Humphry Marshall was a cousin of John Bartram and belonged to a family of botanists. His father, Abraham Marshall, was born in Derbyshire, England, became a Friend, and about 1697 emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he settled near Darby and married Mary Hunt, the daughter of James Hunt, who had been a companion of William Penn. Soon after his marriage he moved to what is now Chester County, took up a large tract of land on the west branch of the Brandywine, and acquired a considerable fortune. Humphry was born on October 10, 1722 there and after 1748 managed this farm.
Education
The eighth child in a family of nine, he is quoted as saying that "he never went to school a day after he was twelve years of age; and consequently, was instructed only in the rudiments of the plainest English education". In the course of a long life he gave himself, however, an excellent education and became one of the best-read men of his times, specializing in all branches of natural history and astronomy. He was early apprenticed as a stone mason and followed the trade for a few years.
Career
In 1764 Marshall enlarged his father's house, doing all the work himself, even to making the bricks. He added a small conservatory for rare plants, probably the first conservatory in Chester County. In 1773 he built with his own hands the house at Marshallton, which is still standing, and not only included a hot-house but also a small observatory. A considerable fortune left him by his father in 1767 enabled him to move to his own house at Marshallton in 1774. There he planned and laid out a botanic garden, which in time came to include not only many foreign specimens but also a noteworthy collection of native plants, shrubs, and trees and was only less celebrated than that of his cousin, John Bartram. Both men were correspondents of two enthusiastic English collectors, Peter Collinson and Dr. John Fothergill. Some time about 1767 Marshall began collecting and shipping to Fothergill in London plants, birds' nests and eggs, and other specimens of animal life. In return Fothergill sent him many books, a reflecting telescope, and, through the good offices of Benjamin Franklin, a microscope and a thermometer. In 1785 he published his "Arbustrum Americanum, the American Grove, " a list of native forest trees and shrubs. This is arranged in alphabetical order and the descriptions, which are still extraordinarily vivid, follow the Linnean system. It was according to his biographer "the first truly indigenous Botanical Essay published in the Western Hemisphers". He also wrote a a paper on agricultural botany in which he called attention to the instinct that animals show in choosing or rejecting different kinds of fodder as a subject worthy of study in animal husbandry. As early as 1772 he submitted to the American Philosophical Society a paper on his "Observations upon the spots on the Sun's Disk from November 15, 1770 to December 25, 1771, " and was later elected to membership in that society. Marshall died on November 5, 1801.
Achievements
Marshall was another of the remarkable circle of Quaker botanists from Chester County, Pa. , who helped shape American botanical practice during the 18th and early 19th centuries. His most enduring work, the Arbustrum Americanum was fittingly published only two years after the Peace of Paris had formalized American independence, and is recognized as the first botanical treatise written by a native American on American plants, produced in America. In 1848 the Borough of West Chester named the public square the Marshall Square in his honor. Marshall has been called the "Father of American Dendrology". A genus of plants, Marshallia, was named in honor of Humphry Marshall and his nephew Moses Marshall, also a botanist.
Marshall Square Park in the Borough of West Chester, Pennsylvania, is four miles east of Marshallton where Humphry Marshall was born; the Park's founders named the square after their 18th century predecessor. On June 27, 2007 - proclaimed Humphry Marshall Day by Borough Mayor, Dick Yoder - a long-overdue marker honoring the Park's namesake was unveiled.
Personality
Toward the end of his life Marshall's eyesight was affected, though he never became totally blind. His interest in botany remained active, and his philanthropic zeal is evidenced by his activity in founding the Chester County alms house and the Westtown boarding school, one of the many educational foundations established by the Society of Friends. A member of West Bradford Meeting, he was too good a Friend to be active in the revolutionary cause, but he was nevertheless in general sympathy with independence, and was a fervent supporter of the non-importation movement and the later movement supporting domestic manufactures.
Connections
On September 16, 1748, he married Sarah Pennock of West Marlboro, Chester County. After her death he married Margaret Minshall on January 10, 1788. There were no children by either marriage, and in his later years the place of a son seems to have been taken by his nephew, Dr. Moses Marshall, the botanist, for whom J. C. D. Schreber, in his 1791 edition, named a genus of plants of the Compositae family, Marshallia.
Father:
Abraham Marshall
Mother:
Mary Hunt
Wife:
Margaret Minshall
Wife:
Sarah Pennock
Cousin:
John Bartram
March 23, 1699 – September 22, 1777
Was an early American botanist, horticulturist and explorer.
Cousin:
William Bartram
April 20, 1739 – July 22, 1823
Was an American naturalist.
