USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 66
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III. NATURAL HISTORY .- We continue the plan of personal sketches :
Benjamin Lincoln was born in Hingham in 1733. He was a distinguished officer (Brigadier-General) in the War of the Revolution, and in Shays's Rebellion ; Secretary of War in 1781-84 ; and Collector of Boston from 1789 to 1808. He died at Hing- ham in 1810. He published two papers in the Memoirs 2 of the American Academy, which show that he took an interest in geology and botany. He spent his last years in literary and scientific pursuits.
Manasseh Cutler was one of the earliest cultivators of botany 3 in New England. He was born in Killingly, Conn., in 1742 ; graduated at Yale in 1765 ; was settled as minister at Ipswich Hamlet (now Hamilton), where he died in 1823. He studied law, theology, and medicine, after having first tried a mercantile life. He was a pioneer in promoting emigration to the West ; and set the example by going there himself, in 1788, in a sulky, - a journey of seven hundred and fifty miles in twenty-nine days. He re- turned in 1791, and was a member of Congress from 1800 to 1804. In 1785 he pub- lished 4 a paper of great merit, and one hundred pages long, giving " An Account of some of the vegetable Productions naturally growing in this Part of America, botanically arranged." He begins with these words : "In an infant country, where Nature has been liberal in her productions, and internal resources are greatly wanted, few objects can be of greater importance than natural history. Yet, unhappily, there is no branch of useful knowledge we have so little cultivated. The cultivation of this branch of science will open to our view the treasures we possess unenjoyed ; and must eventually tend to the security and welfare of our citizens, the extension of their commerce, and the im- provement of those arts which adorn and embellish life." In 1809 he published a short paper " on a singular natural production, in which one part appears to be a plant and the other an insect, etc." He explains it and says : " It often happens that things which at first view seem miraculous are found on examination not to be miraculous, but produced in the regular course of nature." 5
Chief-Justice Parsons discovered the magnolia glauca near Gloucester. He also made a collection of minerals and fossils ..
1 [See an account of the Institute in the chapter on "Education," and of his family re- lationship in the chapter on " Libraries," in the present volume .- ED.]
2 Vol. i. pp. 372, 388.
8 [See the chapter by Professor Asa Gray on "The Flora of Boston and its vicinity," in Vol. I. - ED.]
4 Mem. Amer. Acad., i. 396.
6 Ibid., iii. 161.
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John Lowell was born in Newbury in 1744, and graduated at Harvard College in 1760.1 He came to Boston in 1761, and died at Roxbury in 1802. He rose to great eminence as a lawyer, statesman, and judge in the U. S. district court. Massachu- setts owes to him the most pregnant sentence in the Bill of Rights : All men are born free and equal .? He was greatly interested in botany and other branches of natural history. His advent into the Corporation of Harvard College, in 1784, was signalized by an appeal to the State Legislature in favor of creating a botanic garden at Cam- bridge. The King of France had offered " to furnish such garden with every species of seeds and plants which may be requested, from his royal garden, at his own ex- pense." The application was unsuccessful at that critical period in the history of the State. In 1791 President Willard received a letter from Mr. Buck of Hamburg, who had studied under Linnæus, suggesting an exchange in specimens of natural history ; but the College was not in a condition to accept the offer. In 1802 Judge Lowell originated a movement, which was fully consummated in 1805, for establishing a botanic garden and a professorship of Natural History in the College ; and gave gen- erously to the fund of $30,000 which was raised for this purpose.
