William Bartram Trail
William Bartram — First Scientist of Alabama
On the eve of the American Revolution, William Bartram left behind his home and his business failures in Philadelphia to journey to the Southeast, a mythic frontier of uncharted rivers, unknown flora, and exotic tribes. His three-year journey to study the region established Bartram, then in his mid-thirties, as among the young nation’s greatest scientists. He became an eloquent witness to her natural wonders and native inhabitants.
His book, commonly referred to as Bartram’s Travels, has endured as one of the most important documents of American science and the first book of Alabama natural history.
On the eve of the American Revolution, William Bartram left behind his home and his business failures in Philadelphia to journey to the Southeast, a mythic frontier of uncharted rivers, unknown flora, and exotic tribes. His three-year journey to study the region established Bartram, then in his mid-thirties, as among the young nation’s greatest scientists. He became an eloquent witness to her natural wonders and native inhabitants.
His book, commonly referred to as Bartram’s Travels, has endured as one of the most important documents of American science and the first book of Alabama natural history.
Bartram entered the present state of Alabama in July of 1775, crossing the Chattahoochee at Yuchi, south of modern-day Phenix City, and heading west along the well-traversed Indian path to Mobile. He followed the South bank of the Tallapoosa River through Tallassee and Atasi to Coolome, just east of Montgomery, where he noted the sudden appearance of Spanish moss in the trees and visited his contact, trader James Germany. There, he turned south and crossed the “expansive, illumined grassy plains” of the Black Belt — a mixture of groves and fields, thick with plums, crabapples, strawberries, and sunflowers. Anyone familiar with the Black Belt will recognize his description.
Despite Bartram’s close association with Native Americans, his sketches capture the image of only one. Mico Chlucco, the Long Warrior, serves as the frontispiece of Travels.
(Courtesy American Philosophical Society.)
(Courtesy American Philosophical Society.)