THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN

IN THE

pield of t^e flatural

... BY ...
THOMAS CONRAD PORTER,

OF LAFAYETTE COLLEGE.

KEPRINT FROM PROCEEDINGS

OF THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY.

VOL. VI. 1806.

THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN

IN THE

field of tfye ]\IaUiral

... BY ...

THOMAS CONRAD PORTER,

OF LAFAYETTE COLLEGE.

Carolus Linnaeus, or Karl von Linne, the most
illustrious student and reformer of modern times in
the domain of natural history, was born in 1707, at
Raeshult, a village in the south of Sweden. Having
fought his way against great odds from a low estate
up to fame and fortune, the period of his productive
activity as a scientist extended from the year 1736 to
the day of his death in 1778. In 1741 he attained
the highest goal of his ambition, when called to the
Chair of Botany in the University of Upsala and
raised to the rank of the hereditary nobility of the
realm.

Linnaeus was an indefatigable toiler, not in the

2 The Pennsylvania- German Society.

closet only, but in the field also. In the early part
of his career he traveled over a large portion of the
Scandinavian peninsula, gathering rich spoils, and,
later, supported by royal patronage, sent forth not a
few of his young disciples, to bring back from distant
lands like treasures to the museum of the University.
These it became his business to examine, describe,
name, figure, classify and give permanent record in
a long series of publications, which contain articles
pertaining to chemistry, mineralogy and zoology, al-
though botany holds the chief place.

The impression produced by such achievements —
an impression that has not yet spent its force, but
continues to inspire and stimulate scientific research
in new lines and channels all the world over — was
then felt far and wide amongst his contemporaries in
Europe. By reason of his presence at Upsala, the
number of students in the University rapidly rose
from 500 to 1500. And the attractive power reached
beyond the Atlantic, for, in a list of a party of seven,
who under his leadership made an expedition into the
province of Dalecarlia, occurs the name of Sandel,
" a Pennsylvanian." One of his disciples, Professor
Kuhn, delivered courses of lectures on botany in
Philadelphia, and the great master has perpetuated
his memory in the genus Kuhnia. And another of
them, the Swede, Peter Kalm, visited our shores, de-
voted a good deal of time to the investigation of the
flora of southern New Jersey and southeastern Penn-
sylvania and the results of his observations are em-
bodied in a work, which has been translated into

Dr. Porter's Address. 3

English. Him likewise, the master honored by
giving his name to a genus of shrubs (KalmicL),
the largest species of which abounds on our hills and
mountains, conspicuous for its shining, evergreen
foliage and clusters of beautiful flowers. Popularly
known as "Mountain Laurel," it is deemed by many
worthy of being chosen for the heraldic emblem of
the nation.

But the Linnaean influence on the Germans of
Pennsylvania has borne richer fruit.

Henry Muhlenberg, or, as his full baptismal name
reads, Gottlieb Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, son of
the Rev. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, the
patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States,
was born in Montgomery county, in the year 1753,
and sent, in 1 763, with his two older brothers, to Halle, in
Germany, to receive there such linguistic and theologi-
cal culture as would fit them for the office of the holy
ministry. After an absence of seven years, he re-
turned home in 1770, and, ordained by the Synod at
the early age of 17, became the assistant of his father
in serving congregations in and around Philadelphia.
In 1777, on the approach of the British troops to that
city, he was compelled to flee, because he and his
kinsfolk had become particularly obnoxious to the
Tories on account of their patriotism. At length, in
1780, he accepted a call to Trinity Church, Lancaster,
and remained there till the day of his death in May>
1815.

