Charles Wilkins Short 1794 1863 Botanist and Physician

THE FILSON CLUB HISTORY QUARTERLY Vol. 19 LouisvILIm, KmN'rncxY, JuLy, 1945 No. 8 CHARLES WILKINS SHORT; 1794-1868 BOTANIST AND PHYSICIAN BY P. ALBERT DAVIES Professor of Biology, University of Louisville PART I. A BIOCRArmCAL SKETCH OF DR. SHORT PART II. MATERIALS RELATING TO DR. SHORT: (a) In The Filson Club, (b) In the University of Louisville, (c) Data pertaining to letters he received, (d) His published writings. • PART I. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. SHORT Read before The Filson Club, June 7, 1943 Dr. Charles Wilkins Short, eminent Kentucky botanist, physician, and teacher, the third son of Peyton and Mary (Maria) Symmes Short, was born at "Greenfield," Woedford County, Kentucky, October 6, 1794. "Greenfield," just south of Ver- sailles, was the pioneer residence of his parents. It contained several iJaousand acres of gently rolling, fertile, inner Blue Grass land on the North Fork of Clear Creek.' The pattern which carried Charles Wilkins Short to distinc- tion and carved his name upon the tablets of time is easily traceable to several fundamental factors: his inheritance, the time in which he lived, the place, and the influence of prominent relatives.. His inheritance was that of Colonial leaders: soldiers, states- men, colonizers, adventurers, merchants, and well-to-do plant- 132 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 19 ers. Through his veins surged the blood of the Shorts, the Skipwiths, and the Symmes. Peyton Short, the father of Charles, was the son of a well-to-do Virginia planter, William Sh,ort, and his wife, Elizabeth Skipwith, daughter of Sir Wil- liam Skipwith, Baronet; Peyton was the brother of William Short of Virginia and Philadelphia.2 Both Peyton and William enjoyed the free-lance life which was the custom of sons of early Virginia planters, and each received an education equal to the best of the time; William graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1779, and Peyton one year later. Their scholastic record at the College of William and Mary must have been high, for the name of each appears among the founders of the honorary scholastic society of Phi Beta Kappa.s On the death of their father, each received a considerable legacy. Peyton, the more adventurous, departed from his home in Virginia and journeyed to Kentucky to cast his lot with the pioneering civilization. Here he entered into numerous polit- ical and business enterprises and became one of the leading citizens of Kentucky." When Louisville was made a port of entry by the Continental Congress, Peyton was appointed the first collector. He was selected to represent Fayette County in the First Kentucky Senate. He held the commission of Major in the Kentucky Militia. His business enterprises were many. He speculated with Colonel James Wilkinson, then a Lexington merchant, in the purchase of cheap tobacco in Ken- tueky and Ohio, shipping it by water to New Orleans for high profits. Peyton owned and operated a mill and distillery at various times in different parts of Kentucky, also a grocery store in Lexington. He owned thousands of acres of pioneer land in Kentucky and Ohio. For the success of his early busi- .hess enterprises he won the title "Kentucky Millionaire." In 1789, Peyton Short married Mary. Symmes, the eldest daughter of John Cleves Symmes, a Revolutionary War colonel, a congressman and judge, also a colonizer of a vast area of "Military Land" .between the Miami rivers '•in Ohio." He brought his bride to live in Lexington. In the meantime, William Short journeyed to Philadelphia and Washington, and entered foreign diplomatic service for the newly established American nation.6 Because of his ap- 1945] Dr. Charles Wilkins Short, 179d-1863 1• pealing personahty, his keen judgment, and perfect command of English and French, he won high honors as a diplomat in foreign service and an enviable position in the highest circles of American and French society. He served as Secretary of the American Legation under Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson was minister to France, and later he became charge d'affaires for the AJnerican nation to France. He had the honor of hold- ing, •,hat, it is said, was the first executive commission signed by George Washington, and being the first citizen of the newly formed United States appointed to ofllce under the Federal Constitution. After completing his foreign diplomatic assign- ments, he returned to his native land and settled in Phila- delphia, America's most cultured city. There he became one of that city's most prominent and influential citizens. His amiable character and keen business insight enabled him to accumulate a large fortune. Charles came under the influence of his uncle, William Short, when he went to Philadelphia in 1813 to study medicine in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He