In 1801, New York physician
David Hosack created the Elgin Botanic Garden, named for his father's Scottish birthplace. Hosack was among the leading medical practitioners of his time, and was later remembered primarily as the physician who attended the
1804 duel between his friends
Alexander Hamilton and
Aaron Burr, and who treated Hamilton's fatal injuries. Elgin was the first public botanical garden in the United States. It was established with Hosack's purchase of of "common lands" from the
City of New York for approximately $4,800, equivalent to $ in dollars. The location, outside of what was then the city limit, is bounded by present-day
47th Street on the south,
51st Street on the north, and
Fifth Avenue on the east, reaching nearly to
Sixth Avenue on the west. It is now the site of
Rockefeller Center. The entire property "was intended by Professor Hosack for a botanical garden, the prime object of which was to be the collection and cultivation of native plants of this country, especially such as possess medicinal properties or are otherwise useful." At his own expense, Hosack landscaped the garden with a variety of indigenous and exotic plants, mostly of American origin. By 1805, the garden was home to 1,500 species of plants from all over the world, including some rare specimens contributed by
Thomas Jefferson. The following year, Hosack published
Hortus Elginensis (1806), a catalogue and visitors' guide, containing an extensive list of the plants under cultivation at Elgin. The grounds were fully enclosed by an imposing stone wall, tall and thick. Within the walls, a spacious greenhouse flanked by two hothouses presented a frontage running west from present-day Fifth Avenue, and encircled by what Hosack called a "belt of forest trees and shrubs judiciously chequered and mingled." Hosack's funds were insufficient to support such a project indefinitely, and it was suggested that he was so preoccupied with his endeavors in the creation of a new medical school that he had neither time nor money to continue the garden. In 1808, Hosack was compelled to offer the property for sale, and for several years, he petitioned the
New York State Legislature to purchase it and maintain it as an aid in medical education. Ultimately, in March 1810, the State of New York purchased Elgin for $75,000, leaving Hosack with a loss of $28,000 after his expenses to buy and develop the property. Responsibility for the property was given to the
Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, and in the 1811 second edition of the
Hortus Elginensis catalogue, a frontispiece identified Elgin as "the Botanic Garden of the State of New-York". In a preface dated March 1811, Hosack wrote that Elgin had "been purchased by the State for the benefit of the Medical Schools of New-York", and projected his expectation that it would remain a permanent institution. The catalogue concluded with a note that "improvements which may hereafter take place in this institution, and the additions which may be made to the collection of plants, will in future be regularly published, as an annual report to the Legislature, and the Regents of the University." Hosack continued to pay the garden's expenses until May 1811, when it was placed under the management of the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, which had not yet merged with
Columbia. The
Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that laid out the scheme for New York City's future grid of streets and avenues gave names to the carriage road leading to Elgin's garden, which became
Sixth Avenue, and to the pathway that fronted Elgin's south-facing greenhouses, which became
50th Street. ==Abandonment and later uses==