Jackson, John, 1748-1821

American botanist John Jackson was born in London Grove, Pennsylvania, on November 9, 1748, to Pennsylvania Quakers William and Katherine (Miller) Jackson.

American botanist John Jackson was born in London Grove, Pennsylvania, on November 9, 1748, to Pennsylvania Quakers William and Katherine (Miller) Jackson. Jackson, the fifth child (and fourth son) of William and Katherine's seven surviving children, inherited his family's 300-acre estate, Harmony Grove, upon his father's death in 1785. At Harmony Grove Jackson explored his interests in botany and gardening and established a garden that complemented that of his Pennsylvania Quaker contemporary and friend Humphry Marshall.

Jackson began planting gardens at Harmony Grove as early as 1776 or 1777. By the time of his death in 1821 Jackson had cultivated about an acre and a half of ground at Harmony Grove where he grew a wide variety of ornamental, rare, foreign, and indigenous plants, many of which he had obtained by trading seeds with fellow domestic and European botanists. In addition to his interests in botany, Jackson also studied mineralogy and was a member of the Chester County Cabinet of Natural Science with other local botanists including Marshall, Joshua and Samuel Pierce (owners of the arboretum that would later become Longwood Gardens), Dr. Francis Allison, Dr. William Baldwin, and Dr. William Darlington.

Jackson married Mary Harlan, daughter of Joel and Hannah Harlan, on February 11, 1775, and together they raised seven children. After his death, Jackson's sixth child, William (1789-1864), inherited Harmony Grove and continued many of the gardens that his father had started.

Barnard, Ella Kent. "An Old Botanic Garden." The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society 13 (1916): 16-19. "Chester County Cabinet of Natural Science." In The Register of Pennsylvania devoted to the preservation of every kind of useful information respecting the state, edited by Samuel Hazard. Philadelphia: Printed by W.F. Geddes, 1828. "Isaac Jackson" and "William Jackson." In History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: with genealogical and biographical sketches, edited by J. Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881. Jackson, Halliday. Proceedings of the sesqui-centennial gathering of the descendants of Isaac and Ann Jackson, at Harmony Grove, Chester Co., Pa., eighth month, twenty-fifth, 1875. Together with the family genealogy. Philadelphia: Published by the committee for the family, 1878.