Pioneer Information
Born in Staines, England, Pritchard immigrated to the United States in 1818. In 1825 he partnered with Welsh industrialist Robert Owen to establish the utopian community of New Harmony, in Indiana. After the community financially collapsed in 1827, Pritchard relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, where he became a partner in Callendar & Pritchard, a grocery-supply business. He also pursued a passion for botany and earned a reputation as a landscape gardener. In 1844 he became a founding member of the Nashville Horticultural Society, subsequently helping to establish a garden and nursery in present-day Morgan Park. Located in the historic suburb of Germantown, north of downtown Nashville, the plot was sold to the society by landowner D.T. McGavock in 1847 for the purpose of creating a garden and promenade. The society then leased the property to Pritchard, but he declared bankruptcy in 1853, and the lease was transferred to architect Adolphus Heiman. In 1860 Pritchard was commissioned to lay out the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol. The project was effectively halted by the Civil War, after which Pritchard collaborated with the New York engineer John Bogart in completing the Capitol’s landscape design, planting a variety of trees and shrubs, and establishing flower beds and pathways. After living in Nashville for more than half a century, Pritchard moved to Oakland, California, in 1877, where he died two years later at the age of 77.
