One of America’s greatest naturalists may have grown up a city kid if it had not been for his father.

The son of Quaker parents, William Bartram grew up in Philadelphia. King George III of England had appointed his father, John Bartram, Royal Botanist in 1765. That same year, the elder Bartram took his son William on an expedition through Georgia and Florida to find the source of the St. John’s River. Seeing his father’ dedication and interest in the flora and fauna of the region, William no doubt came away from this trip inspired to make future travels through the Southeast.

In 1773, at the age of 35, he set out on his own — although some historians debate whether he had a guide or not — on what would become a multi-year adventure through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida as he documented the people, plants and animals he met along the way. Despite hostilities and wars between Native American tribes and encroaching settlers — not to mention the ensuing Revolutionary War — Bartram was able to travel through the wilderness and study the region unharmed. He was welcomed into tribal villages and nicknamed “Puc Puggy,” or “flower hunter” by the Creek Indians.

His meticulous journals and detailed illustrations were later published in his Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida in the summer of 1791 and became a classic of early American natural history, geography and anthropology. Bartram was one of the first Americans to study bird migration. He gave readers a rare and objective look at life inside Cherokee society. He and his father helped identify more than 200 native American species and even rescued a tree species (the Franklinia) from Georgia before it disappeared from that area. An English patron helped fund Bartram’s travels and paid for his plant specimens, which were shipped from America to become novel collectables in aristocrats’ homes.

By 1803, Bartram was supposedly asked by family friend Thomas Jefferson to accompany Lewis and Clark on their famed expedition through the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, but Bartram was getting older, so he declined the invitation.

Bartram’s book became widely read in international aristocratic circles. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin visited the Bartram home in Philadelphia. Writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge most certainly were aware of his work. It’s even been suggested that Coleridge drew upon Bartram’s imagery while penning his most famous poems, “Kubla Khan” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

More recently, Charles Frazier drew upon Bartram’s book in his 1997 bestselling Civil War novel, Cold Mountain, as the main character Inman travels to Haywood County with a copy of Bartram’s classic in tow to remind him of his beloved home. Novelist, poet and Western Carolina University professor Ron Rash makes multiple references and quotes from Bartram’s travels in his 2002 Appalachian Book of the Year, One Foot in Eden.

By documenting the habitats and natural beauty of the Southeastern United States, Bartram helped transform public perception at the time that nature was an enemy, a danger to be feared. Rather, his writings welcomed people to enjoy the wonders of waterfalls, the spectacular vistas of mountain peaks and rich forests teaming with diverse species. He became the first in a long line of American naturalists like Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Rachel Carson who championed nature as a treasure to be preserved and protected.

Bartram died in Philadelphia on July 22, 1823.