1725 Ben Frankilin entices Hans Sloan into paying for a Native American Plant

Young Ben Franklin (c1746) by Robert Feke (1705-1750) 

From Benjamin Franklin to Sir Hans Sloane, 2 June 1725
To Sir Hans Sloane (1)
als: British Museum
June 2, 1725
Sir
Having lately been in the Nothern Parts of America, I have brought from thence a Purse made of the Stone Asbestus, (2) a Piece of the Stone, & a Piece of Wood, the Pithy Part of which is of the same Nature, & call’d by the Inhabitants, Salamander Cotton. As you are noted to be a Lover of Curiosities, I have inform’d you of these; & if you have any Inclination to purchase them, or see ’em, let me know your Pleasure by a Line directed for me at the Golden Fan in Little Britain, & I will wait upon you with them. I am, Sir Your most humble Servant

Benjamin Franklin

p.s. I expect to be out of Town in 2 or 3 Days, & therefore beg an immediate Answer.

Addressed: For Sir Hans Sloane, in Kingstreet. Bloomsbury 

Hans Sloane (1660-1753)

SHans Sloane (1660–1753), secretary of the Royal Society, 1693–1712, succeeded Isaac Newton as its president, 1727; physician to Queen Anne & to George I; president of the Royal College of Physicians, 1719–35; founder of the Chelsea Physic Garden. His books, manuscripts, & natural history specimens, bequeathed to the nation, formed a part of the original collection of the British Museum. G. R. de Beer, Sir Hans Sloane & the British Museum (London, 1953).

2 This purse, now in the British Museum (Natural History), was made of roughly plaited tremolite-asbestos, of primitive form, with loops at the top through which an asbestos thread was run. Jessie M. Sweet, “Benjamin Franklin’s Purse,” Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, ix (1952), 308–9. A picture of it appears in i. Bernard Cohen, Franklin & Newton (Phila., 1956), facing p. 248.

3 Nearly 50 years later bf recorded this incident otherwise. Sloane, he wrote in his autobiography, heard of the purse, called on him, took him home to see “all his Curiosities, & persuaded me to let him add that [the purse] to the Number, for which he paid me handsomely.”

“From Benjamin Franklin to Sir Hans Sloane, 2 June 1725,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0027. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 1, January 6, 1706 through December 31, 1734, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959, pp. 54–56.]

Botany Books & Herbals owned in Early America - Richard Henry Lee (1732 - 1794)

Richard Henry Lee (1732 - 1794), planter & Virginia statesman, owned:

Clavis Anglica linguae botanicae; or, A botanical lexicon; in which the terms of botany, particularly those occurring in the works of Linnaeus, & other modern writers, are applied, derived, explained, contrasted, & exemplified by John Berkenhout

An introduction to botany Containing an explanation of the theory of that science; extracted from the works of Dr. Linnæus; with twelve copper-plates, two explanatory tables, an appendix & glossary by Carl von Linne

Medicina Britannica; or A treatise on such physical plants, as are generally to be found in the fields or gardens in Great Britain ... Together with the observations of the most learned physicians ... communicated to the late ... Mr. Ray,& Dr. Sim. Pauli by Thomas Short

Richard Henry Lee was a planter & Virginia statesman, the originator of the resolution for independence in the Continental Congress & a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. The son of Virginia politician/planter Thomas Lee & Hannah Ludwell Lee.

Born at Stratford, Westmoreland County, Virginia, Lee was educated privately at Wakefield Academy in England. From 1758-1775 he served in the House of Burgesses, & sat in the Continental Congress from 1774-79, 1784-85, & 1787. He also sat in the Virginia legislature in 1777, 1780, & 1785. He sat in the Virginia constitutional ratification convention in 1788 (opposing ratification), & was elected to the first U.S. Senate, serving from 1789 until 1792. 

Lee had four surviving children with his first wife, Anne Aylett (1738-1768) & five children by his second wife, Anne Gaskins Pinckard. Lee died at his Westmoreland County plantation Chantilly in 1794.

