in the spring of 1806. And these were, all, all these correspondence, this correspondence as it developed, was entirely primed by the exchange of botanical gifts. And Duane is regularly acting as the go between, handling prints from Philadelphia, taking plants, sorry, not prints, but plants, from Philadelphia to, to Monticello, or to Washington, and plants back from Jefferson, plants and seeds back. (35:04)
In March 1806, after McMahon had donated that copy that I mentioned of American Gardener's Calendar to the American Philosophical Society, he sent a separate copy separately to Jefferson, accompanied by a request of, for specimens from Missouri, those Lewis and Clark specimens that are, already began to trickle back. Now, Jefferson didn't immediately cough up these plants because they were already committed by the time that McMahon wrote. But instead he sent him a few of the most valuable seeds he had recently received from a foreign correspondent. (35:39)
The role of the American Gardener's Calendar in this relationship is particularly noteworthy, and I'm gonna take a little side diversion here, not only for its obvious function in currying favor with Jefferson, but for the light it sheds on McMahon's ideas about the nation, and his tacit claim to community with Jefferson's expansionist "Empire of Liberty". Now, in a study of the Irish in America, David Wilson remarks how so many of the radical émigrés of the 1790's channeled their frustrated energies on behalf of an independent Ireland, into a fervent American nationalism and tense political activism. (36:12)
And even among the seeds and seed beds in McMahon's book, I think you can see this. Now, the evidence for McMahon's political activities is essentially nil. There's one letter in the American Philosophical Society that suggests he was involved in helping to pass a lottery bill, and that's about it. But the Calendar opens other areas. It begins with a paean to the glorious future to be expected from an agrarian, agrarian country populated with an intelligent, happy, and independent people, possess a university of landed property, unoppressed by taxation or ties, and blessed with consequent comfort and affluence, as opposed to religious governmental interference in day to day life. It's a typical radical statement. (36:55)
Now this future should be largely theoretical, and was largely theoretical in 1806. Really didn't bother McMahon. He said what delayed America realizing this almost utopian future was the lack of anything to read on agriculture and horticulture other than, he quote, works published in foreign countries. Which, all of which were conveniently offered for sale by McMahon. And which had, he said, only the tendency to mislead and disappoint the young American horticulturist. (37:23)
Fine horticulture, he implied, wasn't necessarily fine American horticulture. So to rectify this deficiency, McMahon was prepared to contribute my might, he wrote, to the welfare of my, my fellow citizens, and to the general improvement of the country by placing his American Gardener's Calendar at the adopted nations' disposal. Now, what distinguishes the calendar from so many other similar works at the time, and subsequently, and what made it so popular that it round through 11 editions over 50 years, was the striking breadth of its ambition. (37:55):
Each month, it's arranged month by month, and each month he specifies the chores to be formed by the, performed by the gardener, in all of the divisions of the garden, meaning the kitchen, the orchard, the vineyard, the pleasure garden, the nursery garden, the flower garden, the greenhouse, and so forth and so on. And it seems to penetrate every aspect of life for both men and women. And that's important. In each section the emphasis falls on the spectacular abundance of the native flora, but he also stresses that, that, that equally abundant imports can be made to thrive here in American soils. It's not just that American plants are great, but that European plants can do great here as well. (38:33)
McMahon presents methods for collecting plants in the field, for cultivating root vegetables, and so forth and so on. But the point is here that unlike his, most of his contemporary writers, and pretty much all contemporary garden writers, McMahon conceives of horticulture as a national product, project, on a continental scale, that draws men and women, young and old, into a common national enterprise. (38:59)
Each month tells you what you do in the south, what you do in the north, what you do in the middle Atlantic states. It says climate by climate, region by region, what you should do. It's everybody in the country who can participate in this enterprise. So McMahon's calendar becomes coextensive with the American continent, and the conceptual American nation. Now, through fecundity, through industry, trade and adaptability, McMahon made it clear that his sentiments were nationalist, and not nativist. (39:27)
In the calendar he already did, native plants did possess a particular value for the gardener that were overlooked because of their familiarity. He said I can't, "I can't avoid remarking that many flower gardens etcetera are almost destitute to bloom during the greater part of the season, which could easily be avoided, and the blaze of flowers kept up, by introducing from our woods and fields the various beautiful ornaments which nature has so profusely decorated them." (39:52)
