Travels on the St. Johns River - by John Bartram & William Bartram (Paperback)

About the Book

This book includes writings from father and son naturalists John and William Bartram, who explored the St. Johns River Valley in Florida in 1765, along with commentary and a modern record of the flora and fauna the Bartrams encountered.

Book Synopsis

In 1765 father and son naturalists John and William Bartram explored the St. Johns River Valley in Florida, a newly designated British territory and subtropical wonderland. They collected specimens and recorded extensive observations of the plants, animals, geography, ecology, and native cultures of an essentially uncharted region. The chronicle of their adventures provided the world with an intimate look at La Florida. Travels on the St. Johns River includes writings from the Bartrams' journey in a flat-bottomed boat from St. Augustine to the river's swampy headwaters near Lake Loughman, just west of today's Cape Canaveral. Vivid entries from John's Diary detail which tribes lived where and what vegetation overtook the river's slow current. He describes the crisp, cold spring waters tasting like a gun barrel. Excerpts from William's narrative, written a decade later when he tried to make a home in East Florida, contemplate the environment and the river that would come to be regarded as the liquid heart of his celebrated Travels. A selection of personal letters reveal John's misgivings about his son's decision to become a planter in an inhospitable pine barren with little more than a hovel as shelter, but they also speak to William's belated sense of accomplishment for traveling past his father's footsteps. Editors Thomas Hallock and Richard Franz provide valuable commentary and a modern record of the flora and fauna the Bartrams encountered. Taken together, the firsthand accounts and editorial notes help us see the land through the explorers' eyes and witness the many environmental changes the centuries have wrought.

Review Quotes

"The editors skillfully interpret the geography and natural history, and provide an extensive list of the plants and animals the Bartrams encountered. This work will appeal to naturalists and those interested in early American studies in natural history."--Choice



"A worthy addition to the literature exploring the British years in Florida."--Florida Historical Quarterly



"A visitor today walking the beach of one of these islands reading Travels on the St. Johns River in the morning shadows cast by high-rise condominiums would have a much deeper comprehension of the place, its origins, and its sad fate, which is what the editors of the volume hope for."--Early American Literature

About the Author

Thomas Hallock, associate professor of English at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg is the author of From the Fallen Tree: Frontier Narratives, Environmental Politics, and the Roots of National Literature, 1749-1826. Richard Franz is emeritus scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History and coeditor of Rare and Endangered Biota of Florida: Volume IV, Invertebrates.