The Getting of the Plants

Monday, November 17th, 1823 – At Flushing and got part of the trees up. Could not get finished as Mr Prince has not all the plants which are ardently needed. Many times he expressed himself pleased with the Society and is to put up a collection of fruits, which will be an acquisition, especially as I have almost failed with Coxe.

So Prince is not quite making good on what Douglas expects, and Douglas is beginning to suspect that he never will.

From 18th to 22nd – Employed packing plants etc., Got part of the boxes on board.

Sunday November 23rd – Wrote to Joseph Sabine Esq., and finished putting up my dry plants. At church in the afternoon.

26th – Received the trees from Philadelphia and Burlington, got them from the wharf, ordered boxes for them, I now feel a little at ease.

Thursday 27th – Got remainder of trees etc. packed and taken down to the vessel, and box from Baltimore.

29th – Received boxes from Flushing and transmitted on board ship; packing and at Mr Hogg’s.

30th – Accompanied Mr Hogg to some of his friends in the country

Reading between the lines of his Journal, this is clearly a bit of an anxious time for Douglas. He will be judged by his employers on what he brings back and it's all coming together in the last few days. He needs to actually receive all the trees he has ordered from various sources, get them boxed up for the voyage home, get them to the wharf and supervise their loading. This will be hard work and require lots of coordination from him, overseeing people who probably don't attach the same importance to his trees as he does.

 

Meanwhile, with the other hand, he is doing the same with his more transportable dry material. It all feels a bit last-minute. He has another few days of packing and loading to get through, and one last confrontation with Mr Prince at Flushing. But he's nearly done.

Mr Coxe is still ill, and a slow journey north

Tuesday, November 4th & 5th, 1823 – In the morning went to Mr Dick’s [Janitor of the University] and got up and packed and sent to the wharf. Mr Dick has several species of Cactus from the Rocky Mountains but they are too small to bear a voyage across the Atlantic.

Left Philadelphia at 12 o’clock and reached Burlington at 4 in the afternoon [of the 4th Nov]. Went to William Coxe, Esq., whom I found still very ill – but considerably better since I saw him before…..[and yet, Douglas goes on to say..] he was not able to leave his room, indeed he was so ill before I left that to appearance he could not live long. [So I guess he must have deteriorated sharply while Douglas was there?] 

I obtained all that was in the house [of varieties of apple seeds], consisting of about eight or nine varieties and only two or three of each, with two bottles of cider seven years old – one made from Wine-sop, one from Virginian crab-apple: this is a present from Thos A. Knight and Jos Sabine Esqs., from Will. Coxe. I also got a few seeds of ornamental plants. I received from him and family all the attention they could give under the present circumstances. 

I had not time to call on Mr Smith, and as I saw all the trees sent off before going to Philadelphia, left Burlington at 2 o’clock in the afternoon [of the 5th Nov] by steamboat for Bordentown, and then by stage to South Amboy. The night was exceedingly dark and rainy; the coach broke down at 11 o’clock at night, and having to stop two hours in repairing, got to South Amboy at 4 o’clock on Wednesday morning. This is a specimen of great speed – twenty-nine miles in thirteen hours.

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One can only assume Douglas is being sarcastic about the speed of travel as, at an average of only 2.2mph, he could literally have walked it faster!

Philadelphia - meeting Mr Dick and Mr Nuttall

Philadelphia, Saturday, November 1st, 1823 – I waited on Mr William Dick, Janitor of the University of Pennsylvania, from whom I had already received sufficient testimony of his ability and will to make himself useful to me. William Dick was yet another of the Scottish diaspora, busy making gardens wherever they went, so it's not surprising that he & Douglas seemed to get on well.  Dick hailed from Renfrew, Scotland before moving to Philadelphia in 1813 with four of their eventual six children.  William Dick started a family tradition by working as a janitor for the Medical Department from 1813-1831, followed in due course by two of his sons.

Delivered by the Penn Libraries

© University of Pennsylvania | uarc@pobox.upenn.edu

I had the pleasure here of meeting Mr Nuttall, whom I found very communicative. We looked round Mr Dick’s garden. [Forgive me, but this sounds to me as though it has been lifted straight out of “David Copperfield”!!]. 

At midday, with Mr Dick, I set out for Messrs Landreths, west of Philadelphia, to whom I am also much indebted for very polite attention. (There is a great similarity of character between Messrs Loddiges [in Hackney, London] and Landreth.)

Landreth’s seed business, visited by Douglas in 1823, was already well-established in Philadelphia, having relocated there from Canada in 1784. Landreth’s is still in business today, familiar I guess to any US readers of this page, and is the fifth oldest corporation in America. 

Douglas’s mention of Loddiges Nursery is also interesting. Their business was very well known and highly prestigious in London at the time Douglas was there. I’ve often wondered whether he visited and this comment of his implies that he did and was familiar with their stock. 

The nursery rose to great prominence during the early nineteenth century under George Loddiges (1786–1846) and it's likely that if Douglas had visited he would have met George

 George Loddiges

Wikimedia Commons

Douglas made another important connection that day. Thomas Nuttall was another famous botanist, plant collector and mineralogist. He was born in Yorkshire; I feel something of a connection with him and have a slow-burning biography project in hand on him.

 

Thomas Nuttall

 
Harvard University Portrait Collection, Gift of Professor Edward Tuckerman to Asa Gray for the University, 1865. Image © President and Fellows of Harvard College