He says, in Europe, plants are not rejected because they're indigenous. "On the contrary, they're cultivated with due care. And yet here we cultivate many foreign trifles, foreign trifles, and neglect the profusion of beauty so beautifully bestowed upon us by the hand of nature." (40:07)
So emulating Europe wasn't McMahon's goal. He said, Americans can improve upon European models. Through trade, through bringing in imports, through taking imports from the south to the north, and north to the south, east to the west, and west to east, we can strengthen our, our, our nation to the universal advantage of all of our citizens. Native plants were beneficial, fine. But it didn't suggest that imported ones could not also be so. (40:33)
It got particularly exercised about grapes. Grapes, he was the president of the Pennsylvania Vine Company, so he was deeply involved in grapes. He said about, about people who complained about grape culture here, complained about the poor climate for growing grapes in America, he said, what did it, "what do they perceive insalubrious in the air, or unfriendly to vegetable life in the soil of America, any more than in trans Atlantic countries?" Or are they led astray by prejudice European writers whose envy or want of knowledge, or perhaps both, had prompted them to assert that neither animals or vegetables arrived as good or great perfection in America as in Europe. A little time and some industry will show that the prejudice is erroneous, and that the vine can be cultivated in far grater part of the union to the immense national as well as individual advantage." (41:20)
McMahon became, and I'm gonna skip over a little bit here, McMahon became an advocate for grafting European varieties of grapes onto native root stock. He was one the first. And he's sometimes said to be the first one to, to argue for that. I, I don't want to make that claim, but that claim has been made. The key to all this, though, is trade, and exchange. The trade that binds society. In a second seed catalog, McMahon requested that those who have the prosperity and welfare of his country at heart, as well as the lovers of improvement in every part of the United States, and the territories thereto belonging, should exchange seeds with him. (41:57)
He said he sought any trees, shrubs, grasses, or other herbaceous plants, with or without names, growing in an indigenous state in their respective vicinities, or obtained by them friends, or in other places. Exchanges were to be promiscuous. He would send things out if they sent things in, going from every part of the nation to every other part of the nation. But the exchange weren't limited even by the borders of the nation. Ultimately he hoped that it would go internationally. (42:22)
What I can spare of those seeds for my own course of experiments, I mean to exchange with other nations, he wrote. For such plants that are adapted to or capable of being naturalized in the different regions of the Union. And by this means make an effort to introduce to the country for permanent cultivation, all the important vegetable productions of the temperate zones, as well as several of the torrid. So with this immense geographic scope, and diverse climates, the American nation would in short become a vast botanical garden, an experiment in agriculture that would benefit from the most beneficial plants, regardless of their origin prosperity, regardless of who they were tended by. (43:00)
Now, it's really easy to go to psychology here, and say McMahon, this international import, naturalized into America, should go this direction. But I think I, I want to go in another direction with this, not psychology, but think about exchange. We don't know how Jefferson responded to the calendar, or to, to these words that he undoubtedly read over and over again, and exchanged in, in discussions with McMahon. But we do know what resulted from it. (43:28)
After the initial exchange of books and seeds produced, we see a long string of very similar exchanges. Several years worth, in fact. McMahon immediately thanked Jefferson for the gift of the Mediterranean seeds he received in response for the, for the calendar, by promising to make, as, to, to make, to do his best to make them, as well as any other kinds that you may please to favor him with in the future, useful to the country. And at the same time, he sought out to, to cement that relationship with Jefferson by shipping back some roots and plants of tarragon, very tender plant that would have been very highly prized. (44:04)
And Jefferson responded by sending to McMahon some quarantine corn, that, that corn that grew to maturity in 40 days. McMahon in, in, in turn sends back tulip roots. And this goes back and forth, and back and forth. And by July 1806, Jefferson was already staking a claim on McMahon for shipping the plants from Monticello that would be delivered once he retired from the presidency. And by the end of the year, with Lewis having returned from the west, in, in September 1806, Jefferson told McMahon that he would make sure that McMahon got some of the seeds that Lewis and Clark brought back. He said he was one of the persons most likely to care for the precious seeds of the Corps of discovery. (44:45)
