John Bradbury

Who was John Bradbury?

John Bradbury was a Scottish botanist noted for his travels in the United States Midwest and West in the early 19th Century and his eyewitness account of the New Madrid earthquake.

Bradbury was born near Stalybridge in Lancashire and worked in a cotton mil. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1792. While living in Manchester he petitioned the trustees of the Liverpool Botanic Garden to fund a visit America to collect plants.

In the United States he met with Thomas Jefferson in 1809 who recommended that he should base his investigations in St. Louis, Missouri rather than New Orleans, Louisiana.

While in St. Louis Bradbury explored the area and sent seeds back to Liverpool.

In 1811 he and naturalist Thomas Nuttall joined the Astor Expedition to find a faster overland route to Astoria, Oregon.

Bradbury did not stay with the Expedition all the way to Oregon but rather stayed with the group on the Missouri River to Montana before starting to return to New Orleans while documenting 40 new species of plants by sending seeds to his son.