1736 William Byrd II (1674-1744) Early American Plant List

1724 William Byrd II by Hans Hysing (1678-!752) Virginia Historical Society

William Byrd II (1674-1744) Like his father, Colonel William Byrd, Byrd was a wealthy Virginia planter on his inherited plantation Westover, on the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. He served as a member, and later president, of the Governor's Council, as did his father. His library was one of the finest of his time in America. He recorded his observations on natural history as well as life in colonial Virginia. William Byrd's Natural History of Virginia is available in a translation by Richard Croom Beatty and William J. Mulloy from a German edition printed in 1737 (Dietz Press, Richmond, 1940). The following are the plants Byrd listed c.1736  Southern Garden History Plant Lists

CROPS

Flax
Cotton
Silk grass
Turkish or Indian Corn
Maize
Wheat
Rye
Barley
Oats
Corn
Summer
Winter
Rice
White
Red
Buckwheat
Guinea corn
Broad beans
French beans (small beans)
Indian beans (dwarf beans)
Peas, European
Heartpeas (Ronceval)
Bonaveria (Calavance-'Nanticokes')

POT HERBS

Cabbage
White
Red
Turnips
Carrots
Beets
Cabbage
Savoy
Curled red
Cauliflower
Chives
Artichokes
Radish
Horseradish
Potatoes
Truffles
Parsnips
Shumack
chapacour
puccons
musquaspen
“Tockawaigh”
Garlic
White
Red
Spinach
Round
Prickly
Fennel
Sea fennel
Rhubarb
Cultivated
Wild
Sorrel
Cress
Mustard
Parsley
Asparagus
White
Red
Melons
Watermelons
Fragrant melons
Guinea
Golden
Orange
Green
Cucumbers
Pumpkins
Cashaws
Burmillions
Simnals
Horns
Squash

FIELD AND POT-HERBS

Marjoram
Rosemary
Camomiles
Melissa
Wormwood
Ox-tongue
Angelica
Borage
Burnet
Clary
Marigold
Columbine
Savory
Bachelor's buttons
Cat-thyme
Poplars
Yarrow
Dragonwort
Hyssop
Lavender
Brazil cabbage
Cardo bennet spoonwort
Tobacco
Dill
Coriander, anise
Plantain
Elemampane
Nettles
Wood mint
Asters
Poppy seed
Worm seed
Mother-wort
Beyment
Jamestown grass
Houseleek
Vervain
Hart's tongue
Nightshade
Yarrow
Mullen
Agrimony
Centaury
Scabiosa
John's wort
Maiden hair
Juniper
Soldanella
Dillany
Terbil
Mechoacan
Sarsaparilla

FLOWERS IN VIRGINIA

Carnations
Roses
Violets
Tricolor
Princess feather
Fritillary
Cardinal flowers
Sunflowers
Tulips
Moccasin flower
Tulip tree
Jasmine
Yellow
White
Locusts
Laurel tree
Wild apple tree

TREES, WHICH GROW IN THE WOODS

Chestnut oak
Red oak
Spanish oak
White oak
Black oak
Bastard oak
White iron-oak
Indian chicken-oak
Willow oak
Water oak
Green liveoak
Ash
Elms, two species
Tulip tree
Birches
Sassafras
Laurel trees
Dogwood
Wild apple tree
Sweet gun tree
White gum tree
Black gum tree
Scarletcolored snakewood
Bay tree
Red cedar
White cedar
Cypress tree
Hollow tree
Locust tree
Sorrel tree
Fir tree
Pitch pine
Almond tree
Hickory tree
White hickory
Red hickory
Brown hickory
Chincapin
Common maple tree
Willow
Egyptian fig tree
Glass wort tree
Prickly ash
Chestnut tree
Poison vine
Bamboo
Palmetto
Grape vines
Cluster grapes
Red cluster grapes
Fox grapes
winter
summer
Summer grapes
Winter grapes
Persimmon
Cherry tree
Hazel nuts
Mulberry, Common Red
Mulberry, red
Mulberry, white
Sugar maple
Spanish pepper tree
Papaw tree
Wild figs
Wild plums
Raspberry bushes
Blackberries
Huckle-berries
Winter currant tree
Bermuda curants
Bilberries
Cranberries
Strawberries
Myrtle berries
Eglantine berries
Jamestown plant
Fragrant tulip-bearing
laurel tree
Wild fragrant apple tree
Gall apple
Camellia tree
Red hawthorn
Black hawthorn
Safflower
Fragrant laurel tree
Indigo
Hops