Now Lewis, of course, was responsible for the botanical results of the expedition. Perhaps in collaboration, he was thought to work in collaboration with Barton. But while Lewis might conceivably describe the specimens, and Barton could do it, neither of them had the horticultural skills to raise the seeds, or the slips, to maturity. McMahon did, William Hamilton did. (45:08)
So, apart from that, there's one other consideration, I'm sorry, that Jefferson needed to keep in mind. And that is not only could they, did they have to have the skills to raise the seeds, but they had to have confidentiality. Because everybody was concerned, Lewis, and Jefferson was concerned, that some avaricious botanist would step in and grab some of the specimens that Lewis and Clark had so, at such great expense and pain, dragged back from the west. And they would take those, and describe them before Lewis had the chance to do so, and rob Lewis of the scientific laurels. (45:42)
McMahon seemed just the man. He had the skills, he had, let's go to the next slide, he had the skills, this is Lewis, he had the skills, and he had the ability to, to remain confidential about raising these plants. The story, however, take a quick turn. Having formed a particular attachment to McMahon, Jefferson decides that he'd give him a pass, that he would give him the packet of seeds brought back by Lewis that had been earmarked for Monticello. (46:11)
Jefferson is very direct about this. He says he wants to allow McMahon to get them into the ground right away, than have to wait Lewis's delivery. So Jefferson is not only making sure that McMahon gets half the seeds that Lewis had intended to, to raise up, but he's also getting Jefferson's allotment. Jefferson advises McMahon, in fact, to say nothing about this to Lewis. He says keep it confidential. Don't let Lewis know. "Unless, because it might lessen the portion that Lewis would be disposed to give you. And believing myself they will be best in your hands, I wish to increase the portion deposited to you" (46:46)
So McMahon and Jefferson are already sort of conspiring together. Now what happens, McMahon and, and Hamilton get their seeds, Hamilton seeds sort of go to pot. Hamilton really raises some of the specimens, but never does a great job with them. McMahon, on the other hand, goes to town. In short order he really proved himself. He said, Hamilton seems to have done, not taken his share of the seeds seriously, according to Rockney True (SP?) , the, the old, the botanical historian. (47:18)
McMahon was writing to Jefferson within a month to boast that his fields were sprouting with seven varieties of plants. And by June he reported success with all of the varieties of currants, seven, gooseberries, two, brought by Governor Lewis, and about twenty of the other new species of plants, as well as five or six new genera. Now, all the way, all the while these exchanges, gifts between Jefferson and, and McMahon are going back and forth all the while this is going. (47:44)
Handful of western gooseberries sent to Washington, for Jefferson in Washington, were masked with a packet of 700 seeds that Jefferson had recently received from André Thoüin, who was mentioned earlier today. McMahon was, was really humbled by this. He says, "I have pleasure and pride in successful cultivation of plants, but in proportion to the actual probable good I can render thereby to my fellow man. And indeed, I do not begrudge a share to such of the brute animals as can possibly be benefited thereby." (48:11)
Now, while the propagation of these plants goes forward very rapidly, Barton and Lewis were dragging their feet, in terms of publishing the results of the expedition. Neither one of them could get around to writing anything. Jefferson, Jefferson didn't bother them, but McMahon tried subtly to apply a little bit of, of, of spur. Can I have the next slide, please? This is Purshia tridentata, named after Frederick Pursh. It's a drawing of purshia by Frederick Pursh. (48:42)
And Frederick Pursh is important here because that spur that McMahon decides to apply to Barton and Lewis is Frederick Pursh. He writes to Lewis in April, he suggests to Lewis in April 1807 that he should hire Pursh, this German immigrant, and Hamilton's former gardener, by the way, because Pursh was better acquainted with plants in general than any man I'd ever conversed with on the subject. And because Pursh could draw very well. And he, he sort of hints, he says, between you and me, Hamilton didn't use Pursh very well at, at the Woodlands. And he felt a little sorry for Pursh. (49:19)
Now, this was not a bad suggestion, because Barton already knew Pursh very well, by April 1807. In fact, let me try the next picture, Barton had hired Pursh in, in April 1806 to do his botanical work in Virginia for him. He had sent Pursh down to collect specimens, one of the reasons that Barton was so delayed in working on the botany of Lewis and Clark is that he wanted to finish his great botanical work on the plants of eastern states. And he simply felt, like almost every doggone writer I know, that he had to get a little bit more research, and a few more plants, and a few more specimens, and check out a few more areas. So he sent Pursh down to Virginia to collect. (50:00)