This then was the theatre both of his pastoral and
scientific labors for the long period of 35 years. His

4 The Pennsylvania-German Society.

interest in the plant-world, no doubt enkindled or
strengthened, during his residence in Halle, when
the star of Linnaeus was in the ascendant, now be-
came active and grew stronger and stronger to the
end of life. Not only was the county of Lancaster
thoroughly explored by him, but he opened and kept
up an extensive correspondence and exchanges with
the most eminent botanists of his day in Europe and
America, and the superior excellence of his work won
ample acknowledgment from many learned men and
societies.*

The printed works upon which rests the fame of
Muhlenberg, as a botanist, are only two in number,
neither of them voluminous, and yet of the high-
est value to the students of our flora. The first bears
the title : "Catalogue of the hitherto known native and
naturalized Plants of North America" and came from
the press at Lancaster under his own supervision, in
1813 ; the other: A Fuller Description of the Grasses
and Sedges of North America, indigenous and natural-
ized" in Latin, with a preface by his son Frederick,
was published in Philadelphia in 1817, two years
after his death.

The Catalogue is a great deal more than the simple
title imports, because it embraces condensed and ab-
breviated descriptions, from which the species meant
can be generally identified. In both works, however,

*A full account of this phase of his life is contained in an admirable
paper in the German language from the pen of the late Professor J. M.
Maisch, of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, read before the
Pionierverein in 1886, of which an English translation ought to be made
and published.

PROCEEDINGS PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY, 1896.

Dr. Porter's Address. 5

the territory assumed is much too large. With but
few exceptions, the plants belong to the Atlantic
slope of the United States. At that time little was
known of the flora of the regions beyond the Mississ-
ippi, or even the Alleghenies. The number of new
species discovered and described by the author is
about 100, nearly all phanerogamous or flowering
plants. But, if the 80 described by his correspondent
Willdenow, most of which, at least, were obtained
from him as the collector, be counted in, the extent
of his contributions to science can be measured. No
single one of the early botanical explorers of our
eastern field, except, perhaps, Michaux, did so much,
and what he did was well done and will endure.

Outside of a circle purely scientific, there are really
few who understand and appreciate such labors, and
yet, strange as it may seem to the multitude, there is
no other kind of work that is likely to carry a man's
name and fame further down the coming ages.
Muhlenberg, the eloquent preacher and faithful pas-
tor, may in the far future cease to be held in lively
remembrance ; Muhlenberg, the botanist, cannot
pass out of view, and be neglected or forgotten, be-
cause he has left his broad impress on Nature's hand-
iwork and Nature never forgets those who love her.

In the records of the plant-world a personal name
may be carried in three ways ; first, when used to de-
note a species, for instance, Quercus Muhlenbergii
(Muhlenberg's Oak), so called because he discovered
and brought it into notice ; second, when attached
to a species which he has named and described, and

6 The Pennsylvania-German Sodety.

in this category Mulilenberg lias at least 100 species
to speak for him ; and third, when embodied in a
genus, as was done, when Professor Schreber created
the genus Muhlenbergia, to include a large group of
beautiful grasses, seven of which flourish all around
us in our fields and meadows, and the remainder in
the Rocky Mountains, California and Mexico.

Sometimes such generic names are made to honor
persons famous in other ways, wholly apart from any
service done in the development of botanical science.
Thus, Queen Victoria of England, is forever asso-
ciated with a magnificent water-lily, or lotus, of South
America, which has a permanent place in all large
conservatories and bears her full name — Victoria
Regina. A stately tree of Japan, with large leaves
and blue flowers, allied to our catalpa, and widely
cultivated, commemorates a Russian princess, as
Paulownia imperialis. Gay Lussac, the French
chemist, has his tribute of honor in the Gaylussacias,
and Thomas Jefferson, a friend and patron of the
natural sciences, in his Jeffersonia diphylla. But
the most remarkable example of the kind is found in
the gigantic red-wood of the Sierra Nevada of Cali-
fornia— the celebrated Sequoia gig an tea, which has a
sister species, (S. sempervirens) along the Coast Range
of the same state. The English botanists, in order
to honor the hero of Waterloo, tried to have Welling-
tonia adopted instead of Sequoia, but the latter had
the precedence, and hence in all time to come the
tree will bear the name of Se-quoi-yah, the Cherokee
Indian, who invented a syllabic alphabet for the use

Dr. Porter's Address. ^

of his tribe. He was not a savage chieftain, adorned
with war paint and feathers, and rejoicing in deeds
of blood, but one who strove to elevate his race by the
arts of peace, and, as its best representative, will keep
alive the memory of our aborigines long after they
have passed away, leaving behind them only a few
relics and geographical names, which, when interpre-
ted, show that they were all derived from the natural
peculiarities of the objects named, and not one of
them from persons or historical events. The Gov-
ernment has wisely extended its protecting aegis over
the Sequoia-groves of the Sierra Nevada and set
apart a reservation of 5000 acres, which the axe or
saw of no lumberman dares invade. And there the
younger trees may grow and flourish, without moles-
tation, until they reach the size and age of their
mighty ancestors which now tower up toward heaven
in the very places where their seeds germinated 12
or 15 centuries ago.

