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THE REVEREND PETER OSBECK HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1723 May 9, Thursday (Old Style): Peter Osbeck was born to a poor family in the parish of Hålanda in Västergötland in Sweden. His father was a crofter, Hans Andersson, and his mother was Rangela (Ragnhild) Andersdotter. His father would die while he was 8 years of age. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1745 September 20, Friday (Old Style): Peter Osbeck, who had enrolled at the Gothenburg Cathedral school in 1733 and the Gothenburg gymnasium in 1740, matriculated at Uppsala University as a student for the priesthood. He would also study natural history under Carolus Linnaeus. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1747 Peter Osbeck began to tutor the children of district judge Ekskiöld in Örmanäs (into 1749). Dr. Cadwallader Colden provided a carefully cataloged and described collection of plants and Professor Carolus Linnaeus published it in “Plantae Coldenghamiae” in ACTA UPSALIENSIS. In FLORA ZEYLANICA, Linné designated a plant the Coldenia. BOTANIZING HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1750 Carolus Linnaeus sent out the Reverend Peter Osbeck. Peter Kalm made another northern trip, following the Mohawk River to the country of the Iroquois and visiting Lake Ontario and the Niagara Falls. BOTANIZING October 12, Friday (Old Style): Peter Osbeck was ordained. Not only could he become the chaplain aboard a sailing ship, but also, in his old age he would be able to neatly wrap up the loose ends as the parish priest of Våxtorp and Hasslöv in Halland, Sweden. November 18, Sunday (Old Style): The Prins Carl sailed from Cádiz, Spain for Whampoa near Canton. Pastor Peter Osbeck had been selected by the Swedish East India Company to serve as the ship’s chaplain. The ship would come to anchor at Java and at Ascension Island during its voyage. In the year 1750, I was chosen by the Swedish East India Company, to perform the functions of a chaplain to a ship going to the East Indies; that is, to read prayers in the morning and evening, to confess the people, to administer the Lord’s supper, to catechise, to visit the sick, to bury the dead, and to preach on Sundays and holidays. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1751 August 25, Wednesday (Old Style): The Prins Carl anchored at Whampoa, near Canton, after having been at sea 5 months and 4 days out of Cádiz, Spain. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1752 June 26, Monday: Pastor Peter Osbeck had as ship’s chaplain on the Prins Carl spent 4 months in the Canton region of China observing the local flora, the local fauna, and the local human beings. On this day he arrived back at his home in Sweden. In the following year he would provide more than 600 species for Carolus Linnaeus’s SPECIES PLANTARUM. PLANTS HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1753 Carolus Linnaeus issued MUSEUM TESSINIANUM, and in SPECIES PLANTARUM he named the plant genus of tobacco, Nicotiana, and described two species of this genus, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum. Pastor Peter Osbeck had during 1750, 1751, and 1752 traveled as chaplain on the ship Prins Carl to Asia and had spent 4 months in the Canton region of China studying the local flora, the local fauna, and the local human beings. Upon his return he became household chaplain, botanicus, and tutor for the family of count Carl Gustaf Tessin in Åkerö (until 1758). He was able to provide more than 600 species of plant to Linnaeus’s SPECIES PLANTARUM. BOTANIZING SPECIES PLANTARUM would establish a new standard for plant classification as well as nomenclature. This treatise eventually would be recognized as the beginning-point for today’s binomial nomenclature. From 1748 to 1751 Peter Kalm had collected plant specimens in northeastern North America. His botanical collections were at this point extensively accessed by this Swedish botanist Linné as nomenclatural types for many of our northeastern US and southeastern Canadian species. Linné also classified cannabis sativa. PLANTS HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1757 Sir William Chambers reported on his travels in China in DESIGNS OF CHINESE BUILDINGS, FURNITURE, DRESSES, MACHINES, AND UTENSILS: TO WHICH IS ANNEXED A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR TEMPLES, HOUSES, GARDENS, &C, printed in London in English and in French. Gamblers and grifters living in Fukien and Kwangtung Province created the crime syndicates known to outsiders as Triads, after the three dots that members used as gang signs, and to insiders as the Tian-ti Hui, or Heaven-and-Earth Societies. Regional bosses, who were usually wealthy older men, were known as sinseh (“ritual specialist”) or shifu (“teacher”). Bosses were assisted by an Elder Brother who supervised operations, a Second Brother who kept the books, and a Third Brother who led the hung-kun, or “Red