Jane Colden

Jane Colden (March 27, 1724 – March 10, 1766), the first woman botanist in America, introduced exotic plant specimens to the garden of her family's farm near the Highlands of New York. She is best known for documenting several hundred plants indigenous to that region, employing Linnaeus's system of botanical classification.

History

Born in New York city, Jane Colden spent most of her life at Coldengham, a 3,000-acre farm established by her father, Cadwallader Colden, in a wilderness area ten miles west of Newburgh. She shared an interest in horticulture with her mother, Alice Chrystie Colden (1690-1762), a keen gardener. She gained an understanding of botany from her father, a provincial government administrator, who, in 1742, had begun the first scientific documentation of New York flora using the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus's new system of binomial classification. Convinced that women were better suited to excel at botany than men, and that it was only the arcane manner of scientific writing that discouraged them, Cadwallader Colden gave his daughter "an explication of the principles of Botany in writing ... don[e] in such manner as I thought would excite her curiosity." He translated Linnaeus's Latin into English, and replaced "all the terms of art" with "common English expressions." Swiftly mastering the art of botanical description in English, she began cataloguing plants in the vicinity of her home. In addition to describing their appearance and habits, she gathered information from Indians and "country people" on the plants' medicinal and domestic uses.

Daily access to thousands of acres of wilderness afforded Colden a unique advantage as a botanist, and she located numerous plants that had eluded her father, who complained of "not having sufficient opportunity to repeat my examinations of the plants which I only met casually & did not see many of them more than once." Jane, by contrast, was able to "[fill] up a good deal of idle time agreably to her self & as she is more curious & accurate than I could have been[,] her descriptions are more perfect & I believe few or none exceed them." In her “curiosity" for botany, Colden's father saw a means of providing her with meaningful work while advancing the important botanical investigations that his European correspondents had frequently appealed to him to resume. “She will be extremely pleased in being imployed by you either in sending descriptions or any seeds you shall desire or dryed Specimens of any particular plants you shall mention to me," he assured the Dutch botanist Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1686-1762) in 1755, adding: "She has time to apply her self to gratify your curiosity more than I ever had."

Colden probably began her botanical work after recovering from a grave illness of several months’ duration in 1751. She had progressed sufficiently by the autumn of 1753 that the Philadelphia botanist and nurseryman John Bartram and his son William were able to devote an evening at Coldengham to "look[ing] over some of ye Dr['s] daughter[s] botanical curious observations.” Around the same time, the British merchant and plant dealer Peter Collinson congratulated Cadwallader Colden on his “Daughter[s] Likeing to Botany," remarking with polite condescension, “It is a Delightfull amusement & a pretty accomplishment for a young Lady, for after the knowledge of plants, it may Lead her to Discover their Virtues & uses.” Three years later, having examined "several sheets of plants very Curiously Anatomised" by Colden, Collinson was more impressed, praising the "Scientificall Manner" of her work in a letter to John Bartram and adding: "I believe she is the first Lady that has Attempted any thing of this Nature." During the summer of 1756 Colden taught the rudiments of botany to fourteen-year-old Samuel Bard, who went on to distinguish himself as a botanist and landscape designer. The following year she sent some of her meticulous plant descriptions to Bartram, who pored over her letter several times and vowed to preserve it in his collection of treasured letters from European botanists. Moreover, he wrote, "I should be extreamly glad to see thee at my house & to shew thee my garden."

Despite Bartram's invitation, Colden never seems to have ventured out of New York, contenting herself with botanical exchanges that allowed her to enrich the garden at Coldengham with plants from farflung corners of America and the world. Her letter of 1757 to Bartram evidently included a list of seeds she desired from his nursery, most of them indigenous to climates similar to New York’s, but some reflecting a more experimental approach. "Ye amorpha is A beautiful flower," Bartram responded cautiously, "but...won[']t your cold winters kill it?" Colden was already experimenting with the cultivation of subtropical plants (including the amorpha) obtained through correspondence with Alexander Garden, a botanical enthusiast in Charleston who had admired her Linnean descriptions while visiting Coldengham during the summer of 1754. Having observed her careful tending of the garden's rarest plants, Garden sent her “Persian seeds" obtained from a Russian physician, as well as seeds of plants native to South Carolina, including umbrella tree (Magnolia tripetala), fringe tree (Chionanthus), yellow jessamy, and horse chestnut (Aesculus pavia var. pavia). He promised to instruct her in the preservation of butterflies, and wrote Cadwallader Colden that he would “be greatly obliged to you[r] Da[ugh]t[er] for any seeds or Insects that she can pick up.” In return, Colden sent northern specimens to Garden, including the seeds and description of an Arbutus which she took to be a new genus (though he disagreed). When it proved that she had already documented in 1753 a genus he thought he was the first to discover a year later, she generously offered to name it Gardenia in his honor. Proud of the distinction, Garden publicized Colden's find, sending both of their descriptions of the plant to the Scottish physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766), who had them published under the auspices of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1756. When Garden pressed Colden's "discovery" on his former professor, Charles Alston (1683-1760), superintendent of the botanic gardens at Edinburgh, as well as Gronovius and Carl Linneaus himself, he learned that the plant was in fact already known.