Winthrop Sargent was born in Gloucester in 1753, graduated at Harvard College in 1771, and died on his passage from the South to Boston in 1820. He entered the army in 1775, and served with distinction. In 1786 he was appointed surveyor of the Northwest Territory, and, from 1798 to 1801, governor of the Mississippi Territory. He made his large opportunities serve the ends of natural history by publishing in the Memoirs of the American Academy a catalogue of forest and other trees along the River Ohio, and meteorological observations in the vicinity of Natchez. He also fur- nished an account of the earthquakes felt in Mississippi, Dec. 16, 1811, and Jan. 23, 1812, the first of which overturned chimneys and rang the bells in the steeples.3
Benjamin Waterhouse was born in Newport, R. I., in 1754, and died in Cambridge in 1846. He was sent to London in 1775, and educated at Edinburgh and Leyden universities. In 1782 the Medical School of Harvard University was founded, and Dr. Waterhouse was one of the three professors in it, and remained in office until 1812. For twenty years he gave voluntary lectures to the Senior class in the College, on botany, which were published, with the synopsis of a larger course on natural his- tory, in the Anthology; 4 and afterward (1811) in a pamphlet. When, in 1793-96, the nucleus of a mineralogical cabinet was formed by the gifts of Dr. Lettsom and the Hon. James Bowdoin (consisting of more than nine hundred specimens), Dr. Water- house was appointed keeper.5
William D. Peck 6 was born in Boston in 1763, graduated at Harvard College in 1782, and died in Cambridge in 1822. He tried to be a merchant, but his heart was not in the business. Self-taught, he became an eminent botanist and entomologist. He was the first professor of Natural History at Cambridge, holding office from 1805 to 1822. He published 7 a paper on four remarkable fishes, a description and history of the slug-worm, canker-worm, and lion-ant, and an account of the reputed sea-serpent ; also remarks, in Latin, on the kamellia japonica and the thea bohea. His artistic talent was useful in enabling him to sketch the objects of his study, as is seen in the
1 [See his family traced in the chapter on " Libraries."-ED.]
2 [See the present volume, p. 6, note. - ED.]
3 Mem. Amer. Acad., ii. 156; iii. 350.
4 Vol. i. p. 308 (1804).
5 [See the chapter on " Medicine " in the present volume. - ED.]
6 Mass. Hist. Coll., x. 161.
7 Mem. Amer. Acad., ii. 46 (1800) ; iv. 86, 103 (1818) ; Mass. Mag., vi. 411 ; vii. 323, 415 (1795).
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BOSTON AND SCIENCE.
illustrations which accompany his publications. His father was an eminent naval architect, and built ships for the Government.1 The son inherited his models and also his mechanical talent, and made a microscope and other instruments, which should help him in his studies. In 1818 he published a catalogue of American and foreign plants in the Botanic Garden. Before coming to Cambridge he had made collections at Kittery of insects, plants, fishes, and birds. For his valuable paper on the canker- worm he received a gold medal from the Massachusetts Agricultural Society.
In 1785 Robert Annan of Boston described the skeleton of a large animal found near Hudson River. In 1786 the Hon. James Warren of Milton published a paper on the effect of light upon vegetation. In 1788 the Hon. Timothy Edwards of Stock- bridge gave an account of a large bone or horn found in his neighborhood. In 1791 the Rev. Asa Packard of Marlborough wrote briefly upon the retreat of swallows in winter. In the same year an anonymous article appeared,2 "On the Influence of Air upon Vegetation."
In 1794 Professor Williams, formerly the Cambridge astronomer, published a work On the Natural and Civil History of Vermont, which indicated his continued interest in science, and was highly praised by a competent authority.
Thaddeus M. Harris was born in Charlestown in 1768, and graduated at Harvard College in 1787. At first he taught school in Worcester, and then was invited to be private secretary to Washington; but he declined the offer, and was appointed librarian of the College, and remained in that office from 1791 to 1793. He was settled as a minister in Dorchester in 1793, and died there in 1842. Dr. Harris pub- lished in 1820 a book on the Natural History of the Bible, and in 1806 a short paper 3 on shells found in Dorchester.
John Lowell (son of the Judge) was born in Newburyport in 1769,4 and graduated at Harvard College in 1786. He was a highly gifted lawyer in Boston, but retired from practice in 1803, and gave much of his time to advancing the intelligence and prosperity of the city. He inherited a taste for botany, horticulture, and agriculture ; and co-operated with his father's efforts to establish the Botanic Garden at Cambridge. He was a member of the Linnæan Society, and took an active part in its proceedings, communicating a paper on some of the customs of the Italians and Romans.
J. C. Warren was born in Boston in 1778, and graduated at Harvard College in 1797. He studied medicine with his father, and then went to London and Paris to complete his professional studies. He began to practise in Boston in 1802. He was assistant professor in the Medical School from 1806 to 1815, and then succeeded his father to the place which he filled until 1847.5 He remained an honorary professor till his death, in 1856. As a surgeon he had the highest reputation of any one in New England, - being equally remarkable for his skill and courage. After his retirement in 1847 he devoted himself to natural history and to the interests of the Boston Society of Natural History, of which he was president. He made large collections in anatomy, osteology, and fossils, and formed the Warren Museum, - the central figure 'in it being the great mastodon from Newburgh. In 1854 he published Remarks on some Fossil Impressions in the Sandstone Rocks of Connecticut River. In 1852 he
1 [See Admiral Preble's chapter in Vol. III. -ED. ]
2 Mass. Mag., i. 768.
8 Mem. Amer. Acad., iii. 159. [See his por- trait in Vol. III. p. 593. - ED.]
4 [See his portrait in the present volume, p. 285. - ED.]
