Frederick Pursh

American Gardener

Pursh reached the American shore in 1799 and quickly found employment, apparently at a newly established botanical garden near Baltimore where he had the title of manager. Supposedly this was at “Canton”—an estate house owned by Colonel John O’Donnell—but his stay was probably not much over a year. It is clear that by 1801, Pursh was in Philadelphia and at “Springhill” in the employment of Samuel Beck as a gardener. Today, Springhill is part of Fairmount Park. In September of 1801, Pursh wrote to Benjamin Smith Barton^[2]Benjamin Smith Barton was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on February 10, 1766, the son of the Reverend Thomas Barton and Ester Rittenhouse Barton. His mother was the daughter of American astronomer … Continue reading that he was working as a “slave” for Beck, and looking for another opportunity. When, and if, Pursh was associated with Henry Pratt’s garden at “Lemon Hill” (now also part of Fairmount Park) is uncertain.

By 1803, Pursh was at “The Woodlands,” the grand estate of William Hamilton, where he succeeded the noted gardener John Lyon, for whom the shrub genus Lyonia (lie-ON-ee-ah) was named. It was at this time that Pursh came to know such botanists as Philadelphia’s William Bartram,^[3]No Philadelphia family is better known in botanical circles than the Bartrams. Certainly more books have been written about John Bartram (1699-1777) and William Bartram (1739-1823) than any other … Continue reading the son of the “King’s botanist” John Bartram, and the Reverend Gotthilf Henry Ernest Muhlenberg^[4]Henry Muhlenberg was born in 1753, the year the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus published Species plantarum [plan-TAR-um] and began our modern system of naming plants. Schooled in Philadelphia as a … Continue reading of Lancaster. For years Muhlenberg had been working on the local flora, sending specimens and descriptions of new species to Europe for publication.

These men provided Pursh with numerous opportunities to read in their libraries, to consult their gardens and herbaria, and to talk of the American flora. However, it would be Benjamin Smith Barton who would provide Pursh with his escape from the drudgery of working in the garden.

Barton was a romantic with grand notions of self-importance and accomplishments. In 1805, Pursh left Woodlands and became Barton’s part-time curator and collector. Barton’s goal was to build a huge herbarium of American plants and then produce a new flora of North America. That such a book had been published in 1803 by the French botanist André Michaux—his two-volume work Flora boreali-Americana—seemed to be only a minor irritant. The following year, Pursh was in Virginia collecting plants, being away from Philadelphia from mid-April until November.

Lewis and Clark Specimens Arrive

In 1805, Thomas Jefferson received the first 60 plants Meriwether Lewis had collected along the Missouri River in 1804. They had been assembled at Fort Mandan, the 1804-1805 site in what is now North Dakota where the expedition over-wintered and, with a detailed catalogue, seeds and some live specimens, the whole had been sent back to St. Louis in the spring of 1805. They eventually reached Jefferson in August. By mid-November, Jefferson had the dried specimens transmitted to Barton for his examination.

No doubt Pursh saw the collection when it arrived.

The relationship between Jefferson and Barton was a long-established one. Both men were members of the American Philosophical Society, and both had long wished someone would explore the western interior of North America for its natural wonders.^[5]Thomas Jefferson had long wished to get a naturalist to explore the vast western part of North America. A vicarious westerner, Jefferson believed if a reasonable route could be found across the … Continue reading Barton’s overly ambitious plans for a flora of North America would have appealed to Jefferson. Certainly, Barton had some skill and knowledge in botany as his botanical publications had demonstrated. His set of essays on the materia medica of the United States, first published in 1798, and his brief report on the natural history of Pennsylvania (1799) attested to his general knowledge in the sciences. However, it was his Elements of botany: or outlines of the natural history of vegetables—the first American botany textbook—that firmly established Barton’s reputation. Thus, it was to Barton that Jefferson sent his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, for instructions in botany in May and June of 1803.

Jefferson, and also Lewis, presumed Barton would play an active role in the preparation of a planned natural history volume that was to be part of Lewis’s report on the expedition. This was not to be. Barton did essentially nothing with the first set of plants although Lewis had provided him with abundant notes and material. With the return of the expedition in 1806, Jefferson urged Lewis to begin immediately to prepare his journal for publication, and to arrange with Barton to start, equally promptly, on the natural history. Apparently it was the noted Philadelphia gardener and seed merchant, Bernard M’Mahon^[6]Bernard M’Mahon (or McMahon, 1775-1816) was an Irish-born American horticulturalist and owner of a large commercial garden in Philadelphia. Under Jefferson’s instructions, the seeds … Continue reading who, on 5 April 1807, recommended that Lewis contact Pursh to examine the expedition’s plants.

Why Barton was unable to do the task has been variously given as poor health or simple unwillingness. The latter seems more likely. As was so often the case with Barton, when called upon to actually produce, he rarely was able to do so. Clearly, M’Mahon understood this, and thus the recommendation of Pursh.

