Bowl of puffed rice image courtesy of Lisa Vargues.
In December 1901, Nathaniel Lord Britton, the New York Botanical Garden’s Director, reportedly (and understandably) appeared to be a little worried when a succession of blasts, sounding like gunshots, erupted from a third-floor lab in what is now the Library building. Thankfully, nothing was amiss. Botanist Alexander Pierce Anderson was immersed in a successful experiment that would not only prove a scientific theory but also transform breakfast for millions of people.
With suitable precautions, Anderson had used a hammer to crack open hermetically sealed and heated glass tubes, each containing corn starch, wheat flour, and, later, rice and other grains. All of the starch particles in the tubes had exploded, proving the theory, proposed by plant physiologist Dr. Heinrich Meyer, that a starch granule contains a miniscule amount of condensed water within its nucleus.
The Britton Cottage as it looks today at Historic Richmond Town
A recent Science Talk post told the story of the Staten Island origins of our founder, Nathaniel Lord Britton, who came from a long line of Staten Islanders. Remarkably, the Britton house, which was built in about 1670 and expanded twice in the 18th century, is still standing.
Nathaniel Lord Britton, the botanist who founded The New York Botanical Garden with his wife, Elizabeth, is so closely associated with this institution in the Bronx that it can come as a surprise to learn that he was a native son of the New York City borough that is most distant from here—Staten Island.
SILive, the Web site of the Staten Island Advance, provided a reminder of Britton’s roots in a recent piece that summarized the eminent botanist’s life and accomplishments.
Born in the New Dorp section of Staten Island in 1859, young Britton developed an interest in botany while growing up in what was then a bucolic setting. The Brittons were a long-established family there: an earlier Nathaniel Britton—whose wife’s name was, coincidentally, also Elizabeth—bought a fieldstone cottage in New Dorp in 1695.
Eventually, Nathaniel Lord Britton and Elizabeth Knight Britton inherited the house, which they owned until 1915, when they deeded it to the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences. It was moved in the 1960s to Historic Richmond Town, a historic town and farm museum, where it remains to this day. Although the Britton Cottage is currently closed to the public, the museum has completed a structure report and hopes to receive city funding to restore it.
By 1915, of course, the Botanical Garden was more than two decades old, leading one to wonder whether the Brittons regularly commuted to the Garden from Staten Island. But no: according to the Garden’s archivist, Stephen Sinon, they occupied the cottage only occasionally, living primarily in a residence on Decatur Avenue in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx, close to the Garden.
Still, the Brittons eventually returned to Staten Island. Dying within a few months of each other in 1934, they are buried in the Moravian Cemetery there.
Eventually, Nathaniel Lord Britton and Elizabeth Knight Britton inherited the house, which they owned until 1915, when they deeded it to the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences. It was moved in the 1960s to