Benjamin Smith Barton, "MD": the American Performance of Scientific Authority in a Trans-Atlantic World
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NJS: an Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2017 107
NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2017 107 Hills, Huts, and Horse-Teams: The New Jersey Environment and Continental Army Winter Encampments, 1778-1780 By Steven Elliott DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14713/njs.v3i1.67 New Jersey’s role as a base for the Continental Army during the War of Independence has played an important part in the state’s understanding of its role in the American Revolution, and continues to shape the state’s image as the “Cockpit of the Revolution,” and “Crossroads of the American Revolution” today. This article uncovers how and why the Continental Army decided to place the bulk of its forces in northern New Jersey for two consecutive winters during the war. Unlike the more renowned Valley Forge winter quarters, neither New Jersey encampment has received significant scholarly attention, and most works that have covered the topic have presumed the state’s terrain offered obvious strategic advantages for an army on the defensive. This article offers a new interpretation, emphasizing the army’s logistical needs including forage for its animals and timber supplies for constructing winter shelters. The availability of these resources, rather than easily defended rough terrain or close-proximity to friendly civilians, led Washington and his staff to make northern New Jersey its mountain home for much of the war. By highlighting to role of the environment in shaping military strategy, this article adds to our understanding of New Jersey’s crucial role in the American struggle for independence. Introduction In early December, 1778, patriot soldiers from Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia arrived at the southern foothills of New Jersey’s Watchung Mountains and began erecting a log-hut winter encampment near Middlebrook. -
Collection 1454
Collection 1454 Cadwalader Family Papers 1623-1962, bulk 1776-1880 606 boxes, 233 vols., 242.4 lin. feet Contact: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107 Phone: (215) 732-6200 FAX: (215) 732-2680 http://www.hsp.org Original Processing by: Brett M. Reigh Original Processing Completed: July 1999 Additional Processing by: Joanne Danifo, Tory Kline, Jeff Knowles, Cary Majewicz, Rachel Moskowitz Additional Processing Completed: January 2007 Sponsor for Additional Processing: Phoebe W. Haas Charitable Trust Restrictions: None Related Collections at HSP: See page 18 © 2007 The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. Cadwalader Family papers Collection 1454 Cadwalader Family Papers Collection 1454 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Background note 1 Scope & content 5 Overview of arrangement 8 Series descriptions 9 Separation report 18 Related materials 18 Bibliography 18 Languages represented 18 Subjects 19 Administrative information 21 Box and folder listings 22 Series 1: Miscellaneous deeds and correspondence 22 Series 2: General John Cadwalader papers 22 Series 3: General Thomas Cadwalader papers 31 Series 4: George Croghan papers 81 Series 5: Phineas Bond papers 84 Series 6: Judge John Cadwalader papers 96 Series 7: General George Cadwalader papers 132 Series 8: Charles E. Cadwalader papers 159 Series 9: J. Francis Fisher papers 167 Series 10: Peter McCall papers 171 Series 11: Later additions to the collection 179 Series 12: Maps 183 Appendix A: Cadwalader family tree 187 The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Cadwalader Family papers Collection 1454 Cadwalader Family Papers, 1623-1962 (bulk 1776-1880) 606 boxes, 233 vols., 242.4 lin. feet Collection 1454 Abstract The Cadwalader family papers document the Cadwalader family through four generations in America. -
Untangling the History of the Pawling/Wetherill House at Walnut Hill Estate, Pawling Road, Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Theses (Historic Preservation) Graduate Program in Historic Preservation 1992 Untangling the History of the Pawling/Wetherill House at Walnut Hill Estate, Pawling Road, Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Thomas Clinton McGimsey University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses Part of the Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons McGimsey, Thomas Clinton, "Untangling the History of the Pawling/Wetherill House at Walnut Hill Estate, Pawling Road, Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania" (1992). Theses (Historic Preservation). 373. https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/373 Copyright note: Penn School of Design permits distribution and display of this student work by University of Pennsylvania Libraries. Suggested Citation: McGimsey, Thomas Clinton (1992). Untangling the History of the Pawling/Wetherill House at Walnut Hill Estate, Pawling Road, Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. (Masters Thesis). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/373 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Untangling the History of the Pawling/Wetherill House at Walnut Hill Estate, Pawling Road, Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Disciplines Historic Preservation and Conservation Comments Copyright note: Penn School of Design permits distribution and display of this -