Compared with monuments like these, what are the
statues of bronze and piles of chiseled stone, by which
men have hoped and still hope to secure an earthly
immortality? The temples, palaces and sculptured
gods and goddesses of ancient Athens have nearly
all crumbled into dust or been reduced to fragment-
ary ruins, amongst which the busy antiquarian
gropes to find traces of former beauty and grandeur,
whilst the patches of wild thyme, on the slopes of
Mount Hymettus near by, still bloom, unchanged and
fresh and odorous, yielding their stores of honey to
innumerable bees, just as they did more than 2000

8 The Pennsylvania-German Society.

years ago. And, even when monuments reared by
human hands do survive for many centuries, they
often fail to tell why and for whom they were erected.
An old writer quaintly remarks : " The pyramids,
doting with age, have forgotten the names of their
founders." But life in Nature must triumph over
oblivion, by reason of perpetual re-creation and re-
newal.

If then the plant-world is able to preserve and
carry down to posterity the memory of persons other-
wise famoiis, it will certainly do much more for those
who, like Muhlenberg, have been closely associated
with it in a scientific way. And here, in one respect,
he has been fortunate above his fellow-workers. A
botanist may deal with collections gathered in remote
countries and win renown among the few advanced
students who seek his books in libraries or pore over
the dried specimens in his herbarium, or else he may
devote his time to the illustration of obscure orders,
which for their inspection require high powers of the
microscope. But the case is far different when the
plants are conspicuous and abundant, and constitute
a large portion of the flora of the woods, fields and
swamps of a thickly-peopled region like that of our
eastern states. Then the}^ are sure to attract, in their
living forms, generation after generation of amateur-
students, children of the schools, skilled botanists
and those who may be drawn to cultivate them for
their beauty or utility. Hence, the asters and the
golden-rods, the sedges and the grasses, which Muh-
lenberg saw, handled and described, and of whose ex-

PROCEEDINGS PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY. 1896.

L. D. VON SCHWEINITZ.

8. 8. HALDEMAN.

S. 8. RATHVON.

FRANCIS WOLLE.
A. P. GARBER.

Dr. Porter* s Address. 9

tirpation in the future there is not the slightest "dan-
ger, will bring his name up before thousands in the
coming ages and prompt them to learn from other
sources all they can of his personal history.

In 1780, the year of Muhlenberg's settlement in
Lancaster, another great Pennsylvania-German nat-
uralist, the Rev. /Davi^IyewisJ von Schweinitz, was
born at Bethlehem. His father was of an ancient
and distinguished family of Silesia and his mother a
grand-daughter of Count Zinzendorf. Designed for
the ministry in the Moravian Church, his early edu-
cation was received in the school at Nazareth, where
he exhibited an enthusiastic fondness for cryptogamic
botany. In 1778 he went to Europe with his father,
for the purpose of fuller classical and theological
training at Niesky in Upper Lusatia. There he de-
voted his leisure hours to the Fungi, and, in conjunc-
tion with Professor Albertini, published at Leipsic a
volume on the species of the order discovered around
Niesky, for which, as a mark of appreciation, the de-
gree of Ph. DM was conferred upon him by the Uni-
versity of Kiel. On his return to America, in 1812,
he was appointed general agent of his Church in
North Carolina and in this new field continued his
labors, the results of which were printed at Raleigh
in 1821. Ten years later, his great work, "A Synop-
sis of the Fungi of North America" was presented to
the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia,
and in it the number of species enumerated or de-
scribed is 3098, including 1203 new to science. Dur-
ing the same period he prepared his well-known

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"Monograph of the Carices of North America."
Read before the New York Lyceum of Natural His-
tory and accepted, it was placed in the hands of Dr.
John Torrey for publication, because duty called the
author across the Atlantic. It was, therefore, edited by
Dr. Torrey, with some additions, and for this reason,
Schweinitz generously insisted that it should appear
as a joint production.