TREES, WHICH ARE CULTIVATED, AND GROW IN THE ORCHARDS, WHICH ONE HAS BROUGHT THERE FROM ENGLAND AND OTHER PLACES IN EUROPE

Apples
Golden russet
Summer pearmain
Winter pearmain
Fall harvest apple
Winter queening
Lader-goller
Juntin' apple
Golden pippin
Carpendich
Red streaks
Jungferen
Long-stem apple
Red apple
Kabapffel
Green apple
French rennets

PEARS AND QUINCES

Pears
Sugar
Bergamont
Catherine
Warden
Summer bon chretien
Egg-shaped pear
Herren-Bieren
Grass-Bieren
Pomerantzen-Bieren
Feigen-Bieren
Winter Bon chretien
Citronen-Bieren
Roth-Bieren
Frauen Bieren
Gold-Bieren
Madeira pear
Pond pears
Musk pear
Quince
Indian
Spanish
Portuguese
Barbary
Brunswickian

ALL SORTS OF STONE FRUITS

Peaches
Plum peach
Nectarine peach
Apricot tree
Plums
Wild plums
Fig trees
Cherry trees
White
Red
Black
Mulberry trees
Currants
Raspberries
European
Indian
Cowberries
European
Indian
Red
White
Black
Strawberries
Nut trees
English
French
Italian
Spanish
Madeiran
Indian nut tree
Hazel nut
Grape vines
Almonds
Pomegranates
Coffee trees
Tea trees

Richard Cranch (1726 - 1811) owned an Herbal & a Botany Book

Richard Cranch (1726 - 1811) owned:

The herball or Generall historie of plantes by John Gerard, in 18C America.

A new treatise on British and foreign vegetables which are now constantly used in the practice of physick; ... Being an improvement upon the Materia medica of the celebrated Steph. Fran. Geoffroy, ... with complete indexes of the English and Latin names by Etienne-François Geoffroy.

Cranch was a Massachusetts watchmaker, legislator, local official. Born at Kingsbridge, Devonshire, Cranch arrived in Boston in November 1746 & established a shop as a card-maker. He taught himself Latin, Hebrew, & Greek. Cranch relocated to Braintree in 1750, & later to Weymouth, where he took up the business of watch repair. He married in 1762 Mary Smith, the sister of Abigail Smith (later the wife of John Adams).

By 1766 the Cranches had moved to Salem, but returned to Braintree in 1769. Cranch served 2 terms in the state House of Representatives (1779-1783) & a term in the State Senate (1785-1787), & held the office of Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County from 1779 - 1793. Cranch was a delegate to the Massachusetts convention to ratify the federal constitution, & supported ratification.

He was a supporter of the Harvard library, & the college granted him an honorary M.A. degree in 1780, placing him with the class of 1744. He was a founding member of the Massachusetts Charitable Society, & the Massachusetts Society for Propagating the Gospel in North America (in its 1787 iteration). He sat as a fellow in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.  He was a strong Federalist politically.  Richard Cranch & his wife died within hours of each other in 1811.

1722 Mark Catesby (1683-1749) in South Carolina, Florida, & the Bahamas

Mark Catesby (1683-1749) from the Catesby Commemorative Trust

In February 1722, Mark Catesby, a 40-year old Englishman with an enigmatic past & an insatiable curiosity for the wondrous serendipity of nature, set sail from London on a 3-month voyage to South Carolina. His sojourn in the New World was taken under the auspices of a group of Fellows of London’s Royal Society. Catesby was to spend the next 4 years exploring the natural habitat of Carolina & the Bahamas, & the subsequent 20 years writing & illustrating his magnificent 2-volume Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.

