{"id":4476,"date":"2009-11-17T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nybg.org\/wordpress\/?p=4476"},"modified":"2019-04-12T12:28:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T16:28:05","slug":"in-search-of-nathaniel-and-elizabeth-britton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2009\/11\/people\/in-search-of-nathaniel-and-elizabeth-britton\/","title":{"rendered":"In Search of the Brittons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Staffer Discovers Home, Resting Place of NYBG Founders on Staten Island<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nLisa Vargues is Curatorial Assistant of the Herbarium.<\/em><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>In honor of the 150th birthday this year of Nathaniel Lord Britton<\/a> (1859\u20131934), who with his wife, Elizabeth Gertrude Britton<\/a> (1858\u20131934), founded The New York Botanical Garden, I set out to retrace some of his footsteps. My pursuit provided further insight into his life and brought some fascinating places to light.<\/p>\n

This spark of nostalgic curiosity came over me ever since I started working on the Flora Borinque\u00f1a Digital Herbarium and Library<\/a>, a project that makes available online the unpublished manuscript of the popular flora of Puerto Rico\u2014 along with images of related specimens\u2014that Britton was working on at the time of his death.<\/p>\n

After more than 70 years, Britton\u2019s final manuscript emerged from storage, and in a Rip van Winkle moment has been resurrected in a brand new era of computers and digitization. Ironically, Britton was resistant to installing electricity (\u201can unnecessary luxury”) in the Garden\u2019s Museum building (now the Library building), and instead frugally worked by gaslight, according to The New York Botanical Garden: An Illustrated Chronicle of Plants and People<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While transcribing some of Britton\u2019s last written words in the Flora Borinque\u00f1a, including his shaky handwritten marginal notes, I wondered where the Brittons\u2019 final resting place is and whether there are any remnants of their life here in New York, outside of the Garden.<\/p>\n

And so my search began.
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\n\"OLYMPUS<\/a>Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the Brittons\u2019 2965 Decatur Avenue home in the Bronx, where Nathaniel Lord Britton died, disappeared long ago. Yet, after rummaging through a few Garden history books and local history Web sites, it became clear that I must head to his birthplace: New Dorp, Staten Island, where his family roots are deeply planted and a few Britton relics still remain intact.<\/p>\n

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that his longtime former residence and ancestral home is not only still standing but also preserved in a living history museum, Historic Richmond Town<\/a>. In this collection of about 30 historic buildings, the Britton Cottage (pictured) is the oldest structure, dating back to ca. 1670. A 1940 publication, The Britton Cottage: The Story of Its Construction<\/em>, by Loring McMillen, mentions that in the \u201csoutherly attic room, Dr. Britton, by the light of the two small windows or an oil lamp, wrote part of his famous Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada<\/em>, published in 1896\u20138.\u201d <\/p>\n

Just 2 miles from the Britton Cottage is where the Brittons now rest, in the beautiful and vast Moravian Cemetery (photo above). Elizabeth\u2019s death in February 1934 had a traumatic impact on her husband, and he passed away from a stroke just four months later (they had no children). Thanks to the Cemetery\u2019s on-site database and the enthusiastic help of Richard Simpson, the Cemetery\u2019s historian and tour guide, I found myself standing on a lovely hilltop on Atlantic Avenue peering at the very simple adjacent gravestones of Nathaniel Lord and Elizabeth, shaded by a large sweetgum tree. Surrounding them are Nathaniel Lord\u2019s parents, brother, and sister. I found it meaningful to be standing in the area where the botanical world made its first impressions on Nathaniel Lord Britton, and where he and Elizabeth made their final \u201creturn\u201d to nature.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, outside the Cemetery gates where the memory of the Brittons is preserved in more tangible and enduring ways: the world-class New York Botanical Garden (first inspired by Elizabeth Britton), with its expansive collections; a mountain in Puerto Rico named in their honor; numerous plant names and publications; the Staten Island Museum<\/a>, co-founded by Nathaniel Lord Britton; Historic Richmond Town; and, now the C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium. Most significantly, the Brittons were dedicated to their field of research until the very end, and many will benefit from that dedication for generations to come.<\/p>\n

For more on the Brittons and the founding of The New York Botanical Garden, read<\/em> Britton’s Botanical Empire<\/a> by Peter Mickulas.<\/em><\/p>\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staffer Discovers Home, Resting Place of NYBG Founders on Staten Island Lisa Vargues is Curatorial Assistant of the Herbarium. In honor of the 150th birthday this year of Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859\u20131934), who with his wife, Elizabeth Gertrude Britton (1858\u20131934), founded The New York Botanical Garden, I set out to retrace some of his footsteps…. <\/p>\n

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