was so impressed by the sound judgment of his uncle that in the years that followed he always consulted him on major problems. His uncle died in 1849, leaving him and his brother, John Cleves Short of Cincinnati, each a large fortune. It was during that age between the opening of the vast area of land beyond the Allegheny Mountains, with a flora scarcely touched and identified and with the i•apid settling of the West, that Charles W. Short was born into a pioneering civilization paramount in time and place for thework in which he became interested and proved capable of doing. In this new pioneering civilization there was a great demand for medical men capable of identifying and instructing others to identify and gather.the plants needed in medicine. This opportunity flourished for the well trained botanist until the latter'half of the nineteenth cen- tury when the rise of synthetic chemistry and pharmacology were to prove that very few herbs gathered for medicine pos- sessed valid therapeutic values, and thereby took. away the practical value of the medical-botanist. Fortune smiled on him in the number and distribution of prominent relatives. His grandfather, John Cleves Symmes, to whom he made several visits during his youth, took a deep 184 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 19 interest in the boy and instructed him in the practical things of life. Before he died in 1814, he deeded Charles many acres of valuable farm land in Ohio on which he was able to secure money when he needed it. Charles was greatly indebted to his uncle, William Short, who furnished the money for his medical education in Philadelphia and guided him in his educa- tional and social activities while there. Whenever Charles asked it, this uncle gave freely of his advice on business and finance which Charles used to good advantage, and on his death, in 1849, he bequeathed to Charles a large legacy which enabled him to live in leisure and enjoyment on his beautiful estate, "Hayfield," five miles south of Louisville on the Louis- ville-Bardstown turnpike. His uncle-in-law Dr. Frederick Ridgely and aunt Elizabeth Short Ridgely took an active interest in the care and education of Charles after the death of his stepmother, which, as we shall see, occurred in 1808. Dr. Ridgely was an outstanding physician in the pioneering settlement of Lexington and one of the first professors in the newly founded Medical Department of Transylvania University.• It was under the influence of these kind relatives that Charles, after finishing his preliminary education in Transylvania University, entered Dr. Ridgely's oflqce to study medicine and later had the opportunity to study medicine in Philadelphia. 8 His first offer to teach Matcria Medica and Medical Botany in the Medical Department of Transyl- vania, upon the completion of his medical education in Phila- delphia, came from Dr. Ridgely.° Charles Wilkins, an uncle-in-law, from whom Charles received his name, was a prominent Kentucky business man and financier. He took an interest in Charles while he was a student in Transylvania University, and later, through his interest in the affairs of the University, was influential in obtaining for Charles a professorship there.'° Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley, who married Charles's sister, Anna Maria, was the outstanding Lexington surgeon of his day..His success as a surgeon, particularly in lithotomy brought him an enviable reputation not only in Kentucky but also in the great medical centers in the East." He was a prominent and influential member of the medical staff of Transylvania University 1945] Dr. Charles Wilkins Short, 1794-1863 135 and took an active interest in the University and the social life of Lexington. The combined influenc6 of Dr. Frederick Ridgely, Mr; Charles Wilkins, and Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley played a very important role in Dr. Shorts early successes as a physician and a teacher. These men, prominent in the affairs of Lexington and Transylvania University, were responsible for the several calls he received for his return to the University as Professor of Materia Mediea and Medical Botany, and for what success he obtained in the practice of medicine in Lexington. Shortly before Charles was bo•, Peyton Short moved his family to a large acreage of highly prized land on the North Fork of Clear Creek. This, as already noted, became the family estate. He christened it "Greenfield." At "Greenfield," where the best Eastern culture was lxansferred into a pioneering home, and with intelligent, thoughtful, and loving parents, Charles spent his early life as a carefree boy. Here he learned to do the things which developed in him a desire for the better things of life and a love of nature. These formed the founda- tion which supportd the arch of his later achievements.

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