Coming at the golden dawn of modern natural science, Catesby’s achievements are numerous & interdisciplinary. As an explorer, he was the first to conduct a critical study of the lush & varied habitat of the southeast colonies of North America, particularly the environs of the Lowcountry & the Piedmont area. As a scientist, he was the first to empirically observe & recognize the natural & man-made dangers impacting species’ survival. As an artist, his meticulous paintings & etchings of birds, other animals including fish, & plants captured the diverse natural beauty of colonial America a century before Audubon.

The details of Mark Catesby’s early life are sketchy at best...He was born on 24 March 1683, probably in the village of Castle Hedingham in Essex...His father was mayor of the nearby town of Sudbury & that a distant cousin was one of the organizers of the infamous “Gunpowder Plot” to blow up the king & parliament in 1605. His writing makes it obvious he was well-educated. His uncle, Nicholas Jekyll, who lived in Castle Hedingham had contacts with local naturalists & evidently kept an interesting garden. We also know that Mark was acquainted with the work of the Reverend John Ray, the leading English naturalist of the late 17th century & co-author of an early classic study on birds...

His life comes into sharper focus in 1712, when he arrived at Williamsburg, Virginia, accompanying his married sister Elizabeth (Mrs William Cocke) & 2 of her children. It was during his seven-year stay in Virginia that Catesby “not being content with contemplating the Products of our own Country,  soon imbibed a passionate desire of viewing as well the Animal as Vegetable Productions in their Native Countries; which were Strangers to England.” It was also during this time that he began collecting botanical specimens, especially seeds, & sending them to friends in England & that he met William Byrd II, who was an amateur naturalist, a member of the colonial Council & a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1714, Catesby & others traveled “from the lower part of the James River in Virginia to that part of the Appalachian Mountains where the sources of that river rise…” In the same year, he sailed to Jamaica, where he gathered Jamaican plants to send to England.

By 1719, Catesby had returned to England, where influential members of the Royal Society, then chaired by Sir Isaac Newton, had learned of his work in the colonies. Led by William Sherard, “one of the most celebrated botanists of the age,” members began soliciting sponsors to finance Catesby for a botanical expedition to South Carolina. By 1722, Catesby was again crossing the Atlantic. This time his studies would reveal the natural marvels of what was still an exotic – & largely unexplored – continent & which would be chronicled in his monumental Natural History of Carolina, Florida & the Bahama Islands.

Catesby’s 4 years of travels throughout South Carolina, parts of Georgia, & the Bahamas took him to lush & mysterious places: swamps where coniferous trees lost their needles in winter; dense maritime forests of oaks that bore leaves year round; endless salt marshes where grasses drifted in the wind to the horizon; & bark huts pitched for him by his Native American helpers. Everywhere he saw & painted plants & animals unknown in his homeland: massive buffaloes, & frogs in exotic stripes of yellow & green; swallowtail butterflies & summer ducks who nested in trees; painted & indigo buntings, blue herons & bald eagles; magnificent broad-leaved magnolias, wild lilies, flowering laurels & climbing vines.

Catesby’s odyssey produced a treasure trove of insights & observations about the wilderness of North America. A number of his drawings depict species we will never see again — the Carolina Parakeet, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker & the Passenger Pigeon. He was very likely the first to recognize how natural & man-made destruction & depredation of a species’ habitat lead to extinction. He was the first to depict birds, in conjunction with environmentally relevant plants. Earlier naturalists such as John Jonston, who wrote a series of books on vertebrates including one on birds, depicted their subjects as dead or isolated figures crowded together on the page, with little or no background. And, Catesby was the first to observe that birds migrate, rather than hibernate in caves, hollow trees or at the bottom of ponds, as was commonly believed in his time.

After returning to England in 1726, Catesby spent the subsequent 2 decades years laboring over his Natural History, the first fully illustrated study of the natural history of North America & the most comprehensive to date. Working virtually alone, Catesby personally oversaw every aspect of the work’s production – even learning the difficult art of etching on copper plates, when Continental sources for this skill proved unavailable or too expensive. Published in 11 sections & featuring more than 220 hand-colored etchings, the Natural History remains Catesby’s singular achievement. To finance this arduous & expensive printing project, Catesby sought subscriptions, offering his book in sections of 20 plates to be published every 4 months. He personally presented the first section to Her Majesty Queen Caroline in May 1729, & later he dedicated the 1st volume of the Natural History to her.