5 [See the chapter on "Medicine" in the present volume, and the notes on his family, Vol. III. p. 61. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
published an account of the Mastodon Giganteus of North America, with twenty-seven plates ; and a second edition in 1856, with thirty plates. Only a week before his death he gave the finishing touch to a memoir on the Argonauta, numerous species of which he had collected, described, and delineated. Although seventy years old when he retired from his weighty duties as professor and principal surgeon of the Massachusetts General Hospital, he pursued the studies of his leisure with all his early vigor and enthusiasm.
Thomas Cole was born in Boston in 1779, and graduated at Harvard College in 1798. His profession was that of a teacher. He was at first principal of an academy in Marblehead, and from 1808 to 1835 conducted a school for young ladies in Salem. A disease of the heart compelling him, in 1835, to relinquish the labor and anxiety of his school, he devoted his time to the pursuit of natural history, which was always con- genial to his taste. His special study was on the infusoria ; and he became an expert in the use of the microscope upon these and other objects which he examined. He was a member of the American Academy and the Essex Institute,1 and contributed to their Proccedings. In 1850 he communicated to the Institute a paper giving a his- torical sketch of investigations of the infusoria, to which was appended a catalogue of the infusoria found in the neighborhood of Salem. This was printed in the first vol- ume of the Proceedings of the Essex Institute. He was highly valued by all who could appreciate zeal and scholarship, and died greatly lamented in 1852.
Parker C. Cleaveland was born in Rowley in 1780, graduated at Harvard College in 1799, was tutor in the College from 1803 to 1805, was professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Bowdoin College from 1805 to 1828, and of Chemistry and Mineralogy from 1828 to 1855. He died in 1858. In mineralogy he had no equal in his day, and is regarded as the father of American mineralogy. In 1808 he made a short communication on fossil shells found in the neighborhood of Brunswick ; but he is best known by his treatise on Mineralogy and Geology, editions of which appeared in 1816, 1822, and 1856. He also published an account of halos and parhelia seen in Brunswick in 1815 and 1818.2
George Osgood was born at Fair Haven in 1784. He studied medicine with his father, attending the medical lectures at Cambridge, and occasionally teaching in the district schools. In 1805 he began the practice of his profession in Danvers, where he remained until his death in 1863. In early life he resided for a few years in Hamil- ton, and, like many others, was inspired by Dr. Cutler with that love of nature and of botany which he carried through his long life. Without being a scientific botanist, he had an extensive knowledge of the flora of his neighborhood, which he made very useful to Dr. Bigelow and others who were studying the subject systematically.
Chester Dewey was born in Sheffield, Mass., in 1784, graduated at Williams Col- lege in 1806, was tutor and professor there for nineteen years, and at Rochester, N. Y., from 1850 to his death in 1867. The interval from 1825 to 1850 was also devoted to teaching. For fifty years he was a frequent contributor to the American Journal of Science. His duties as professor brought him into closer contact with physical and chemical science than with natural history, and he wrote upon it, particularly upon meteorology ; 3 but his inclination was decidedly towards botany, and he made the report upon the Herbaceous Flowering Plants of Massachusetts. He selected for special study the genus Carex, followed it up in successive publications for forty-three years, and became a "leading authority " upon it.
1 Proceedings, i. 33. 2 Mem. Amer. Acad., iii. 155, and iv. 120. 3 Ibid., iv. 387.
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Andrew Nichols was born in Danvers in 1785. Until he was eighteen years old he worked upon his father's farm, attending only the district school. His love of nature led him to aspire to the profession of medicine. After spending two years at the Andover Academy he began to study for this profession in 1805, and in 1808 started his prac- tice in Danvers, which he continued until his death in 1853. He was familiar with the flora and fauna of his neighborhood, and published some papers on the " Batra- chians " in the Journal of the Essex Institute.