Now, Barton, being Barton, and having Barton's personality, didn't do this in a straightforward manner. In fact, Barton wrote to his brother, who lived, in think it was in Stanton, in Virginia, and he said Pursh is gonna be coming your way. But he writes this. He says, "in the course of about 15 or 18 days, you will, if he don't die drunk on the way, receive a letter from me by the hand of Mr. Frederick Pursh. When you see him, don't let on that you'd ever heard of the man before. He's an excellent gardener and a good botanist who's traveling at my expense" -- and he underlines at my expense -- "in search of plants, etcetera." Now, this allegation that perch, Pursh was drinking, may well have been true. But Barton, in this letter, goes on, and on, and on, about his drinking. And I don't want to read it all, because it's kind of vaguely embarrassing. (50:44)
But he says, "I think you need not be ashamed to admit him to your table. But when you give him a toddy, pray, I beseech you, let the portion of water be very great. (LAUGH) Drinking is his greatest failing, and God knows it's a big one. But the (LAUGH) poor fellow, who's been well educated, has merit. And I very believe he wouldn't steal anything in the, in the world, rum, gin, whiskey, etcetera, excepted." (51:05) (LAUGH)
So this is Barton being Barton. Now, despite Barton's qualms, and Pursh's fear of snakes, and so forth, Pursh did a great job. He collected almost 900 specimens in Virginia. He came back, he handed them off to, to Barton, and he began to work on Barton's herbarium. Mostly these specimens he collected. And Barton decides that he's gonna hire him again in 1807, in May 1807, to take a journey to New York to do the same work. Because again, he's delaying working on Lewis and Clark. (51:33)
Pursh, Pursh says well, I'd like to go to New York for you, but I'm going to insist on one thing. You haven't paid me for going to Virginia yet. (LAUGH) So I'm going to have to have an I.O.U. So he has Barton write out an, that he will commit himself to an honorable and just payment of $80, due from the pervious year, in compensation, compensation for Pursh's attention to my herbarium. (51:56)
So already Barton is not repaying his debts. A year after that Pursh comes back from New York, does a wonderful job of collecting, collecting plants up there as well, and Barton still hasn't paid him. Pursh writes that he had gone with a disinterested view on my side, my own inclination and love to science. And he'd been very frugal throughout the trip, not spending any more money than necessary, demanding immediate payment for the debt, even though he understood that Barton's feelings had, had hardened in the meantime. Barton had probably grown tired of being asked to repay his debts, realistically. That's just the way Barton was. (52:33)
Pursh writes, "the, the reserve conduct which you've shown me in this last season must necessarily make me a great deal of uneasiness. And as it wished and pursued nothing with more zeal than to merit your esteem and thanks, in every step I've taken, but I should be so unfortunate as to be disappointed in this. I must satisfy myself with the consciousness of my own good will, and consider myself treated in the same manner as I most always have had the misfortune to get no thanks as a reward of my labor." (53:01)
He's a very bitter man already. Let's go to the next slide, I think, here. These are some of Pursh's drawings here, fritillaria lanceolata and pudica. Pudica is one of the Lewis and Clark specimens. We can go to the next one as well. I'll just flip through a couple of these relative quickly. This is Mimulus lewisii, named after Lewis. It's I think in a different genus today, isn't it? Then this one is lewisii, Mimulus lewisii. And the, so Clarkia pulchella (SP?) , and then Mimulus lewisii, and one more, I think I have right here, (unintelligible) (53:53)
These are all specimens of Lewis and Clark plants that were drawn by, by, by Pursh. So McMahon suggested that Pursh begin to work on the Lewis and Clark herbarium, and Pursh really began to do so. During that winter of, during 1807, and, pardon me, 1808 into 1809, Pursh is drawing specimens and describing specimens from Lewis and Clark, and he's drawing all these. But all the time, Barton is getting more angry, Pursh is becoming more uneasy. McMahon is trying to play a little bit of a conciliator in this whole time. (54:27)
Finally, with the situation not coming close to resolution, McMahon suggests to, to Pursh that he leave. And he recommends Pursh for a job at the Elgin Botanical Garden. And he sends him up there, and he takes, pardon me, and he takes all his drawings and descriptions with him in April 1809, and leaves, leaves the way. Now, on its own, any of these problems might have delayed publication botanical results, but Lewis died in October 1809. That really disrupted the publication of the botanical results entirely. (55:02)