As a complement to her descriptive texts, Colden pursued various forms of botanical illustration. According to her father, “She was shewn a method of takeing the impression of the leaves on paper with printers ink by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species by their leaves.” Cadwallader's friend Benjamin Franklin had used the same technique in the 1730s to document plants indigenous to Philadelphia supplied to him by John Bartram. Alexander Garden had admired examples of Jane's nature prints during his visit to Coldengham. “[She makes] perfect images, by her own certain ingenious method, of the numerous plants kept by her father," he informed Gronovius in March 1755. Seven months later, Cadwallader Colden informed Gronovius that Jane had made impressions of 300 plants (“some of which I think are new Genus’s”) and that her anglicized Linnean descriptions filled "a pretty large volume in writing." In October 1757 he informed the British physician and plant collector John Fothergill (1712-1780) that she had "described between 3 & 400 American plants in the [Linnaean] manner." Moreover, he added, "of late [she] has begun to draw figures of the plants which she thinks have not been allready well described," nothwithstanding the fact that "she has no instructor in drawing[,] has few or no good copies & was only shewn how to use china ink with a pencil." Many of these drawings—simple outlines of leaves in ink accented by a neutral-toned wash—survive in her bound manuscript listing 341 plants, most of them accompanied by Linnaean descriptions. The volume also contains one of her nature prints—the sole surviving example of the 300 she made. More sophisticated botanical illustrations by Colden may have perished, for the surviving examples are difficult to reconcile with one visitor's comment (c. autumn 1758) that "she draws and colours them with great beauty."

As an aid to Colden's botanical studies, her father assembled a small collection of illustrated botanical books. “As she cannot have the opportunity of seeing plants in a Botanical Garden," he remarked to Peter Collinson in a letter of c. 1755, "I think the next best is to see the best cuts or pictures of them.” Collinson supplemented these books with engravings by the renowned botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770), “for your Ingenious Daughter to take Sketches of the fine Turn of the Leaves.” He also expressed his wish that William Bartram were nearby, for his drawings of plants “come the Nearest to Mr Ehrets” and “he would much assist her at first Setting out.” In fact, some of William Bartram's drawings may already have come to hand. In 1755 his father wrote Jane that William had "made A pockit [packet] of very fine drawings for the[e] far beyond Catesbys, took them to town & tould me he would send them very soon."

Cadwallader Colden assiduously promoted the accomplishments of his "Ingenious Daughter" through the closely interconnected network of American and European botanists with whom he corresponded. He sent examples of her botanical texts and illustrations to the physician Robert Whytt (1714-1766) in Edinburgh, the merchant-botanists Peter Collinson and John Fothergill (1712-1780) in London, Gronovius in Holland, and Garden in South Carolina. They, in turn, trumpeted the news to others—including Linnaeus and the British merchant and naturalist John Ellis (c. 1710-1776)— urging the acceptance of her discoveries as new genuses, and the naming of a plant Coldenella in her honor. Colden herself expressed ambivalence about the exposure that accompanied her growing fame. Alexander Garden was chastised for writing too extravagantly of her achievements, and she begged one of his correspondents, Charles Alston, for more discretion. "You complasantly intimate that anything that I shall communicate to you, shall not be conceald," she wrote on May 1, 1756. "But this I must beg as a favour of you, that you will not make any thing publick from me, till (at least) I have gained more knowledge of Plants." Colden continued to produce perceptive descriptions of New York flora until 1759, the year she married the Scottish physician William Farquhar and evidently abandoned botanical pursuits.

--Robyn Asleson

Texts

• Colden, Jane, September 2, 1753, letter from New York City to her mother Alice Chrystie Colden at Coldengham (1937: 9: 126-27)

"I am very glad you have had Company that have diverted you, & that you have been imploy'd in improving your Garden, as I know the pleasure you take in it... Mrs. Nicholls has promised me some Tuby [torn] Roots & I shall beg her for some, others kinds & [torn] Seeds..

• Bartram, John, autumn 1753, letter to Peter Collinson (1992: 360)

“I and Billy...reached Dr Colden’s by noon. Got our dinner, and set out to gather seeds, and did not get back till two hours within night; then looked over of ye Dr['s] daughter[']s botanical curious observations.”