Cataloging the Expedition’s Plants

Lewis and Pursh met in Philadelphia by mid-April of 1807 and Pursh was employed to prepare a catalogue of the expedition’s plants. Receiving $60 from Lewis to begin the work, apparently Pursh first did a series of drawings with Lewis reviewing the results. Clearly the two men talked about the overall aspect of some of the species, but Lewis’s time was limited and Pursh was scheduled to leave at the end of April on his second collecting trip under Barton’s patronage. Only limited progress on the plants was made at that time.

During the winter of 1807-1808, Pursh lived at the home of Bernard M’Mahon in Philadelphia. Here he worked on the drawings and descriptions of Lewis’s western plants. By the end of May 1808, Pursh had completed the initial work and was anxious to see his report—or at least the new species—published. Pursh was also anxious to be paid for his labors.

The relationship between Pursh and Barton was beginning to strain. In January of 1809, M’Mahon wrote to Jefferson reporting Pursh’s displeasure at the delay in publication. To what extent Barton felt he (and Lewis) had hired Pursh to do a job, and that it would be Barton who would publish the new species, was probably also a factor. Soon thereafter, M’Mahon recommended Pursh to Dr. David Hosack^[7]The name of Dr. David Hosack (1769-1835) shows up in many different places in American history. Besides establishing the Elgin Botanic Garden on what is now Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, he was … Continue reading of New York, who had just started the Elgin Botanic Garden and was in need of a gardener. By April of that year, Pursh left Philadelphia and was heading for New York. He took along a significant portion of the Lewis and Clark plant collection, most of his drawings, and apparently all of his notes

Lost Specimens

How it came that Pursh carried part of the collection with him to New York and, after a falling out with Hosack late in 1811, took it to London, has never been fully answered. The events and circumstances are still being researched, and perhaps new evidence will come to light while the nation celebrates the Lewis and Clark bicentennial.

The death of Lewis on 18 October 1809, was soon made known to Pursh. There is indirect evidence that, by this date, Pursh had completed his study of whole of the Lewis and Clark plant collection. In January 1810, Clark was looking for the plants and drawings in Philadelphia. He recovered the portion then in the possession of Bernard M’Mahon; these eventually were returned to the American Philosophical Society. He probably paid Pursh for the finished drawings, but it is not certain he ever received the plates. Some of Pursh’s ink sketches are now at the American Philosophical Society, but none of them is what one might consider a finished plate.

It is unclear what Clark did immediately with the plants he received from M’Mahon. It is possible they went back to Barton in the hopes he would still prepare a report on them for the expedition’s report. It is also possible Clark returned them to the Philosophical Society. At any rate, at some time, the first 30 specimens sent to Jefferson by Lewis in 1805 disappeared. None has been found to date although a label, written by Lewis, for plant number 26, came onto the market as a Lewis autograph in the 1970s. Its original owner is not known, and the fate of the specimens is a continuing mystery.

In late 1810, apparently in poor health, Pursh sailed for the West Indies to collect plants for the Elgin Botanic Garden. He returned nearly a year later but was probably already planning his departure for England. He arrived in London, possibly in November of 1811, and immediately fell into a period of remarkable good fortune.

Describing Flora

Pursh arrived with a large collection of plants already in hand. In addition to the small number of Lewis and Clark plants, he had retained significant portions of the plants he had gathered for both Barton and Hosack. He needed some place where he could have access to a large botanical library and collection as well as patronage. All of this he found in the home of Aylmer Bourke Lambert.

Pursh began to work immediately. In late January 1812, he wrote the president of the Linnean Society, James Edward Smith, asking if he was interested in a manuscript for the Society’s Transactions on the new species from the Lewis and Clark expedition.^[8]As a young man, James Edward Smith (see http://www.linnean.org/html/history/sir_je_smith_biography.htm) (1759-1828) was traveling in Sweden when he learned that the library and collections of Carl … Continue reading

It was here that Pursh hoped to describe Lewisia (loo-WIS-ee-ah), Clarkia (CLAR-key-ah) and Calochortus (kal-oh-CORE-tus). By spring, with the encouragement of Lambert, and now with access to the libraries and collections of both Sir Joseph Banks and James Smith, Pursh was set to work on a new flora of North America.

It is said that Pursh had “tartaresque features and was correspondingly rough-hewn in behavior.” He was also reportedly an alcoholic. There is a tale, probably apocryphal, that to get the flora finished, Lambert locked Pursh in his attic room, providing him only with books, specimens, paper, ink, food and beer. A contemporary of Pursh’s described him in London as “drunk morning, noon and night,” and even Barton in Philadelphia noted that Pursh favored the “muddy ectasies of beer.” Whatever the truth, Pursh wrote away with considerable diligence. It is also obvious that Pursh was not always confined to his room. In addition to seeing the specimens owned by Lambert, Banks and Smith, he visited the University of Oxford where he consulted many early American collections such as those gathered by Mark Catesby in the 1720s.