The baton passes to William Clark, who recognized that he doesn't have the skills to be able to write the botanical work, so he passes it back to Barton. And he says you should publish a two volume set on the natural history, one of which will be botany, and one of which is the zoology of Lewis and Clark. That doesn't go very far. This is, this next picture is Clark, not clarkia, but Clark himself. What happens, though, is that in may 1810, well, what happens is that May 1810, Barton was asked to prepare a natural historical appendix. (55:35)
At the time, Barton had informed Stephen Elliott, who is a botanical colleague in South Carolina, things weren't right before Lewis' death. In consequence of a dispute between Governor L., Governor Lewis, and myself, he, and himself, he wrote, the work has, was suspended, and no person could be engaged to conduct the scientific part of it. Now, without further elaboration, Barton complained of ill usage, and he seemed particularly displeased with McMahon. He wrote, presumably over McMahon's role in the retrieval of the herbarium from, from, from Frederick Pursh. (56:07)
Now, Elliott, however, seems to have suspected that Barton's peak was merely a case of Barton being Barton. Without quite stating the obvious, he wrote to Henry Muhlenberg that the young... [Interruption]
Elliott wrote to Muhlenberg, this is, Elliott wrote to Muhlenberg that the botanical part is progressing under the care of a German named Bursh, or Bersh. Didn't know him personally. And he said, it is nearly completed. He added, he added that the whole work will probably be ready for the press in the course of the winter, though McMahon, he concluded, could probably give you best information on the subject. So already people are beginning to say Pursh is involving himself in publishing this. Barton is getting more and more angry, and all the botanists in Philadelphia are wondering just what is happening. (57:05)
Now, in all of this, McMahon keeps his confidences. He never sells plants of Lewis and Clark before time, even though the publication is disrupted. He could easily have done so, because in all the plants at hand, it does not seem that he begin to commercialize plants from the west for a number of years. Perhaps until 1815. (57:24)
Now, Elliott's suspicions of Pursh, and McMahon's worries about Lewis' rights, are well founded, rights to publication are well founded. Jefferson wrote to McMahon in January 1810 that he was convinced that Clark would do whatever is honorable, and whatever may be useful to settle Pursh's account. And Clark requested that all of the specimens and illustrations in Pursh's hand be turned over at once. He really wanted to, to free them up, to get them back. Now, Pursh later claimed that he complied with Clark's request, but it's not clear whether his accounts ever were satisfactory cleared. Later that year he curtailed his stay with Hosack in, at the Elgin Botanical Garden, and left for the West Indies, and stayed there for over winter, in 1810, 1811, to recover his health. Came back to the United States, and left permanently for England, late in 1811. (58:11)
Now, in the second departure, rumors of Pursh's whereabouts really become grist for the botanical gossip mill in Philadelphia, in Charleston, and elsewhere, leading observers into all sorts of wild speculation. Zaccheus Collins, who was a rising Philadelphia botanist, heard that Pursh had died, but soon afterwards learned that the wayward German had turned up in England after all, not into the afterlife. (58:33)
He says, as the plants of Lewis and Clark's journey, Collins wrote to Muhlenberg, "we know as little about them as you do, other than that we may soon look for a description of some of them by Pursh now in London, who has, who has in hand his prodomus flora americanae, on the eve of publication. So far there from Pursh being dead, as Dr. Hosack told me, he is actively alive, and means to add to the number of foreigners who describe our productions, and publish the same beyond our limits." (59:02)
Let's go to the next slide of the cat, who is surprised, here is where he is surprised that a foreigner is publishing these most American of all plants. (LAUGH) The idea that a foreigner would abscond with scientific honors due to Lewis was bad enough. But for young and aspiring botanists in Philadelphia, for young American botanists, the thought that a European would abscond with specimens, and publish them not only a European publishing them, a European publishing them in Europe, was the ultimate insult. (59:31)
Collins paid a visit to McMahon's little room, he called it, which he described to Muhlenberg with real contempt. He said, McMahon's dried specimens chiefly consist of Hamilton's exotics, and from there, including some of the more rare and new plants, scarcely to be met with, or even figured in this country, are chiefly to be valued. The books of American plants seem not to have been open for a great while, specimens named by Pursh. They're much ravaged by insects, and offered. I think nothing that, that, that would, to you, Mr. Muhlenberg, have imparted novelty, or interest. (60:03)