Like Muhlenberg he too has been honored by hav-
ing his name embodied in a genus of flowering plants
of the Heath Family, Schweintzia, represented by a
brace of rare species, one of them at home in the
mountains of the Carolinas, and the other in Florida.

The study of nature by these two accomplished
scholars and divines was not inspired by a lust for
worldly gain, or worldly ambition, nor a love for mere
utility, amusement or recreation, since it was pur-
sued earnestly, steadily and methodically from the
days of boyhood through all the riper years of their
busy lives. That it was ever permitted to interfere
with the discharge of the duties of their sacred call-
ing cannot be supposed. Indeed, in this regard,
it must have proved an invaluable help instead of a
hindrance, for they no doubt recognized the truth
that the revelations of God in His works and in His
word are at bottom one, and hence, that both are
needed as moulding factors for every man who as-
pires to full moral and mental stature, to say noth-
ing of his best physical well-being. Our Maker
speaks to us, if we have but eyes to see and ears to
hear and hearts to feel, through the lilies and the

Dr. Porter's Address. n

roses, as well as in the thunders of the law. St.
Paul says that the natural comes first and then the
spiritual, and a neglect of this cardinal principle has
been the occasion of immense mischief in human
culture. A thorough knowledge of the lower world
of nature alone can prevent or cure tendencies to
vagiie and wild speculation in the higher spheres of
philosophy and religion.

The death of Schweinitz, at the age of 54, occurred
on the 8th of February, 1834, and a memoir of his
life and scientific labors was prepared and read by
Mr. Walter R. Johnson before the Academy of
Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and published by
him (with a portrait) at the request of the Academy.

Although Shakespeare does say :

"The evil that men do lives after them;"

and then adds, by way of contrast,

" The good is oft interred with their bones;"

it has not been so here. Among the brethren of his own
community, in this very town of Bethlehem where
he was born, the seed sown by Schweinitz has con-
tinued to produce fruit of the same kind and in the
same realm of cryptogamic botany in which he
labored. Of this a striking testimony is afforded by
the superb works on our Fresh-water Algae, from
the pen and pencil of the late Rev. Francis Wolle,
which have won for him such an enviable place in
the annals of American science.

In like manner the example and influence of Muh-
lenberg survived in the chief field of his activity, and
there is perhaps no county in the United States,,whose

12 The Pennsylvania-German Society.

flora, fauna, minerals and rocks have been more thor-
oughly studied than those of Lancaster,as can be shown
by the collections of the Linnaean Society and its
records published in the History of the Rev. Dr.
Mombert. Now, the men who accomplished all this
were of the native German stock, and amongst them,
Simon S. Rath von, will long be held in high esteem
for services done in those branches of entomology to
which he devoted special attention.

Born also in Lancaster county, where his life was
spent, and a scion of the same stock, ever proud of
his descent, was the brilliant, witty and genial Pro-
fessor Samuel Stehman Haldeman, one of the most
industrious, original and profound scholars of the
century. He began his career as a naturalist and
published a work on our "Fresh-water Shells," now
out of print and much sought after, but soon passed
over to linguistic and philological studies in which he
achieved great distinction, both at home and abroad.
Agassiz said of him, "That man Haldeman has an
idea behind every word that he utters," and Dr.
Francis A. March has written of him, "Professor
Haldeman was in early life a naturalist and by his
mental constitution a scientist, and he took hold of
the forms of speech in the same spirit," and "we
shall never look upon his like again."*
j Another Lancaster-county naturalist of German
descent who deserves notice is Abram Paschal Gar-

*There is an interesting memoir of this distinguished man, by Charles
Henry Hart, in the Penn Monthly of iSSi, but what is needed is a full
biography for which abundant material could be supplied by his family.

