Adam Seybert (May 16, 1773 – May 2, 1825) was an American politician who served as aDemocratic-Republican member of theU.S. House of Representatives forPennsylvania's 1st congressional district from 1809 to 1815 and 1817 to 1819. He was a faculty member at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and amineralogist who organized the first mineralogy collection in the United States in the 1790s.

Seybert was born on May 16, 1773, inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1793 with a degree in medicine from theUniversity of Pennsylvania. He continued his studies inEurope, and attended schools inEdinburgh,Göttingen, andParis.^[1] He studied mineralogy at theEcole des Mines and was the first American to study mineralogy in Germany.^[2] He returned to Philadelphia with a collection of minerals^[3] and worked as a physician for a short time before establishing himself as a "druggist, chemist and apothecary".^[2] He was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.^[4] He was elected as a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1797,^[5] and a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1824.^[6]

In 1809, Seybert was elected to the11th United States Congress as a Democratic-Republican representative forPennsylvania's 1st congressional district^[7] to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation ofBenjamin Say. In the fall of 1811, he reassured PresidentJames Madison that his state had military gear and production to meet war needs.^[8] He was reelected to theTwelfth andThirteenth Congresses. He was chairman of theUnited States House Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business during the Twelfth Congress. He was again elected to theFifteenth Congress^[1] and served from 1817 to 1819.^[7] He visited Europe from 1819 to 1821 and again in 1824 and settled in Paris, France, where he died May 2, 1825. He was originally interred atPère Lachaise Cemetery in Paris^[1] and re-interred toLaurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.^[9][10]

Seybert established the first mineralogy collection in the United States in the 1790s. The collection contained over 1,725 crystals and rocks. The noted mineralogist,Benjamin Silliman, was known to have traveled to Philadelphia to view the collection,^[11] and have Seybert analyze minerals from Silliman's collection.^[3] In 1812, Seybert sold his mineralogy collection to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.^[12] His political career took priority over his interest in mineralogy, and whenParker Cleaveland wrote to him in December of 1813 with questions on mineralogy, he replied that he had lost interest in the science.^[12]

After Seyberts' death, his mineralogy collection was put on display at the Free Natural History Museum of theAcademy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.^[11]

The University of Pennsylvania philosophy department named a chair in the department the Adam Seybert Professor in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. The chair was funded by Adam's son, Henry Seybert. The duties of the chair included hosting the Adam Seybert committee which investigated the possibility of thespirit world. The committee met from 1883 to 1887 but was unable to discover any evidence and subsequent holders of the chair were freed from continuing the investigations.^[4]

• Experiments and Observations on Land and Sea Air, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1799
• An Inaugural Dissertation: Being an Attempt to Disprove the Doctrine of the Putrefaction of the Blood of Living Animals., Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1793
• Statistical Annals: Embracing Views of the Population, Commerce, Navigation, Fisheries, Public Lands, Post-Office Establishment, Revenues, Mint, Military and Naval Establishments, Expenditures, Public Debt and Sinking Fund of the United States of America, Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson & Son, 1818

Citations

Sources

• Greene, John C. (1969).The Development of Mineralogy in Philadelphia, 1780-1820. The American Philosophical Society.ISBN 9781422371428.

• Adam Seybert commonplace book, 1810 - from the American Philosophical Society Library

• 1773 births
• 1825 deaths
• 18th-century American physicians
• Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
• American mineralogists
• 19th-century American pharmacists
• Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia)
• Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
• Chemists from Pennsylvania
• Democratic-Republican Party United States representatives from Pennsylvania
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Members of the American Philosophical Society
• Mines Paris - PSL alumni
• Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni
• Politicians from Philadelphia
• Scientists from Philadelphia
• University of Pennsylvania faculty
• Pharmacists from Pennsylvania
• 19th-century United States representatives

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