Background
He was born probably c. 1725 at Flushing, Long Island, New York, United States. He was one of six children born to Robert and Mary (Burgess) Prince. Robert Prince propagated trees and shrubs to grow on his own grounds.
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William Prince
Edit ProfileEducation
There is no information about his education.
Career
As early as 1771 he issued a broadside, printed by Hugh Gaine in New York, advertising a number of different varieties of cherries, plums, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and apples, as well as English and American mulberries, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, and ornamental trees and shrubs. During the Revolution several thousand of his young cherry trees were cut down and sold for barrel hoops.
While the British occupied New York, General Howe stationed a guard at Prince's nursery for its protection. From the pits of twenty-five quarts of Green Gage plums planted in 1790 he obtained trees yielding fruit of every color; and the White Gage, Red Gage, and Prince's Gage, now so well known, form part of the progeny of these plums; and there seems strong presumptive evidences that the Washington plum was one of the same collection.
About 1793 he retired from business and left the conduct of his affairs to his sons William and Benjamin. He died at Flushing.
Achievements
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William Prince was one of the first nurserymen in America to sell budded or grafted stock and perhaps the first to attempt to breed new varieties. His interest in horticulture was primarily commercial: he devoted his attention to servicing a growing market for plants rather than to scientific research of interest to botanists.
Connections
William Prince married Ann Thorne and had thirteen children. His son Benjamin maintained the original nursery for several years, calling it "The Old American Nursery, " but it eventually passed into the younger William's hands and was merged with the Linn'an Botanic Garden and Nurseries which he had established on an adjacent tract.
