Cadwallader Colden (13 page)

In 1750, Colden confessed in his correspondence that he was aging. “I am now in my Grand Climacteric both my imagination & mind begin to flag & my health will not permit much application of mind at any time.”
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But, this did not prevent him from complying with Kalm's request for a personal biography. The biography
that Colden submitted was factual and unembellished and he claimed no expertise in the science of botany.
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Toward the end of 1754, a letter from Alexander Garden introduced him as part of the coterie of Colden's correspondents, who shared an interest in botany.
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ALEXANDER GARDEN

Alexander Garden, who was forty-two years younger than Colden, shared several points of similarity with Colden in addition to an avid interest in botany. Garden was born in January 1730 in Birse, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of a clergyman in the Church of Scotland. From 1743 to 1746, he was apprenticed to James Gordon, professor of medicine at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where Garden studied. After he was unable to obtain an appoint as a surgeon's second mate in the British navy, he returned as an apprentice to Gordon. From 1748 to 1750 he served as a surgeon's first mate aboard three ships. In 1750, he continued his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, where his exposure to Charles Alston, the King's Botanist and Keeper of the Garden at Holyrood, stimulated his lifelong passion for botany. Garden received an MD degree from Marischal in 1752. Two years later he arrived in Prince William Parish, near Charles Town, South Carolina, to join the practice of William Rose.
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Garden immediately began his correspondence with the leading botanists from England and Europe, initiated his studies of the flora in his vicinity, and extended those studies into Florida. In 1754, he traveled north, specifically, to meet Benjamin Franklin, John Bartram, and, subsequently, Cadwallader Colden. During his visit at Coldengham he gained an appreciation of Colden's daughter Jane's expertise in botany. Jane Colden was only five years older than Garden and when her father was occupied she served
as hostess.
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Garden wrote to his friend John Ellis, the author of
Agriculture Improved
and
The Farmer's Instructor
, “Not only the doctor himself is a great botanist, but his lovely daughter is a great master of the Linnaean method, and cultivates it with great assiduity.”
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It was the beginning of an extended period of communication between Jane and Alexander and the occasional exchange of seeds and plants. During Garden's stay at Coldengham, John Bartram unexpectedly arrived.
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In 1755, Garden returned to Charles Town where he developed a large medical practice. That year he accompanied South Carolina's governor, James Glen, on an expedition to the Cherokee territory in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In January he sent the Coldens seeds of
Magnolia, Guatemala Indigo, Button snakeroot
(a powerful diaphoretic),
Catalpa, Dahoon Holly
(an Evergreen),
Palmetto
, and
Renialemia.
The accompanying letter informed Colden that the Montagu house had been purchased for the repository of Sir Hans Sloane's collection and the Cotton Library and Harleian manuscripts. This was the genesis of The British Museum. The letter also mentioned Doctor James Lind's classic treatise on Scurvy.
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The same year, Garden first wrote Linnaeus; this was the beginning of an extensive and long-term correspondence. In 1755, Garden was elected as the first corresponding member of the London Society of Arts and also the Premium Society, which was founded in London that year for granting premiums in Britain and the colonies for the encouragement of commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture. Colden was made a member on Garden's recommendation.
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Garden made no landmark discoveries, but was particularly notable for his ability to classify plants. In several disputes with Linnaeus, Garden proved to be correct.
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Sometime in the 1760s, Garden sent Linnaeus a dissertation on the Carolina Siren, an amphibious mud iguana, which Linnaeus said was not only a new genus but a new class or order (
Siren lacertian
).
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Garden was recognized for his descriptions of the flora and fauna of America
by election to the Philosophical Society of Edinbugh, the Royal Society of Uppsala, and the Royal Society of London. In 1768, he was elected a corresponding member of the American Society for Promoting and Propagating Useful Knowledge, the Philadelphia Medical Society, and the American Philosophical Society.
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In 1765, the opposition to the Stamp Act in Charleston led Garden to proclaim in a letter, “The die is thrown for the sovereignty of America!”
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Throughout the American Revolution, Garden continued to practice medicine in Charles Town but his loyalty to the British crown was manifest. Consequently, in 1782, his property was confiscated and he was formally banished. His son, Alexander, rose to the rank of major and aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene in the American Army during the American Revolution. The abandoned Garden plantation was taken over by the son. Alexander senior died in 1791 in London after a long illness.

A proposal to attach Garden's name to a plant was first made by Jane Colden. James Britten, in his paper “Jane Colden and the Flora of New York” wrote, “The plant (
Hypericum virginicum
)…had been sent her by Alexander Garden, who found it in New York in 1754; in return, Miss Colden sent him the description of the same plant, which she had discovered the previous summer, and ‘using the privilege of a first discoverer she was pleased to call this new plant
Gardenia
, in compliment to Dr. Garden.”
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Unfortunately, the plant in question turned out not to be new, and Garden's name was not attached.
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But, in 1760, John Ellis named the genus
Gardenia
for him. The name pertained to the Cape Jasmine Gardenia that is found in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
Fothergilla gardenia
also pertains to Alexander Garden.