Dr. Porters Address. 13

her. He was born on his father's farm near Colum-
bia in 1838, and his love of nature dates from early
childhood. After taking a course of instruction in
the Normal School at Millersville, he entered Lafa-
yette College, from which he received the degree of B.
S. in 1868. Here, without neglecting the duties of
the class-room, all his available time was spent in
ranging through the fields and woods around Easton
in search of minerals and plants, and when, at a
later period, he attended lectures in the Medical De-
partment of the University of Pennsylvania, two of
his summer vacations were employed in exploration
and collection for the herbarium of the college, in the
northern tier of counties and those west of the Alle-
ghenies. Having attained the degree of M. D., he
accepted the position of assistant-surgeon in the State
Hospital for the Insane at Harrisburg, but forced by
failing health to give up the practice of his profession,
he sought relief in the warmer climate of Florida,
where for two years he traveled extensively and made
large collections of rare plants, a number of them
either new to our flora or new to science. To one of
these the distinguished botanist, Dr. Asa Gray, gave,
to honor him, the name Garberia. But, alas ! the
milder atmosphere and living in the open air, al-
though they no doubt prolonged his days, did not
suffice to cure his malady and he came north again,
to die at Renovo, Clinton county, in the year 1881.

Amongst the Pennsylvania-Germans of the present
time, there are not a few whose excellent work in the
various departments of the natural sciences will be

14 The Pennsylvania-German Society.

acknowledged and chronicled hereafter, but this brief
historical sketch is restricted to those who have al-
ready finished their labors, and of these, the foremost
representative, the one who has accomplished most
and achieved the greatest fame, a fame that will grow
clearer and brighter as the years roll by, is, beyond
doubt, Joseph Leidy. His great-grandfather, Carl
Leidy, came from Rhenish Germany, early in the
eighteenth century, (about 1724) and settled in that
part of Penn's province which included Montgomery
and Bucks counties. He was born in Philadelphia
in 1823. His parents and kinsfolk, all German and
speaking the German language, belonged to the
Lutheran Church. When quite young he displayed
an extraordinary interest in natural objects. Miner-
als and plants first attracted him, but his mind soon
turned to the animal kingdom, the study of which as
a whole, from the human body and vertebrates in
general, both living and fossil, down to the minutest
microscopic organisms, was pursued with a rare and
simjle-hearted devotion and with marvellous success
up to the period of his death in 1891.*

Now, the peculiar qualities which so admirably
fitted Dr. Leidy for his splendid career were evidently
derived from his German ancestry. And they are
manifest also in all the others who have been named
in this paper. Over them, however, he had the ad-

*A full account of his life and labors can be found in a memoir by W.
S. W. Ruschenberger, M. D., printed in the Proceedings of The Ameri-
can Philosophical Society and distributed by him in a separate pamphlet
form.

PROCEEDINGS PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY, 1896

JOSEPH LEIDY.

Dr. Porter's Address. 15

vantage of a more favorable environment. There
was nothing to divert him from his chosen path, for,
although the degree of M. D. was conferred npon
him by the University of Pennsylvania, whose chair
of anatomy he filled with snch marked ability and
honor, he never became a surgeon or physician in
active practice.

The traits of character here referred to may be thus
summed up — honesty in the broad and best sense of
the word ; the love of knowledge for its own sake and
not primarily or solely for its useful applications, or
as a means for gaining publicity or acquiring wealth;
modesty that shrinks from blowing its own trumpet ;
a freedom from jealousy and envy ; a readiness to
help others engaged in the same pursuits ; a prefer-
ence for the real and substantial over against the
theoretical and visionary ; inexhaustible patience and
perseverance ; and above all, an intuitive genius for
method and order.

If the9tJ,three of our eastern counties can boast of
a group of men like these, who have done so much
in but a single department of the modern sciences, it
certainly furnishes good ground for laudable race-
pride, and ought to put to shame that ignorant and
vulgar class of our country men, who are wont to
hold German Pennsylvania in much the same regard
as Boeotia was held by the ancient Greeks.