Each of the 160 subscribed copies of the work was individually hand-colored so that no 2 were exactly alike. While many copies were lost, damaged or split apart for the beauty of the engravings, roughly 80 first edition copies of the Natural History still exist. They can be found, for example, at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Middleton Place Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, the Royal Society in London, & in several private collections.

For the 2 decades it took him to create his great book, Mark Catesby lived in London with his partner Elizabeth Rowland. They had 4 children born between April 1731 & December 1737. Elizabeth & Mark were married on 8 October 1747 in St George’s Chapel, Hyde Park Corner, London. Just over 2 years later, following a collapse, Mark Catesby died at his home on Old Street, London, on 23 December 1749; & he was buried in the churchyard of St Luke’s Church.

Botany Books & Herbals owned in Early America - 1723 John Witherspoon (1723-1794)

John Witherspoon (1723 - 1794) owned:

A narrative of the expedition to Botany Bay; with an account of New South Wales, its productions; inhabitants, &c. To which is subjoined, a list of the civil & military establishments at Port Jackson by Watkin Tench

The history of the arts & sciences of the antients, under the following heads: in three volumes. Vol. I. Agriculture, commerce, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, the art military. Vol. II. Art military, grammar, philology, rhetoric, poetry. Vol. III. Poetry, history, eloquence, philosophy, civil law, metaphysics & physics, physic, botany, chymisty [sic], anatomy, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, geography, & navigation by Charles Rollin

Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister & president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). The only clergyman & college president to sign the Declaration of Independence.  

Born in Gifford, Scotland, Witherspoon was educated at the University of Edinburgh, taking a Masters of Arts degree in 1739. He was pastor at the Presbyterian churches of Beith (1745-1758) & Paisley (1758-1768), during which time he wrote several theological works.  

In 1768, Witherspoon accepted the invitation to become the 6th president of the College of New Jersey, where he taught the senior moral philosophy course & instituted several key curricular reforms.

Witherspoon was an early supporter of the American struggle against Britain, joining a local committee of correspondence in 1774. He was elected a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, serving there from June 1776 - November 1782.  Following the Revolution, Witherspoon took on the responsibility of rebuilding the damaged campus, served 2 terms in the state legislature, & supported ratification of the Constitution. He died in 1794 & is buried in the Princeton Cemetery.  

Those volumes included here are from the collections of Firestone Library at Princeton University.

Readings about 18C & 19C American Women Botanists & Plant Collectors

Before the middle of the 19C, American young women were being educated in botany by their families, in their schools, & through their own or borrowed textbooks. Margaret Coxe wrote in 1842, "Formerly, the study of Botany was almost exclusively confined to the medical profession, or to a limited number of philosophic minds, & accordingly the treatises on the subject were elaborate, & in many respects unsuitable to be placed in the hands of youth, and more especially of young females...But this delightful science has become at the present time a favorite with the young, refined, & delicate of our sex, & introductory publications on a plan, easy, practical & comprehensive, are now readily procurable by the ladies of our country who desire to be initiated into this branch of knowledge"

See:

 Alsop, G. F. 1971. Bodley, Rachel Littler. Vol. 1, pp. 186-187. In: E. T. James (ed.), Notable American   Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Baker, G. L. 1976. Women in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agric. Hist. 50: 190-201.

 Bolzau, E. L. 1936. Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps: Her Life and Work. The Author, Philadelphia.

 Coxe, [M.] 1840. The Young Lady's Companion, Token of Affection: In a Series of Letters. 2nd ed.      Isaac N. Whiting, Columbus, Ohio.

 1842. Claims of the Country on American Females. 2 vols. Isaac N. Whiting, Columbus,  Ohio.

Crosswhite, F. S. 1979. "J. G. Lemmon and Wife," Plant explorers in Arizona, California,   and  Nevada. Desert Pls. 1: 12-21.