SAMUEL POWEL GRIFFITTS* by WILLIAM S
SAMUEL POWEL GRIFFITTS* By WILLIAM S. MIDDLETON, M.D. MADISON, WISCONSIN Men like ourselves know how hard it is drew. Yet the mark of his efforts re- to live up to the best standards of medical mains in a number of institutions in duty; know, also, what temptations, intel- his native city and his private and pro- lectual and moral, positive and negative, fessional life might well serve as a assail us all, and can understand the value model to our troubled and restless and beauty of certain characters, which, generation in medicine. like surely guided ships, have left no per- manent trace behind them on life’s great Born to William and Abigail Powel seas, of their direct and absolute devotion Griffitts in Philadelphia on July 21, to duty. ... Of this precious type was 1759, Samuel Powel Griffitts was their Samuel Powel Griffitts. third and last child. Upon the passing of his father his early training devolved HUS spoke S. Weir Mitchell on his mother. His piety and close ad- of the subject of this sketch in herence to the Quaker faith unques- his “Commemorative Address tionably reflected this influence, but upon the Centennial Anni- to the mother may also be attributed Tversary of the Institution of the Collegehis linguistic facility and knowledge of of Physicians of Philadelphia.” the classics. Young Griffitts’ academic Such a characterization at the hands course began in the College of Phila- of so acute and astute an observer of delphia in 1776 and was marked only human nature captivates the interest by a recognition of his superior grasp and imagination. -
Pennsylvania: Clement Biddle
Pennsylvania: Clement Biddle Born on May 10, 1740 in Philadelphia, PA, to a devout Quaker family, Clement Biddle appeared to be destined for life as a successful businessman working in his father’s shipping business. 89 However in the early 1760s, despite his Quaker upbringing, Biddle raised a Pennsylvania militia unit called the “Quaker Blues.” Biddle and his unit fought a series of battles to defend a group of friendly Native Americans from the “Paxton Boys”, a vigilante group of Western Pennsylvania settlers that emerged in response to Chief Pontiac’s Revolt. When the threat posed by this group ended, Biddle returned to his father’s shipping business.90 After the battle of Trenton, Clement Biddle was the American Almost a year after the American Revolution began, Biddle raised a officer who accepted the swords from the defeated Hessian officers second company of Quaker soldiers and was rewarded by being given Courtesy of the Library of Congress the position of Deputy Quartermaster of “the flying army”, a mobile reserve unit that consisted of soldiers from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. 91 92 As an officer in the regiment, Biddle participated in many of the major battles during Washington’s 1776 New York Campaign. Additionally, Biddle was present at some of the major battles around Philadelphia in 1777, the encampment at Valley Forge (where he was the Commissary General), and the battle of Monmouth. After briefly retiring from the army, Biddle ended the war as the quartermaster general for the Pennsylvania militia with the rank of colonel.93 89 “History - The First Generation of United States Marshals/The First Marshal of Pennsylvania: Clement Biddle,” U.S. -
A Young Man Final
A Young Man from “ultima Thule” Visits Jefferson: Alexander von Humboldt in Philadelphia and Washington Henry LaBarre Jayne Lecture Autumn Meeting of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia 14 November 2009 Gerhard Casper At the American Philosophical Society, almost to the day fifty years ago, Helmut de Terra, an historian of science at Columbia University, read a paper on “Motives and Consequences of Alexander von Humboldt’s Visit to the United States (1804).”1 1959 was the one hundredth anniversary of Humboldt’s death. In the preceding two years, de Terra had been publishing, in the Proceedings, various papers dealing with Humboldt’s relationship to the United States, including Humboldt’s correspondence with Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin.2 Also in 1959, the Geographical Society of Berlin issued a Festschrift that included a thorough piece by the Chief Archivist of the Cartographic Records Division of the National Archives, Herman Friis, on Humboldt’s visit.3 More recently, Humboldt’s correspondence and other Humboldt texts on the topic of the United States were edited in the original languages with detailed introductions and notes by Ingo Schwarz for the Alexander von Humboldt Research Center at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.4 Finally, in 2006, the topic of Humboldt’s visit to the United States and his influence on America was taken up by Aaron Sachs in his book The Humboldt Current. Given Humboldt’s emphasis on the interconnectedness of all cosmic phenomena, Sachs considers him “the first ecologist.”5 1 De Terra 1960. The paper was given on November 12, 1959. 2 See Bibliography. -