Poles.” The latter were organizational fighters, the youths average age was in the late teens — that foreigners called boo how doy, a phrase meaning “bad boys” but usually translated as “hatchet men.” These youths were rarely orthodox (cheng) boxers. Instead, in the words of the nineteenth century Malay triad leader Ho Ah-kay, they were simply gangs in the employ of brothel owners and gamblers. They amused themselves by looting, fighting, and attending violent stage and puppet plays. This wasn’t merely a Chinese problem. Comparable organizations did exist in Europe. According to an English book of 1658 called The Devil’s Cabinet Broke Open, London gangs were commanded by captains, novices were tested and trained, and robbers, cheats, and cutpurses all carried different signs. Like the Chinese, the English criminals fought with the authorities whenever they attempted to invade an established sanctuary such as Whitefriars, Smithfield, or the Bankside. Barring such unifying invasions, the criminals acted independently. On both sides of the globe, criminals were youthful, were organized in gangs of 20-30 members, and preyed mostly on prostitutes, shop-owners, and drunks. The Reverend Peter Osbeck, a Swedish ship chaplain formed at the Linnæan school of natural history, published the journal of his adventure to the opposite side of the earth, to the Canton region of China, DAGBOK ÖFWER EN OSTINDISK RESA ÅREN, which would be translated from Swedish into German in 1762 and from German into English in 1771. He would also publish A VOYAGE AUX INDES ORIENTALES FA IT DANS LES ANNÉES 1750, 51, 52, AVEC DES OBSERVATIONS SUR L’HISTOIRE NATURELLE, LA LANGUE, LES MOEURS, L’ÉCONOMIE DOMESTIQUE DES PEUPLES ÉTRANGERS (Stockholm), and as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala would author several dissertations and memoirs of natural history that would appear in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1758 In this year Carl von Linné purchased a small country estate at Hammarby near Uppsala, Sweden as a summer refuge for his family. Peter Osbeck was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. May 3, Wednesday: The British East India Company trading town of Gondelour, India surrendered to the French. Prospero Lambertini, Pope Benedict XIV, died in Rome. Peter Osbeck became parson in the parishes of Hasslöv and Våxtorp, Sweden. August 29, Tuesday: Peter Osbeck got married with Susanna Dahlberg in Hasslöv, Sweden. The couple would produce 8 children. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1760 August 11, Monday: Peter Osbeck became vicar in the parishes of Hasslöv and Våxtorp, Sweden. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1771 Publication of Marie Arouet de Voltaire’s 1756 ESSAIS SUR LES MOEURS ET L’ESPRIT DES NATIONS, praising China for its “natural” deism. His history of the world began in China. At some point, maybe not in this precise year, Benjamin Franklin contemplated sending off some commissioners to China to obtain information as to aged laws and extensive experience, for the profit of this “young people” of the new American nation. The Reverend Peter Osbeck’s A VOYAGE TO CHINA AND THE EAST INDIES ... TOGETHER WITH A VOYAGE TO SURATTE, BY OLOF TORREN... AND AN ACCOUNT OF CHINESE HUSBANDRY BY CAPTAIN CHARLES GUSTAVUS ECKEBERG. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY JOHN REINHOLD FORSTER. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, A FAUNA AND FLORA SINENSIS (London: Benjamin White) First English Edition, 8vo, 2 vols, pp xx, 396; (ii), 367, (1) blank, (31) index, (1) errata; 13 engraved plates. This had been 1st published in Swedish in 1757. In Eckeberg’s account there is a detailed description of the island of Fernand de Noronha. The translation of these important voyages by students of Linnaeus would lead to John Reinhold Forster’s appointment as principal naturalist on Captain James Cook’s 2d voyage. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1773 Erik Acharius studied medicine in Uppsala, Sweden, under Professor Carolus Linnaeus. Peter Osbeck became rural dean in part of Laholm’s diocese, Sweden. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1779 June 6, Sunday: Peter Osbeck was awarded the advanced degree of Theological Doctor at Uppsala University. HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND PETER OSBECK PEHR OSBECK 1805 December 23, Monday: Peter Osbeck died at Hasslöv in Halland, Sweden. The stone in the churchyard is believed to have been carved by he himself in the final year of his life, and is inscribed “P.O. 1761” (I can offer no explanation for this “1761” except that perhaps it was not intended to be a year date; eventually the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences would add another memorial stone with further details). Joseph Smith, Jr. was born at 6PM in Sharon, Vermont, 5th child of Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, Sr.

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