• Alice Colden Willett, June 25, 1754, letter from Harisons Purchase to her sister, Katharine Colden at Coldengham (Colden: 1937: 9: 137-38)

" I shoud give you a description of the place, it is calld the majours neck Surrounded with meadows on one side, and the other a prospect of the Ocian the ground so level that we dancd Minuates and Contry dances and so fine a shade of pine Trees, that we never need put on our hats. The first thing we did after we got to the place, was to prepare dinner of fine black fish and Lobsters... We then sat down upon the green grass, and din'd most daintely, musick playing all the time, after this we had several dances, by this time it was neer Sun sat, and we all prepard for returning home, but was stopt by the way by the Majour, who had been with us all day and give all the company a hearty invitation to his seat, where we was intertaind with wine and punch in great plenty, the Majour himself as gay as any young man, and niver stopt from dancing for several hours together, pray tell Sister Jenny [Jane Colden] that I wish she coud have seen him, I assure her he appeard to much greater advantage in his own house than he did when she saw him here.... He has a pleasant place and a good h[ou]se and also a pretty fountain, so that there seems nothing wanting but a Mistress to take care of it, but me thinks I hear you say what a deal you write about Miss Jennys admirer, and tell me not a word of my own."

• Garden, Alexander, February 18, 1755, letter to Cadwallader Colden (1923: 5: 5)

"I have had severall Letters from Europe & a pretty parcell of Seeds from Russia from Dr Mounsey cheif Physician to the Army & Physician to the Prince Royal of Russia they are mostly Persian seeds I have sent a few to Miss Colden.... I mentioned to Miss Colden that the Small Bags of Shells something like Hops that she has are the reall Matrices of the Buccinum ampullatum of Dr Lister.... I shall in my next mention to Miss Colden the method of preserving Butterflies &c."

• Garden, Alexander, May 23, 1755, letter to Cadwallader Colden (1923: 5: 10-11)

"Its now passed the Season of Seeds but I'll endeavour to procure Such as Miss Colden may want this year, tho my present Business confines me much to Town. I have not had an hour to spend in the woods this 2 months which makes me turn rusty in Botany."

• Bartram, John, January 24, 1757, to Jane Colden (1992: 413-14)

“I received thine of October ye 26th 1756 & read it several times with agreeable satisfaction indeed I am very carefull of it & it keeps company with ye choicest correspondents, ye European letters[.] ye viney plant thee so well describes I take to be ye dioscoria of hill & Gronovius tho I never searched ye characters of ye flower so curiously as I find thee hath done. I should be extreamly glad to see thee at my house & to shew thee my garden.

"I have several kinds of ye Cockleat or snail trefoil & trigonels [415] or fenugreck but being annual plants they are gone off[.] ye species of persicary thee mentions.... Ye amorpha is A beautiful flower but whether wont your cold winters kill it[.] if ye Rhubarb from London be ye Siberian I have it I had ye perennial flax from rusia Livonia[.] it growed 4 foot high & I dont know but 50 stalks from A root but ye flax was very rotten & course[.] Ye flowers large & blew[.] it lived many years & died[.] neither what you will want this [.] I am quite at A loss what seeds to gather & what quantity to preserve.

• Garden, Alexander, April 15, 1757, letter to Cadwallader Colden (1923: 5: 141-42)

"Did Miss Colden receive the Seeds which I sent; they were the following The Chionanthus or Fringetree. 2d The Hop-tree a new genus—3 Yellow Jessamy 4 Campellia a most beautifull flowring shrub—yucca foliis filamentosis—Pavia or scarlet Horsechesnut— Umbrella tree or the Magnolia foliis Amplissimis flore ingenti Candidi....

"I will be greatly obliged to you [sic] Da[ugh]t[er] for for any seeds or Insects that she can pick up, very soon I'll write her at great Length."

• Collinson, Peter, October 5, 1757, letter to Cadwallader Colden (1923: 5: 190)

"I have in Mrs Alexanders Trunk Sent you the Herbals you wanted and putt in 2 or 3 of Erhetts Plants, for your Ingenious Daughter to take Sketches of the fine Turn of the Leaves &c. & Lin: Genera.

"I wish your fair Daug[hte]r was Near Wm Bartram he would much assist her at first Setting out. John['] Son a very Ingenious Ladd who without any Instructor has not only attained to the Drawing of Plants & Birds, but He paints them in their Natural Colours So Elegantly So Masterly that the best Judges Here think they come the Nearest to Mr Ehrets, of any they have Seen[.] it is a fine amusement for her[;] the More She practices the more She Will Improve, by another Ship, I will Send Some more prints but as they are Liable to be taken I Send a few at a Time."

• Rutherfurd, Walter, c. autumn 1758, letter describing a visit to Coldengham (Rutherfurd, 1894: 13)

"At one of our landings we made an excursion to Coldenham [sic] the abode of the venerable Philosopher Colden, as gay and facetious in his conversation as serious and solid in his writings. From the middle of the Woods this Family corresponds with all the learned societies in Europe…. His daughter Jenny is a Florist and Botanist, she has discovered a great number of Plants never before described and has given their Properties and Virtues, many of which are found useful in Medicine, and she draws and colours them with great beauty. Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh is in the number of her correspondents. N.B. She makes the best cheese I ever ate in America."

References

Jane Colden manuscript in the Natural History Museum, London

Jane Colden's plants in the field