Anecdotes of an American Crow

William Bartram (1739–1823)
From William Bartram: Travels & Other Writings

Interesting Links

“More Than 200 Years After He Toured Florida, America’s First Great Environmentalist Is Inspiring Locals to Reconnect with Nature” (Kiley Bense, Smithsonian)

“The Story of Bartram’s Garden” (Robin T. Reid, Smithsonian)

Previous Story of the Week selections
• “The Eccentric Naturalist,” John James Audubon
• “All Parrots Speak,” Paul Bowles
• “The Last Passenger Pigeon,” Gene Stratton-Porter
• “The Birds of Killingworth,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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William Bartram: Travels & Other Writings
Includes 64 plates, 16 in full color
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Detail from “American Crow. Corvus Americanus. Male. Black walnut.” Drawn by John James Audubon (1785–1851). Plate 156 from Audubon's Birds of America, 1822. Engraved, printed & colored by Robert Havell (1793–1878). Boston Public Library.

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“Poor Billy hath had the greatest misfortunes in trade that could be & gone thro the most grievous disappointments & is now absconded I know not whither,” John Bartram, the Royal Botanist of North America, wrote worriedly to John Fothergill, a physician and amateur botanist in London, in September 1770. Bartram’s 31-year-old son, William, had fled Philadelphia, pursued by various creditors, particularly by one who had made him fear for his life.

The previous decade had not been an auspicious start to William’s business career. His teen years had shown promise; he accompanied his father on various plant and seed collecting expeditions in New York and Connecticut, and the boy earned a reputation for meticulously rendered drawings of plants and birds. His sketches of two species of turtles were published in London’s Gentleman’s Magazine with annotations by the prestigious British gardener Peter Collinson. The year William turned 17, Benjamin Franklin, a family friend, offered him a printing apprenticeship, but his father intervened, convinced of the difficulties of making money in the printing trade. Instead, William spent five years as a mercantile apprentice before establishing himself in 1761 as a merchant on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.

When his father was appointed a royal botanist by King George III in 1765, William sold his stock and closed shop to accompany him on an expedition to Florida. From October through March, the two men explored the region around St. Augustine and traveled as far as they could up the St. John’s River. “I have left my son Billy in Florida,” John wrote to Collinson after he returned. “Nothing will do with him now but he will be a planter upon St Johns River about 24 mile from Augustine.” William’s plans to establish a rice and indigo plantation were dashed, however, when he became so ill with fever that he proved unable to clear or plant the land. In August, Henry Laurens (who would later serve as president of the Continental Congress) visited the farm and wrote to William’s father, “no colouring can do justice to the forlorn state of poor Billy Baldwin.” William abandoned the plantation later that year.

He was back in Philadelphia by the fall of 1767. At first he worked as an agricultural laborer and then resumed work as a merchant. His lack of success is what led him to be chased out of town without a word to his family; he fled to his uncle’s home in Ashford, North Carolina. When John finally heard from his son months later, he responded that William’s brother-in-law had stepped in and paid off the creditors, including “that troublesome man who threatened thee on his own account I think the day before thee went away.”

William spent the next two years in North Carolina and, during this time, he apparently came across the letters by the late Alexander Pope written fifty years earlier to the poet Lady Cowper (Judith Madan), which had been published as a book in 1769 and excerpted in The London Magazine. One passage in particular struck him, and he copied it verbatim into his commonplace book:

I determine to retreat within myself to the only business I was born for, and which I am only good for (If I am intitled to use that phrase for any thing). It is great folly to sacrifice oneself, one’s time, one’s quiet (the very life of life itself) to forms, complaisances, and amusements which do not inwardly please me, and only please a sort of people who regard me no farther than a mere instrument of their present idleness or vanity.

“Is it not much more wisely if we live to ourselves & of ourselves,” William added rhetorically.

And so, having decided to follow his own aims, in the summer of 1772 he wrote to his father and outlined his intention to abandon his mercantile business and return to Florida to draw and study nature. John Bartram’s response was immediate and outraged. “We are surprised at thy wild notion of going to Augustine. . . . I don’t intend to have any more of my estate spent there or to the southward upon any pretense whatever. I think it much better for thee to come home and dwell amongst thy relatives & friends who I doubt not will endeavour to put thee in a way of profitable business.”

