Association, formally organized in 1893, has overseen preservation efforts and historical interpretation of the garden, the John Bartram House, and a number of surviving outbuildings. The garden's plant collection includes only a few extant examples dating from the Bartram family occupancy; however, documentation of what was once in cultivation is rich. The first century of public ownership left the garden lacking in terms of care and interpretation. Despite the disappearance of a number of subsidiary physical elements in the landscape, the garden's rectilinear framework designed and laid out by Bartram during the second quarter of the eighteenth century is still recognizable. Thanks to efforts of Meehan and Charles S. Sargent, Bartram's House and Garden's physical endurance demonstrates eighteenth- and nineteenth-century botanic studies, the North American plant and seed business, and period domestic life in Philadelphia. The Meehan Family Thomas Meehan married his wife Catharine Emma Colflesh in 1852; he was survived by his wife and six children: William E. Meehan, Thomas B. Meehan, J. Franklin Meehan, S. Mendelson Meehan, Sarah D. Meehan Lanning and Frances G. Meehan Burn. William was Commissioner of Fisheries for Pennsylvania; while his other three sons managed the Nursery Firm of Thomas Meehan & Sons, Inc. Publications The American Handbook of Ornamental Trees (Philadelphia, 1853) The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States , 4 vols. (1878–1880) Thomas Meehan, Alois Lunzer (1840–?) and lithographed by Louis Prang (1824–1909) (Boston 1879) Wayside Flowers (1881) Contributions to the Life History of Plants (16 parts) (Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1887–1902). References External links The Influence of Thomas Meehan on Horticulture in the United States PDF, a thesis submitted by Stephanie Ginsberg Oberle to the University of Delaware, Spring 1997. Examples of botanical illustrations in 'The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States' Photograph of Thomas Meehan, Botanist 1826 births 1901 deaths English botanists People from Potters Bar 19th-century American botanists Veitch Memorial Medal recipients