Dr. Richard Hill was born in Anne Arundel County in 1698. He spent the first half of his adult life, until the age of 41, living on a tract called Scorton, just outside the town limits of London Town. He like other family members were ship owners and merchants. But Hill also trained as a physician, perhaps apprenticed to a cousin who practiced in Philadelphia.

As a physician, Hill had a natural interest in plants for their medicinal properties. He made connections with amateur scientists in England who were eager for samples of North American plants. He also corresponded with Peter Collinson, a member of the Royal Society of London. The Royal Society supported and encouraged scientific exploration of the New World. And it was Collinson who directed John Bartram, America's foremost naturalist, to visit London Town and meet Richard Hill. Hill and Collinson were both prolific correspondents. No doubt the letters they exchanged were a mother lode of information about plants in the London Town area, unfortunately those letters have yet to come to light and we are left with the names of only four plants that Hill sent to England: tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) was handsomely illustrated in John Martyn's Historia plantarum rariorum, published in 1728 and one of the earliest works with color- printed plates; two others, Jerusalem Oak (Chenopodium botrys, a species of lamb's quarters) and Quinzy Root (Eryngium yuccifolium, now known as rattlesnake master), were commented on in correspondence with the Royal Society; the fourth, Cassia marilandica, or wild senna, exists as a dried specimen in the Sloane Herbarium, a collection of the British Museum in London.

These plants form the core of a living collection, the Richard Hill Garden, at London Town. Joining them in the semicircular garden next to the William Brown House are plants that would have been known to the medical practitioners and housewives of the day. Some are traditional plants that Europeans brought with them --horehound, fennel, tansy and mint species. Of these imported plants, some stayed tamely in the gardens where they were planted, while others escaped to naturalize in the wild landscapes of the New World. While these familiar plants were purported to cure everything from bronchitis to inadequate milk flow to mad dog bites, the settlers in the New World would discover many new remedies derived from native plants of the area and long in use by the Indians. Such local plants include snakeroot (Cimicifuga racemosa), turtlehead (Chelone glabra, pinkroot (Spigelia marilandica) and big blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica).

Gathered here from their diverse origins, these plants exist side by side in the Richard Hill Garden at London Town, providing us with a window on the past-- a window on our local flora, on medical history, on the practice of housewifery, and a tangible link with a local resident of two centuries ago. An information sheet on the garden, available at the Visitor Center, provides information about the specific plants in the garden and their uses, or for more information send us an email.

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