C. D. Crosswhite. 1985. The plant collecting Brandegees, with emphasis on Katharine Brandegee as   a liberated woman scientist of early California. Desert Pls. 7: 128-139, 158-163.

 Dakin, S. B. 1954. The Perennial Adventure: A Tribute to Alice Eastwood 1859-1953. California    Academy of Sciences, San Francisco.

 Dupree, H. 1971. Mary Katharine Layne Curran Brandegee. Vol. 1, pp. 228-229. In: E. T. James    (ed.), Notable American Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Ewan, J. 1980. Eastwood, Alice. Pp. 216-217. In: B. Sichermann and H. Green (eds.),   Notable  American Women, the Modern Period. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Frick, G. F. 1971. Logan, Martha Daniell. Vol. 2, pp. 419-420. In: E. T. James (ed.),   Notable  American Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Haywood, C. 1971. Shattuck, Lydia White. Vol. 3, pp. 273-274. In: E. T. James (ed.),   Notable American Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Hindle, B. 1971. Colden, Jane. Vol. 1, pp. 357-358. In: E. T. James (ed.), Notable American   Women  1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Johnson, T. C., Jr. 1936. Scientific Interest in the Old South. D. Appleton-Century, New York and    London.

Kohlstedt, S. G. 1978. In from the periphery: American women in science, 1830-1880. Signs, Journal    of Woman in Culture and Society 4: 81-96.

 Langenheim, J. H. 1988. The path and progress of American women ecologists. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. 69: 184-197.

 Lovell, H. B. 1959. Biographical sketch of Sadie Price. Kentucky Warbler 35: 20-37.

 MacPhail, E. C. 1976. Kate Sessions, Pioneer Horticulturist. San Diego Historical Society, San Diego.

 Mathias, M. E. 1971. Sessions, Kate Olivia. Vol. 3, pp. 262-263. In: E. T. James (ed.),   Notable  American Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Rossiter, M. W. 1974. Women scientists in America before 1920. Amer. Scientist 62: 312-323.  1980.    "Women's work" in science, 1880-1910. Isis 71: 381-398.

 1982. Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940. Johns Hopkins Press,     Baltimore.

 Rudolph, E. D. 1982. Women in nineteenth century American botany: A generally unrecognized  constituency. Amer. J. Bot. 69: 1346-1355.

    1984. Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793-1884) and the spread of botany in 19C America. Amer. J.       Bot. 71: 1161-1167.

 Rudolph, F. 1971. Phelps, Almira Hart Lincoln. Vol. 3, pp. 58-60. In: E. T. James (ed.),   Notable  American Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Schmid, R. 1987. Annotated bibliography of works by and about Emily Lovira Gregory   (1841-  1897). Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 114: 319-324. and D. W. Stevenson. 1987. "Botanical text   books," an unpublished manuscript (1897) by  Emily Lovira Gregory (1841-1897) on plant anatomy   textbooks. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 114:  307-318.

 Schwarten, L. 1971. Furbish, Kate. Vol. 1, pp. 686-687. In: E. T. James (ed.), Notable American  Women 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. 

Siegel, P. J. and K. T. Finley. 1985. Women in the Scientific Search: An American Bio-bibliography,  1724-1979. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ and London.

 Slack, N. G. 1987. Nineteenth-century American women botanists: Wives, widows, and work. Pp.  77-103, 298-310. In: P. G. Abir-am and E. Outram (eds.), Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women   in Science 1789-1979. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.

 Smith, B. S. 1986. Hannah English Williams: America's first woman natural history collector.   South  Carolina Hist. Mag. 87: 83-92.

    1987. Maria L. Owen, 19C Nantucket botanist. Rhodora 89: 227-239.

    1988. Jane Colden (1724-1766) and her botanic manuscript. Amer. J. Bot. 75: 1090-1096.

 Steere, W. C. 1971. Britton, Elizabeth Gertrude Knight. Vol. 1, pp. 243-244. In: E. T. James   (ed.),  Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 Stephens, C. T. 1982. American women in plant pathology. Plant Disease, February, 1982, p. 95.

 Warner, D. J. 1978. Science education for women in antebellum America. Isis 69: 58-67.

