The story of the Gardens, says "Fifth Avenue," "begins in 1793 in the garden of Professor Hamilton near Edinburgh, where Dr.David Hosack, a young American, who was studying with the professor, was much mortified by his ignorance of botany, with which subject the other guests were familiar.

Hosack took up the study of botany so diligently that in 1795 he was made professor of botany at Columbia College, and in 1797 held the chair of Materia Medica.

He resigned to take a similar professorship in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he remained until 1826.

For over twenty years he was one of the leading physicians of New York, bore a conspicuous part in all movements connected with art, drama, literature, city or State affairs, and was frequently mentioned as being, with Clinton and Hobart, 'one of the tripods upon which the city stood.' He was one of the physicians who attended Alexander Hamilton after his fatal duel with Burr.

While professor of botany at Columbia he endeavoured to interest the State in establishing a botanical exhibit for students of medicine, but failing to accomplish this he acquired from the city, in 1801, the plot mentioned above, for the purpose of establishing a botanical garden.