In the spring of 1812, Pursh met Thomas Nuttall, a young man who had resided in Philadelphia from 1808 until his return to England in 1811. Like Pursh, Nuttall was hired by Benjamin Smith Barton to collect for him, basically taking Pursh’s position when Pursh went to New York. Nuttall spent much of 1810 collecting in the “Old Northwest” around the Great Lakes, but in 1811, he managed to ascend the Missouri to Lewis and Clark’s winter site of Fort Mandan, collecting dried specimens and seeds. Obviously, Nuttall recollected many of the new species Lewis and Clark had found there in 1804 and in 1806.

There now was a race by the two men to get their new genera into print.

Nuttall and Bradbury’s Contributions

Pursh abandoned his idea of publishing in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, and turned instead to the Botanical Magazine, a monthly publication designed to promote species of potential horticultural importance. In August he published Bartonia decapetala (bar-TONE-ee-ah, for Benjamin Smith Barton [deck-a-pe-TAIL-ah, having ten petals]), the gumbo-lily, or what is today known as Mentzelia decapetala (meant-ZEE-lee-ah). However, in this battle of publications, Nuttall was destined to win.^[9]Pursh was not the first botanist to propose a generic name to honor Barton. In 1801, Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812) proposed Bartonia for a small genus of herbs in the gentian family. There were … Continue reading

At the same time Nuttall was meeting with Pursh in London in the spring of 1812, he was also visiting the nursery operated by John and James Fraser, the sons of John Fraser. Nuttall arranged to have his seeds raised at the Frasers’ nursery located at Sloane Square in Chelsea. The effort was highly successful, and in the early fall of 1813, Nuttall published, through the nursery, A catalogue of new and interesting plants collected in Upper Louisiana.^[10]This rare publication has been the source of some debate among those interested in botanical nomenclature. First, Thomas Nuttall’s name does not appear on the printed copy; it is only found on … Continue reading In this fashion, Nuttall validly published several of the new species he found before Pursh could describe the same plant based on the collections made by Lewis and Clark and another, now nearly forgotten, botanist and Pursh’s second questionable acquisition of a collection of plants.

When Nuttall went up the Missouri River in 1811, he traveled with the American fur trader William Price Hunt, who was bound for the Columbia River on behalf of John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Company. He was also accompanied by another botanist, the English collector John Bradbury.^[11]If one looks in the usual indices of botanical literature or compilations of scientific names, at least one person of note is missing, John Bradbury. His only claim to fame, and one he certainly … Continue reading

While both Nuttall and Bradbury generally followed the Missouri, Bradbury traveled overland from the Great Bend to the old Fort Mandan site, gathering many prairie species not found by Nuttall, who remained along the river. When the “Overland Astorians” finally headed westward, Bradbury returned to St. Louis, and Nuttall followed in the fall. Although the two botanists talked to one another along the river and in St. Louis, they pretty much traveled separately so that Nuttall arrived in New Orleans before Bradbury. There he was able to book passage for England, and departed. Bradbury, on the other hand, tarried and in so doing became caught up in the War of 1812 and remained in the United States. His plant collection, however, was shipped to England .

There, in a curious series of events, duplicates of Bradbury’s collection came into the possession of Lambert and thus they were seen by Pursh. Pursh then added a supplement to his Flora wherein he described most of the 40 new species found by Bradbury. Deeply offended and with his fame as a collector and discover of new plants stolen, Bradbury did little in botany after that. Nuttall, however, went on to a distinguished career, making botanical forays onto the Red River of Texas and across the continent on the Oregon Trail in the 1830s.

Pursh’s Flora

The printing of Pursh’s Flora was completed the second week of December in 1813, and on 21 December, Pursh presented copies to various of his supporters as well as submitting a copy to the Linnean Society at their monthly meeting. The formal publication as announced by the printer was 10 January 1814, but by then several copies were already effectively distributed. For botanists, therefore, Flora americae septentrionalis was published in late December 1813.

The two-volume work was a modest success. A few copies were sold with colored plates, but few buyers could afford the extra cost. In 1816 a second edition was published, but this was essentially a reprint with only minor corrections. It reception was not always kind, as several were aware of the new species others intended to publish that Pursh proposed first. The first published review did not appear until 1817. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz was particularly scathing in his comment published in 1819. Twenty-five years later, Bradbury was still bitter over his experience with Pursh.

For Pursh, the decline came rapidly. He published Hortus orloviensis [HOR-tus ore-lo-vee-EN-sis] in 1815 to no particular notice, this being a catalogue of the plants found on an island near St. Petersburg, Russia. At the same time, Pursh edited the eighth edition of James Donn’s Hortus cantabrigensis (cant-a-bridge-EN-sis) without any notice of his and Nuttall’s new American plants, and while that was a commercial success, Pursh apparently received little for his efforts. A ninth edition was published within three years.

In late 1814 Pursh received two interesting proposals. One was from Lord Selkirk for Pursh to serve as botanist to the Red River settlement in Canada. The other was an invitation to establish a botanical garden at Yale University. The latter, to his probable detriment, Pursh declined. In February 1816, Pursh left England for Canada. There, in early June, he formally agreed to go to the Red River settlement in what is now Manitoba, Canada. Within two weeks, the expedition leader, Robert Semple, was murdered, and the project collapsed.