 Wilson, C. G. 1955. Alice Eastwood's Wonderland: The Adventures of a Botanist. California   Academy  of Sciences, San Francisco.

Hannah English Williams (d 1722) Botanist South Carolina

Hannah English Williams (d Dec. 16, 1722) is often described as the earliest woman botanist in America. She was the first female in the American British colonies to gather plant and animal specimens for scientific collections. 

Her work aided the cataloging of many of South Carolina’s natural resources and contributed to advancing botanical and zoological understanding in that colony in England. Little is known of Williams' origins. Her husband, Matthew English, by whom she had 2 children, arrived aboard the Carolina with the 1st European settlers in 1670. She may have followed shortly thereafter. Her birth date, birthplace, and parents’ names are unknown.  

Hannah William's Yellow Tipt Carolina Butterfly (now known as Dog's Head) Petiver's Gazophylacium naturae et artis...1767

Two South Carolina wills mention Hannah English Williams' children. In a 1710 South Carolina Will, proved 26th October, 1711, William Williams of Carolina planter, and gives to his son-in-law Henroyda English, all of his estate, real and personal. His mother Hannah Williams, widow to William Williams, declares the above will to have been made with her consent. The 1694 South Carolina Will of Charles Clarke, of Berkley County, dated November 2, 1694, mentions Mrs. Mary Spragg, daughter of Mrs. Hannah Williams, to whom he leaves a house and lot, bounding on late belonging to Gov. Thomas Smith. Mentions also William Williams, gentleman, of Carolina, and leaves the remainder of his property to William Williams and Mrs. Mary Spragg.

After her husband's death, she married planter William Williams between 1692-4. Her 1,000-acre plantation was at Stony Point on the Ashley River. As the widow Hannah English, she was awarded a warrant of 500 acres near Stony Poynt in November 1692. In May 1695, as Mrs. Hannah English alias Williams, she was granted another warrant for 500 acres on land on the north side of Ashley River called Stony Poynt. This 1000 acres of land was a wealthy source of undiscovered wildlife. This land would have provided her with unlimited opportunities for finding native plants, butterflies, vipers, snakes, lizards, birds, insects, plants and shells.

As early as 1701, she began a regular correspondence with James Petiver, a London apothecary and Fellow of the Royal Society. Williams & Petiver corresponded from 1701 to 1713, & he listed those items he wished her to procure when she joined his network of collectors. Petiver encouraged her interest in natural history, declaring Williams the “discoverer” of unique butterflies & describing her as “my generous benefactress.” He instructed Williams how to preserve specimens for shipping, with “each stuck on a pin or in a little viall drowned in Rum or Brandy.” Petiver described Williams’s contributions in his published serial booklets entitled Musei Petiveriani Centuria Prima Rariora Naturae.A February 6, 1704, letter from Williams to Petiver accompanied a shipment of “Some of Our Vipers & Severall Sorts of Snakes Scorpions & Lizzards” in addition to shells, a bee nest, & a “few Other Insex.” She promised to send “some Mockin birds & Red birds” in the spring because, “If I should send you any Now the Could would Kill them.” She also enclosed a “Westo Kings Tobacco pipe & a Queens Petticoat made off Moss” & asked for newspapers & “medisons.” 

Williams’s son met Petiver in England to discuss collections his mother had been gathering, until she heard false reports of Petiver’s death. Petiver expressed his respect for Williams by naming some butterfly species for her. In 1767, Petiver’s Gazophylacium Naturae et Artis included illustrations of Williams’s orange girdled Carolina butterfly (also called the viceroy, which mimics monarch butterflies), Williams’s yellow tipt Carolina butterfly (popularly called dog’s head), & Williams’s selvedge-eyed Carolina butterfly (known as creole pearly eye).

Hannah William's Selvedge Eyed Carolina Butterfly (now known as Creole Pearly Eye) Petiver's Gazophylacium naturae et artis...1767

Williams asked Petiver for medical advice and pharmaceuticals because “I am Very much Troubled with the splene.” Records indicate that Williams was buried on December 16, 1722, in St. Philip’s Churchyard, Charleston.

