Thomas Nuttall | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1786-01-05)5 January 1786 Long Preston, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 10 September 1859(1859-09-10) (aged 73) St Helens, Lancashire, England |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | botanist |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Nutt. |
| Signature | |
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Thomas Nuttall (5 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) was anEnglishbotanist andzoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841.[1]
Nuttall was born in the village ofLong Preston, nearSettle in theWest Riding of Yorkshire and spent some years as an apprentice printer in England. Soon after going to the United States he met professorBenjamin Smith Barton inPhiladelphia. Barton encouraged his strong interest in natural history.
In 1810 he travelled to theGreat Lakes and in 1811 travelled on theAstor Expedition led byWilliam Price Hunt on behalf ofJohn Jacob Astor up theMissouri River. Nuttall was accompanied by the English botanistJohn Bradbury, who was collecting plants on behalf ofLiverpool botanical gardens. Nuttall and Bradbury left the party at the trading post with theArikara Indians inSouth Dakota, and continued farther upriver withRamsay Crooks. In August they returned to the Arikara post and joinedManuel Lisa's group on a return toSt. Louis.
AlthoughLewis and Clark had travelled this way previously, many of their specimens had been lost. Therefore, many of the plants collected by Nuttall on this trip were unknown to science. The imminent war between Britain and America caused him to return toLondon viaNew Orleans. In London he spent time organising his large plant collection and discussing his experiences with other scientists.
In 1815, he returned to America and after spending some more time collecting publishedThe Genera of North American Plants (1818).[2] In 1817, Nuttall was elected a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society.[3] From 1818 to 1820, he travelled along theArkansas andRed Rivers, returning to Philadelphia and publishing hisJournal of Travels Into the Arkansas Territory During the Year 1819 (1821).[4] He was elected an Associate Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1823.[5] In 1825, he became curator of the botanical gardens atHarvard University. He published hisManual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada (1832 and 1834).
In 1834, he resigned his post and set off west again on an expedition led byNathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, this time accompanied by the naturalistJohn Kirk Townsend. They travelled throughKansas,Wyoming, andUtah, and then down the Snake River to the Columbia. Nuttall then sailed across thePacific Ocean to theHawaiian Islands in December. He returned in the spring of 1835 and spent the next year botanizing in the Pacific Northwest, an area already covered byDavid Douglas. On the Pacific coast, Nuttall heard of the shipAlert leaving San Diego in May 1836, bound for Boston. It is here that he encountersRichard Henry Dana Jr., a former student of his at Harvard who had set sail from Boston on a two-year voyage to the California coast at about the same time Nuttall had begun his expedition. Dana writes in his memoir,Two Years Before the Mast (1840), of his amazement at seeing his old professor "strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor's pea jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells."[6] Nuttall was taken on theAlert as a passenger along with many of his flora and fauna specimens, which he brought back to Boston to be cataloged and preserved for posterity. Dana writes that though the professor spent much of the voyage in his cabin, he had some occasions to speak with Nuttall about his botanizing while Dana was at the helm of the ship "on a calm night" and was amused to hear his fellow shipmates refer to Nuttall as "Old Curious" for all the curiosities he conveyed on board. Once around the Horn, some of the sights on the trip through the South Atlantic prompted Nuttall to emerge from his quarters: upon sightingIsla de los Estados off the tip of Cape Horn, Nuttall told the Captain of theAlert that he would have liked to explore that place; and Nuttall also enjoyed the sight of dolphins swimming near the ship.
From 1836 until 1841, Nuttall worked at theAcademy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. During this time he made contributions to theFlora of North America being prepared byAsa Gray andJohn Torrey.[7] The death of his uncle then required Nuttall to return to England. By terms of his uncle's will, to inherit the property, Nuttall had to remain in England for nine months of each year. HisNorth American Sylva: Trees not described byF. A. Michaux, which was the first book to include all the trees of North America, was finished just before he left the US in December 1841.
From 1842 until his death in 1859 Nuttall lived at Nutgrove Hall[8] inSt Helens, Lancashire, built by printer Jonas Nuttall in 1810.[9] Nuttall is buried at Christ Church in the nearby village ofEccleston.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)TheWorld Register of Marine Species lists 44 marine genera and species named after him with the epithetnuttalli.[10] Various plants and birds were named after Nuttall, includingNuttall's woodpeckerDryobates nuttallii by his friendWilliam Gambel, andyellow-billed magpiePica nuttalli andcommon poorwillPhalaenoptilus nuttallii byJohn James Audubon.[11] He is also commemorated in thePacific dogwoodCornus nuttallii, Nuttall's larkspurDelphinium nuttallianum,Nuttall's oakQuercus texana, the catclaw briarMimosa nuttallii, Nuttall's violetViola nuttallii, Nuttall's saltbushAtriplex nuttallii, Nuttall's rayless goldenrodBigelowia nuttallii, and other plants.[12]
The Nuttall Ornithological Club ofCambridge, Massachusetts, is named after him.[13]
LCCN 05-13013;OCLC 11838900 (all editions).ISSN 0003-049X (journal publication);OCLC 702368093,1029994055 (article re-print).LCCNunk80018968;OCLC 1647333 (all editions).