Now, Collins knew that the collections that the Linnaean Society in London, with those collections at his disposal, Pursh would be well on his way to completing the description of the western plants, whatever the ethics of the situation demanded. Pursh, he said, could not, in honor or honesty, avail himself of Lewis' plants or drawings from them, if he received pay for any service required, or performed by him. But, he said, if Pursh had not been paid, if the sphere of events, or management, if in the sphere of events or management his pay were withheld, Pursh might consider himself free to use the drawings as he pleased. (60:38)
For Collins, for Zaccheus Collins, it all just seemed very terrible. He said "a mystery in fatality seemed to have attended this whole affair throughout. All the delays, all the absconding, all those things, were terrible." Now, the suspense lasted for a few months more, probably because, according to one writer, Pursh fell into one of his fits of intemperance. (61:02)
But in December 1813, here's the next slide, his Flora Americae Septentrionalis appeared in London. And it put to rest those publications. This includes the first descriptions of the Lewis and Clark plants that, that make it into press. For Americans, this was, as I say, a great insult. Jacob Green, the great botanist, lamented that while Americans neglected the botanical examination of this country, foreigners have immortalized themselves by doing it. Muhlenberg was a bit more succinct. He said John Bull is fat, and pays well. (LAUGH) (61:38)
Now let's go to the last slide here. Now, this slide from a search for national unity into division, and international despair, took nearly a decade, and really ended ignominiously. The mystery in fatality that Collins had, had feared, seems to have exerted its Tut-like curse on the seeds of Lewis and Clark. Lewis' sdeath in 1809, and Hamilton's in 1813, and Barton's two years after that, really had an impact on all the, on the community. (62:06)
Still fascinated with the fate of Lewis and Clark's plants after Pursh's coup, Collins sought out whatever remained of them at the Woodlands, only to find that these two had fallen to fate. I'm informed that the present gardener is a clever and industrious man, but so fraught with making fine cauliflowers, so careful produce fine showables, is not to be likely to show much about plain western mere varieties of the back woods. McMahon, he reported, doesn't seem fond to talking about Lewis's plants at all. (63:34)
Following McMahon's death in September 1816, Anne McMahon carried on with the firm, in all its branches, assisted by their son Thomas, who had been recently discharged from the army. Bernard died in fairly comfortable circumstances in September 1816, leaving his lot and store on Second Street to Anne, and Upsal and all its appurtenances to another son, James. There was enough money left in his estate to hold in trust for Anne and his daughter Mary by his first marriage, and to bequeath $200 to each of three indentured servants upon the expiration of their terms. (63:05)
The McMahon firm survived for at least a quarter century after the, under the guidance of Anne and Thomas, at least for a while. When a special committee of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society visited in 1831, McMahon's collection was still deemed good. The firm had opened a small nursery street in, a nursery on Kanack Street (SP?), and a seed store on Second Street, still boasted over two thousand varieties. But in 1827, Thomas McMahon left to try his hand as an attorney, and notary, because you could be an attorney without going to school, which you can still do (LAUGH) , applying to fill a vacancy under Philadelphia's wealthiest merchant, Stephen Gerard. (63:40)
And Mrs. McMahon gave up when her sight dimmed, and gave out entirely. McMahon's longest lived legacy was the genus mahonia, which is now considered to be a genus Berberis. So even here we see this mystery in fatality coming through. But neither the loss of McMahon, nor the hard feelings of Pursh's usurpation, negate a central fact of the legacy of Lewis and Clark's seeds, the degree to which a community of self consciously American botanists had formed in their wake.
Prompted by Pursh's injury to his sense of national pride, Muhlenberg wrote to botanical correspondent Manasseh Cutler , to envision a new future for American botanical community, linked through an exchange of specimens and ideas. "Let each of our American botanists do something, and soon the riches of America will be known, he wrote. Let me show described South Carolina and Georgia; Kampsh, North Carolina, Greenway, Virginia, and Maryland; Barton, Jersey, Delaware, and the lower parts of Philadelphia; Bartram, Marshall, Muhlenberg, their neighborhood; Mitchell, New York, and you, with northern botanists, your states. How much could be done if then one of our younger companions, I mention Dr. Barton in particular, whose business it is, we collect the different floras in one? How pleasing to the botanical world it would be." (64:57)
Muhlenberg doesn't betray even a hint of irony in naming a Frenchman, two German speaking Moravians and a physician trained in Europe, for his Prometheans For American Botany. And it's in this that I see the fitfulness of fate. In this you see McMahon's American botany catching hold. thanks. (65:14)
©Robert S. CoxAugust 2004