See:
“An Account of Animals and Shells Sent from Carolina to Mr. James Petiver, F.R.S.” Philosophical Transactions [of the Royal Society of London] 24 (1704–1705): 1952–60.
Smith, Beatrice Scheer. “Hannah English Williams: America’s First Woman Natural History Collector.” South Carolina Historical Magazine 87 (April 1986): 83–92.
Stearns, Raymond P. “James Petiver, Promoter of Natural Science, c. 1663–1718.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s., 62 (October 1952): 243–365.
Stearns, Raymond P. Science in the British Colonies of America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970.

Sarah Willoughbys (1639-1673) of Virginia owned a Botany Book

Sarah Willoughby (1639-1673) of Virginia owned 

Instructions for the increasing of mulberie trees, and the breeding of silke-wormes, for the making of silke in this kingdome. : Whereunto is annexed his Maiesties letters to the lords liefetenants of the seuerall shieres of England, tending to that purpose by Jean-Baptiste Letellier  London : Printed by E[dward] A[llde] for Eleazar Edgar, and are to be solde at his shop in Paules-Church-yard, at the signe of the Winde-mill., 1609.

Sarah Willoughby was the wife of Virginia landowner and militia Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Willoughby (1632-1672).  The daughter of Richard Thompson, Sarah married prominent planter Thomas Willoughby on 18 November 1652. Willoughby owned significant amounts of land in Lower Norfolk County, VA.  Sarah and Thomas Willoughby had three children, of which only one, Thomas, survived. 

Sarah Willoughby's library was inventoried on 26 February 1673/4, and valued at £5.

Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) Harvard Physician & Minister owned an Herbal

Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) owned:

The English physician; or, An astrologo-physical discourse of the vulgar herbs of this nation by Nicholas Culpeper

Rev. Michael Wigglesworth was a Massachusetts divine, physician, & poet. Born in Yorkshire to a Puritan family, Wigglesworth came with his parents to America in 1638, settling first at Charlestown, MA, & then removing to New Haven, CT. Michael was educated by Ezekiel Cheever at New Haven, briefly, but was taken from school to assist his father, who had been injured. In 1644 he resumed his education, & entered Harvard in 1647. He graduated in 1651, & was quickly named a fellow of the college, in which capacity he served as a tutor.  Wigglesworth began medical training, then took up the ministry during his time as a Harvard tutor, & was called to be the teacher of the church at Malden in 1654. He was ordained somewhat later, around 1656. 

He was stricken by an unknown illness (perhaps a violent asthma) in the late 1650s which left him unable to preach, & turned to literary production. His The Day of Doom, a religious poem published in 1662, was a bestseller; more than 1,800 copies sold within a year.  In hopes to improve his health, Wigglesworth traveled to Bermuda in September 1663, remaining there until the following May (when, he says, he became "unable to bear the heat"). He returned to Malden, where he composed his second book of poems, published in 1670 as Meat out of the Eater.  Increase Mather attempted to persuade Wigglesworth to return to Harvard employment (probably the presidency) in 1684, but was rebuffed: "I cannot think my bodily strength competent enough to undertake or manage such a weighty work as you mention, if it were desired; nor have I reason to judge myself in any measure fit on other accounts."

Wigglesworth married first Mary Reyner, who died 21 December 1659, leaving a young daughter. Michael's second wife was Martha Mudge, just eighteen years old when he married her in 1679 (against the advice of Increase Mather). Martha died in 1690, leaving a son & five daughters. He married a third time in 1691, to Sybil (Sparhawk) Avery, the widow of Dr. Thomas Avery of Dedham, with whom he had one son.

By 1686, Wigglesworth's health appears to have improved; he preached the annual election sermon that year, & the Artillery Company sermon in 1696. Less than two years thereafter his health again declined, & he never fully recovered, dying in June 1705. Cotton Mather preached a eulogy at Malden.  A catalog of Wigglesworth's library was taken on 22 October 1705 by Jonathan Pierpont & James Augier. A transcription is available in John Ward Dean's Memoir of Rev. Michael Wigglesworth.