1-152-951 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), American physician and naturalist, 1896. Barton was professor of natural history and botany at the University of Philadelphia from 1789-1815. His Elements of Botany (1803) was the first botanical textbook to be published in the USA. Barton advised the explorer Meriweather Lewis on techniques of preserving specimens prior to his and William Clark's famous trans-American expedition of 1803-1806.