Thomas Nuttall was born of humble parents in England in 1786. He was a printer by trade, and emigrated to this country in 1808. He probably brought with him a taste for natural history, but his knowledge was acquired here, and mostly by his own wide explorations, which began within two years of his arrival. He was familiar with min- eralogy and ornithology, but his strength was in botany. In 1822 he was appointed curator of the Botanic Garden in Cambridge, and held the place for ten years. Then he resumed his wanderings across the Rocky Mountains to Oregon and California, and on the Pacific Ocean. He returned to England in 1842, where he died in 1859. The fruits of his studies were published in this country by the American Academy and the Philosophical Society, and in separate works. His Remarks and Inquiries Concerning the Birds of Massachusetts was printed in Cambridge in 1833.1 Dr. Gray said of him : " Altogether, the name of Nuttall must ever stand very high among the pioneers of botanical science in the United States."
Jacob Bigelow was born in Sudbury in 1787, and graduated at Harvard College in 1806. From 1810 to his death in 1879 he resided in Boston, and attained the highest rank as a scientific physician. He was professor in the Medical School from 1815 to 1855 ; and Rumford Professor, on the application of science to the arts of life, from 1816 to 1827. Though having many claims on the gratitude of this city, he is here to be remembered for his devotion to natural history. For three years he gave lectures on botany, partly in conjunction with Professor Peck. In 1814 he published a description of the native plants of Boston and the environs, which passed through three editions. In 1817 he began to publish the American Medical Botany, which was completed in three volumes in 1820. But his profession and natural history com- bined did not exhaust the fertility of his knowledge. In 1829 he published Elements of Technology, and a second edition in 1840, under the title of The Useful Arts, - the fruits of his Rumford lectures.
J. E. Teschemacher was born in England in 1790. He came to this country in 1832, and finally settled in Boston, where he lived twenty-two years, until his death in 1853. He exhibited at an early age a love of nature, and devoted whatever leisure he could extract from a busy mercantile life to the study of natural history, and made himself a good botanist and an accomplished mineralogist. He had an intimate acquaintance with agriculture and horticulture. His latest investigations were insti- tuted with a view to ascertain from what kind of plants coal had been formed ; and to this end he had collected an immense number of rich specimens. He was a member of the two principal scientific societies of Boston, and contributed to their Transactions. His addresses before the Boston Society of Natural History, the Horticultural Society, and the Harvard Natural History Society have been published.
Francis Boott was born in Boston in 1792, and graduated at Harvard College in 1810. After spending four years in Europe he returned to this country in 1814, and spent the largest part of the next six years in studying the botany of New England. In
VOL. IV. - 66.
1 Mem. Amer. Acad., i. 91.
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1816 he undertook with Dr. Bigelow a botanical exploration of the mountains of New England, ascending Wachuset, Monadnock, Ascutney, and Mount Washington. In 1820 he went to England, and took a degree as Doctor of Medicine at Edinburgh in 1824. After studying in the schools of medicine and natural history in Paris, he settled in London as a physician, where he died in 1863. He also lectured on botany, and in one branch of it he was unrivalled. The last six years of his life were devoted to publishing his great work, at his own expense, entitled Illustrations of the Genus Carex, on which he had expended many years of labor, and money without stint. At an early period he was invited to the chair of Natural History in Harvard College, but family ties bound him to England.
B. D. Greene 1 was born in Demerara in 1793, while his parents were temporarily absent from Boston, and graduated at Harvard College in 1812. He first studied law and was admitted to the Boston Bar ; but his taste for natural history inclined him to- wards medicine, which he studied in the schools of Paris and Scotland, and in which he took his degree at Edinburgh in 1821. Not needing his profession for his support, he had the leisure and the means to cultivate his scientific tastes. His favorite study was botany. He surrounded himself with an extensive herbarium and a valuable botanical library, not merely for his private use, but for the service of investigators in the country. He did not write for the public, for he was a silent student of nature, and shrank from popular applause ; but he rendered a great service to naturalists by his sympathy, his example, and his influence. He was the first president of the Society of Natural History, and made it the recipient of his books and his collections, and also of a generous legacy when he died in 1862.