Confronted by this implacable opposition, William appealed to Fothergill in England, who in turn wrote to John: “A few weeks ago I received a letter and some drawings from thy Son William in Carolina. For his sake as well as thine, I should be glad to assist him. He draws neatly, has such a strong relish for natural History and it is pity that such a genius should sink under distress.” Faced with his friend’s enthusiasm for his son’s work, John relented; William would receive a stipend and expenses from Fothergill in exchange for sending him specimens and drawings, first from Florida and perhaps later from Canada. The owner of an 80-acre botanical garden, Fothergill was especially keen on getting seeds and live cuttings, because he wanted “to introduce into this country the more hardy American plants, such as will bear our winters without much shelter.” Although live cuttings and seeds for Fothergill’s garden were slow in coming, between 1774 and 1776 William sent a total of 209 dried plant specimens and 59 zoological and botanical drawings, as well as a two-part report on his travels that remained unpublished until 1943. (Fothergill’s collection of Bartram’s specimens is now in the British Natural History Museum.) The flow of samples to England was halted by the outbreak of the American Revolution, Bartram never made it to Canada, and Fothergill died in 1780.

More important for the history of nature writing, William’s years of roaming through the South resulted in the publication, fifteen years later, of Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, a work that would be published widely and translated into French, German, and Dutch. Wordsworth and Coleridge (whose “Kubla Khan” evokes the lush imagery described in Travels) owned copies of the second London edition, and the work would inspire such American writers as Cooper, Thoreau, and Emerson.

Partially blinded by an infection that might have been caused by poison ivy, Wiliam Bartram returned to Philadelphia at the beginning of 1777; his father died later that year. The estate passed to his brother John, but William remained at the family home for the rest of his life, tending his father’s botanical garden (which survives to this day). In 1797, when the novelist Charles Brockden Brown and playwright William Dunlap visited Bartram’s garden—which had already become something of a tourist destination—Dunlap wrote in his diary:

Arrived at the Botanist’s Garden, we approached an old man who, with a rake in his hand, was breaking the clods of earth in a tulip-bed. His hat was old, and flapped over his face; his coarse shirt was seen near his neck, as he wore no cravat nor kerchief; his waistcoat and breeches were both of leather, and his shoes were tied with leather strings. We approached and accosted him. He ceased his work, and entered into conversation with the ease and politeness of nature's nobleman. His countenance was expressive of benignity and happiness. This was the botanist, traveller and philosopher we had come to see.

Bartram’s literary legacy rests almost entirely on his Travels; he published little else during his eighty-four years. Among the handful of essays that did appear is an amusing piece he published in 1804 about his pet crow, and we reprint that story below.

Much of the above is adapted from the Chronology in William Bartram: Travels & Other Writing (edited by Thomas P. Slaughter).

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For this week’s selection, we depart from the usual format and reproduce the selection, in its entirety, below.
You may also download it as a PDF or view it in Google Docs.

Anecdotes of an American Crow

It is a difficult task to give a history of our Crow. And I hesitate not to aver, that it would require the pen of a very able biographer to do justice to his talents.

Before I enter on this subject minutely, it may be necessary to remark, that we do not here speak of the crow, collectively, as giving an account of the whole race (since I am convinced, that these birds differ as widely as men do from each other, in point of talents and acquirements), but of a particular bird of that species, which I reared from the nest.

He was, for a long time, comparatively a helpless, dependent creature, having a very small degree of activity or vivacity, every sense seeming to be asleep, or in embryo, until he had nearly attained his finished dimensions, and figure, and the use of all his members. Then, we were surprised, and daily amused with the progressive development of his senses, expanding and maturating as the wings of the youthful phalaena, when disengaged from its nympha-shell.

These senses, however, seemed, as in man, to be only the organs or instruments of his intellectual powers, and of their effects, as directed towards the accomplishment of various designs, and the gratification of the passions.

This was a bird of a happy temper, and good disposition. He was tractable and benevolent, docile and humble, whilst his genius demonstrated extraordinary acuteness, and lively sensations. All these good qualities were greatly in his favour, for they procured him friends and patrons, even among men, whose society and regard contributed to illustrate the powers of his understanding. But what appeared most extraordinary, he seemed to have the wit to select and treasure up in his mind, and the sagacity to practise, that kind of knowledge which procured him the most advantage and profit.