In the
Aberdeen Magazine
of 1761, a description of the plant that Garden sent to Jane Colden appears. The article states,

Doctor Garden writes Doctor Whytt, that, in the summer 1754, he met, about a mile from the town of New York in New England, with a plant, which, at first, he took to be a
hypericum
, but, on examining it, found it different; upon which he took down its characters, and sent them, some days later, to Miss Jenny Colden (daughter of the Honourable Cadwallader Colden) a very ingenious young lady and curious Botanist. In return to this, Miss Colden sent Dr. Garden the characters of a plant which proves to be the same; it is No. 1533 of her collection, and was first found by her, Summer 1753. Using the privilege of a first discoverer, she was pleased to call the new plant
Gardenia
, in compliment to Dr. Garden.
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Alexander Garden's name remains engrained with those of John Mitchell and Cadwallader Colden in the taxonomy of the world's flora.

JANE COLDEN

Jane Colden, who, along with her father, exchanged letters, seeds, and descriptions with Garden, merits special recognition in a biography of Cadwallader Colden. Garden noted that Jane's descriptions of plants were often more detailed and accurate than those of her father.
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Not only was she the first recognized female botanist in America and perhaps the entire world, but deserves the appellation “America's First Female Scientist.” And all of her accomplishments took place within a brief period of time during the 1750s distant from any urban center and the halls of academia.

Jane, called Jenny by members of the family, the second oldest of the Coldens' daughters, was born in New York City on March 27, 1724, and moved to Coldengham with the family four years later.
Jane and her siblings were educated at home. Although Colden wrote to Franklin that “I think the power of a nation consists in the knowledge and virtue of its inhabitants,”
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none of his children were sent to elementary school or to an institution of higher education. The correspondence of his children that is included in the volumes of
Collections of the New-York Historical Society
provides evidence that all of his children were literate and well-versed. It is generally assumed that Colden's wife played a major role in the education of the children because Cadwallader was often absent from the home. Of Mrs. Colden it is written, “She is said to have taught them habits of virtue and economy and gave them in her life and character the brightest of examples, so it can be presumed that her daughters were apt scholars in the accomplishments required of well-bred and trained gentlewomen of the day.”
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Jane, uniquely, stands out as her father's personally trained protégé as a botanist.

In 1755, Colden wrote to Gronovius,

I thought that Botany is an Amusement which may be made agreeable for the Ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time if it could be made agreeable to them Their natural curiosity & the pleasure they take in the beauty & variety of dress seems to fit them for it The chief reason that few or none of them have hitherto applied themselves to this study I believe is because all the books of any value are wrote in Latin & and so filled with technical words that obtaining the necessary previous knowledge is so tiresome & disagreeable that they are discouraged at the first setting out & give it over before they can receive any pleasure in the pursuit

I have a daughter who has an inclination to reading & a curiosity for natural phylosophy or natural History & a sufficient capacity for attaining a competent knowledge I took the pains to explain Linnaeus's system & to put it in English for her use by freeing it from the Technical terms which was easily don by useing two or three words in place of one She is now grown very fond of the study and has made such progress in it as I believe
would please you if you saw her performance Tho' perhaps she could not have been persuaded to learn the terms at first she now understands in some degree Linnaeus's characters notwithstanding that she does not understand Latin She has already a pretty large volume in writing of the Description of plants She has shewn a method of takeing the impression of the leaves on paper with printers ink by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species by their leaves No description in words alone can give so clear an Idea as when the description is assisted with a picture She has the impression of 300 plants in the manner you'l see by the sample sent you. That you may have some conception of her performance & manner of describing I propose to inclose some samples in her own writing some of which I think are new Genus's….
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In addition to teaching Jane the process of making ink impressions of leaves on paper, Colden had books sent from England to augment her education. He wrote Collinson, “[I]…design likewise to send you a Sample of my daughter Jenny's performances in Botany. As it is not usual for woemen to take pleasure in Botany as a Science I shall do what I can to incourage her in this amusement which fills up her idle hours to much better purpose than the usual amusements eagerly pursued by others of her sex. As she [Jane] cannot have the opportunity of seeing plants in a Botanical Garden I think the next best is to see the best cuts or pictures of them for which purpose I would buy for her Tournefort's
Institutiones Herbariae
, Morison's
Historia Plantarum
, or if you know any better books for this purpose as you are a better judge than I am will be obliged to make this choice.”
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Collinson replied: “I have at last been So luckky to geyt you a fine Tournefort's
Herbal
& the
History of Plants
and Martin in excellent preservation to which have added 2 Volumes of
Edinburgh Essays
for the sake of the Curious Botanic Dissertation off your ingenious daughter being the Only Lady that I have yett heard of that is a professor of the Linnean System of which He is not a Little proud.”
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Jane was also inspired by the visits to Coldengham of the notable colonial botanists, John and William Bartram and Alexander Garden, and also that of Peter Kalm of Sweden. Jane gained the respect of the community of botanists. In a letter from John Bartram to Collinson dated 1753 describing his visit, he wrote, “Got our dinner and set out to gather seeds, and did not get back till two hours within night; that looked over some of the Doctor's daughter's botanical, curious observations.”
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In 1756, Collinson wrote John Bartram that “Our friend Colden's daughter has, in a scientific manner sent over several sheets of plants, very curiously anatomized after his method. I believe she is the first lady that has attempted anything of this nature.”
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A year later, John Bartram responded to a letter from Jane indicating that “I am very careful of it, and it keeps company with the choicest correspondence.”
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