In the order of time a geologist now appears who, if Boston did nothing for him, did much himself for the scientific reputation of the whole State. Edward Hitchcock was born at Deerfield in 1793. At the academy of his native village he exhibited a love for mathematics and science in general, and served there as the principal from 1815 to 1818. Then he studied theology at New Haven, and was settled in Conway, Mass., from 1821 to 1825. In 1825 he was called to the chair of Chemistry and Natural History in Amherst College, where he remained until his death in 1864. During ten years of this period he served as its president. He was a laborious worker and writer, and produced sixteen volumes and pamphlets, and contributed fifty-three papers to the scientific journals, the most important of which relate to geology. An attempt at a State geological survey had been made by North Carolina. With this exception the two geological surveys of Massachusetts in 1832 and 1837, suggested and executed by Professor Hitchcock, set the example for a brilliant array of similar State and Territorial surveys, equally beneficial to science and to the community, illustrating the natural history and developing the resources of the whole country. - Professor Hitchcock's study of fossil foot-prints was embodied, after thirteen years, in a paper published by the American Academy in .1848, with twenty-four plates ; but the treasury of the Commonwealth has been freely opened for printing and embellish- ing his voluminous reports on the geology and ichnology of the State. As one of the principal pioneers in the geology of New England, he deserves a place in this memorial.
In 1818 Dr. J. F. Dana and Dr. S. L. Dana (brothers) made a joint contribution to the Memoirs2 of the American Academy, entitled "Outlines of the Mineralogy and
1 [He was a son of Gardiner Greene, and married a daughter of Josiah Quincy. - ED.]
2 Vol. iv. pp. 129-223.
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Geology of Boston and its Vicinity, with a Geological Map." Dr. S. L. Dana was born at Groton in 1795 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1813, and at the Medical School in 1818. He practised his profession for a time in Gloucester and Waltham ; but chemistry had stronger attractions for him, and he engaged in the manufacture of vitriol and other chemicals. In 1833 he was appointed chemist of the Merrimac Print-Works, and removed to Lowell, where he died in 1868. In the application of his science to art, he invented a new process for bleaching, known as the American method, an account of which was published by a foreign society in 1836. Whatever he touched he improved. His inventions in calico-printing led to an interest in agri- culture, where he also found room for his science. In 1839-40 he delivered lectures on the Chemistry of Agriculture, which were printed under the title of A Muck Man- ual for Farmers. The Massachusetts Agricultural Society awarded him a prize for his Essay on Manures. A competent judge has said of him : " In point of time, originality, and ability, Dr. Dana stood first among scientific writers on agriculture in this country."
T. W. Harris was born in Dorchester in 1795. He graduated at Harvard College in 1815, and at the Medical School in 1820. From this time until 1831 he practised in his profession at Milton. He was librarian at the College from 1831 to his death in 1856, and for part of the time gave instruction in natural history. Though harassed by incessant cares he acquired an enviable reputation as a naturalist, at home and abroad. He was a most conscientious observer, and gifted with the power of making a faithful and intelligible transcript of what he saw, by pen and pencil. His specialty was entomology, in which he had no equal ; and his report to the Legislature in 1841 on insects injurious to vegetation testifies to his industry and patience, his accurate eye and his facility of description. He was at home in other branches of natural history (especially in botany), and published fifty papers upon them. At the time of his death he had been engaged upon the study of the origin of cultivated plants, and man's agency in their distribution. Three editions (in 1842, 1852, and 1862) were published of his Insects of New England Injurious to Vegetation. To say that his merits were equal to his modesty, is to award him the highest praise.
Since the sounds of Boston's last great celebration died upon the ear, it has lost one of its best citizens, having many claims upon its gratitude in addition to the encour- agement which he gave to the love of Nature. G. B. Emerson was born in Wells, Me., in 1797, graduated at Harvard College in 1817, and was tutor in mathematics there from 1819 to 1821. He was the first principal of the High School of Boston, then teacher of his own private school for young ladies, and always devoted to the interests of education throughout the State.1 Before coming to college he was familiar with the trees, plants, and shrubs around his home, and was eager to read all books on botany that were within his reach. When, in 1837, a movement was made by the Society of Natural History to induce the Legislature to authorize a zoological and botanical survey of the State, as the fitting complement to the geological survey, Mr. Emerson was selected to represent the society, of which he was then the president. The Government responded promptly to the appeal, and Governor Everett requested Mr. Emerson to recommend persons fitted to conduct such a survey. The members of the society were anxious that Mr. Emerson himself should take part in it, and he was induced to divide the botany with Professor Dewey. He devoted the summer vacation for nine years to explorations'through the State, the issue of which was his
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