He had great talents, and a strong propensity to imitation. When I was engaged in weeding in the garden, he would often fly to me, and, after very attentively observing me in pulling up the small weeds and grass, he would fall to work, and with his strong beak, pluck up the grass; and the more so, when I complimented him with encouraging expressions. He enjoyed great pleasure and amusement in seeing me write, and would attempt to take the pen out of my hand, and my spectacles from my nose. The latter article he was so pleased with, that I found it necessary to put them out of his reach, when I had done using them. But, one time, in particular, having left them a moment, the crow being then out of my sight, recollecting the bird’s mischievous tricks, I returned quickly, and found him upon the table, rifling my inkstand, books, and paper. When he saw me coming, he took up my spectacles, and flew off with them. I found it vain to pretend to overtake him; but standing to observe his operations with my spectacles, I saw him settle down at the root of an apple-tree, where, after amusing himself, for awhile, I observed, that he was hiding them in the grass, and covering them with chips and sticks, often looking round about, to see whether I was watching him. When he thought he had sufficiently secreted them, he turned about, advancing towards me, at my call. When he had come near me, I ran towards the tree, to regain my property. But he, judging of my intentions, by my actions, flew, and arriving there before me, picked them up again, and flew off with them, into another apple-tree. I now almost despaired of ever getting them again. However, I returned back to a house, a little distance off, and there secreting myself, I had a full view of him, and waited to see the event. After some time had elapsed, during which I heard a great noise and talk from him, of which I understood not a word, he left the tree, with my spectacles dangling in his mouth, and alighted, with them, on the ground. After some time, and a great deal of caution and contrivance in choosing and rejecting different places, he hid them again, as he thought very effectually, in the grass, carrying and placing over them chips, dry leaves, &c., and often pushing them down with his bill. After he had finished this work, he flew up into a tree, hard by, and there continued a long time, talking to himself, and making much noise; bragging, as I supposed, of his achievements. At last, he returned to the house, where not finding me, he betook himself to other amusements. Having noted the place, where he had hid my spectacles, I hastened thither, and after some time recovered them.

This bird had an excellent memory. He soon learned the name which we had given him, which was Tom; and would commonly come when he was called, unless engaged in some favourite amusement, or soon after correction: for when he had run to great lengths in mischief, I was under the necessity of whipping him; which I did with a little switch. He would, in general, bear correction with wonderful patience and humility, supplicating with piteous and penitent cries and actions. But sometimes, when chastisement became intolerable, he would suddenly start off, and take refuge in the next tree. Here he would console himself with chattering, and adjusting his feathers, if he was not lucky enough to carry off with him some of my property, such as a pen-knife, or a piece of paper; in this case, he would boast and brag very loudly. At other times, he would soon return, and with every token of penitence and submission, approach me for forgiveness and reconciliation. On these occasions, he would sometimes return, and settle on the ground, near my feet, and diffidently advance, with soft-soothing expressions, and a sort of circumlocution; and sit silently by me for a considerable time. At other times, he would confidently come and settle upon my shoulder, and there solicit my favour and pardon, with soothing expressions, and caressing gesticulations; not omitting to tickle me about the neck, ears, &c.

Tom appeared to be influenced by a lively sense of domination (an attribute prevalent in the animal creation): but, nevertheless, his ambition, in this respect, seemed to be moderated by a degree of reason, or reflection. He was, certainly, by no means tyrannical, or cruel. It must be confessed, however, that he aimed to be master of every animal around him, in order to secure his independence and his self-preservation, and for the acquisition and defence of his natural rights. Yet, in general, he was peaceable and social with all the animals about him.

He was the most troublesome and teazing to a large dog, whom he could never conquer. This old dog, from natural fidelity, and a particular attachment, commonly lay down near me, when I was at rest, reading or writing under the shade of a pear-tree, in the garden, near the house. Tom (I believe from a passion of jealousy) would approach me, with his usual caresses, and flattery, and after securing my notice and regard, he would address the dog in some degree of complaisance, and by words and actions; and, if he could obtain access to him, would tickle him with his bill, jump upon him, and compose himself, for a little while. It was evident, however, that this seeming sociability was mere artifice to gain an opportunity to practise some mischievous trick; for no sooner did he observe the old dog to be dozing, than he would be sure to pinch his lips, and pluck his beard. At length, however, these bold and hazardous achievements had nearly cost him his life: for, one time, the dog being highly provoked, he made so sudden and fierce a snap, that the crow narrowly escaped with his head. After this, Tom was wary, and used every caution and deliberation in his approaches, examining the dog’s eyes and movements, to be sure that he was really asleep, and at last would not venture nearer than his tail, and then by slow, silent, and wary steps, in a sideways, or oblique manner, spreading his legs, and reaching forward. In this position, he would pluck the long hairs of the dog’s tail. But he would always take care to place his feet in such a manner as to be ready to start off, when the dog was roused and snapped at him.

It would be endless (observes my ingenious friend, in the conclusion of his entertaining account of the crow) to recount instances of this bird’s understanding, cunning, and operations, which, certainly, exhibited incontestible demonstrations of a regular combination of ideas, premeditation, reflection, and contrivance, which influenced his operations.

Originally published in the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (1804).