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution
Report of U. S. National Museum, 1897. Part II. Plate 85. PlETRO ANGELO SECCHI. THE BFXiINNINrrS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE. THK THIRD CENTURY. BY GEORGE BROWN GOODE, President of the Bio/oi^iia/ Socitiy of li 'ashiii^ioii. 407 IE BH(;iNNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE. THE THIRD CENTURY. By George Brown Goode, President of the Bioloo^ical Society of ]Vashingfon. VIII. In the address which it was my privilege one year ago to read in the presence of this society I attempted to trace the progress of scientific activity in America from the time of the first settlement by the Engli.sh in 1585 to the end of the Revolution, a period of nearly two hundred years. Resuming the subject, I shall now take up the consideration of the third century, from 1782 to the present time. For convenience of dis- cussion the time is divided, approximately, into decades, while the dec- ades naturally fall into groups of three. From 1780 to 1810, from 1810 to 1840, from 1840 to 1870, and from 1870 to the clo.se of the century are periods in the history of American thought, each of which .seems to be marked by characteristics of its own. These must have names, and it may not be inappropriate to call the first the period of Jefferson, the second that of Silliman, and the third that of Aga.ssiz. The first was, of cour.se, an extension of the period of Linnaeus, the second and third were during the mental supremacy of Cuvier and Vou Baer and their schools, and the fourth or present, beginning in 1870, belongs to that of Darwin, the extension of whose influence to America was delayed by the tunuilts of the civil convulsion which began in 1861 and ended in 1865. -
Pennsylvania Magazine of HISTORY and BIOGRAPHY
THE Pennsylvania Magazine OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY VOLUME LXVII JANUARY, 1943 NUMBER ONE Philadelphia Medical Students in Europe, 1750-1800 ORE than half the twenty-four founding members of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1787 had received M a part of their formal medical training in Europe; and when in the succeeding decade Caspar Wistar, Junior, Benjamin Smith Barton, Philip Syng Physick, and Isaac Cathrall began to practice, the number of Philadelphia physicians with foreign educa- tion was increased. What was true of Quakerdelphia was true also, though usually to a lesser degree, elsewhere in the United States. From 1749, when John Moultrie, of South Carolina, was made a doctor of medicine of the University of Edinburgh, to the close of the century, no fewer than 117 Americans received the medical degree of that institution alone; while uncounted others, like Thomas Parke, Samuel Powel Griffitts, and Benjamin Smith Barton, studied there for a term or two. Indeed, so constant was the flow of American medical students to England, Scotland, and the Continent in the lat- ter half of the eighteenth century, that one might speak of a kind of trade in them, America exporting the raw materials for physicians 1 2 WHITFIELD J. BELL, JR. January and surgeons and receiving after the passage of three or four years the finished products. These colonials and young republicans filled themselves at the fountainheads of science abroad; and, returning with the knowledge of the European schools and hospitals, were pre- pared and eager, the Philadelphians at least, to spread their learning through the United States and make Philadelphia the Edinburgh of America.1 The medical students who went abroad in the half century after 1750 were not, however, pioneers in a new movement, for in the second quarter of the century several Philadelphians had sought medical instruction in England and on the Continent. -
The Identity of the Enigmatic ''Black Shrew'' (Sorex Niger Ord, 1815)
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 126(1):1–10. 2013. The identity of the enigmatic ‘‘Black Shrew’’ (Sorex niger Ord, 1815) Neal Woodman United States Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, U.S.A., e-mail: [email protected] Abstract.—The scientific name Sorex niger Ord, 1815 (Mammalia, Soricidae) was originally applied to a North American species that George Ord called the ‘‘Black Shrew.’’ The origin of the name ‘‘Black Shrew,’’ however, was obscure, and Samuel Rhoads subsequently wrote that the species represented by this name could not be determined. The names Sorex niger Ord and Black Shrew have since been mostly forgotten. Two of Ord’s contemporaries, however, noted that Ord’s use of these names probably alluded to Benjamin Smith Barton’s Black Shrew, whose discovery near Philadelphia was announced by Barton in 1806. Examination of two unpublished illustrations of the Black Shrew made by Barton indicates that the animal depicted is Blarina brevicauda (Say, 1822). Had the connection between Ord’s and Barton’s names been made more clearly, one of the most common mammals in eastern North America would bear a different scientific name today. This connection also would have affected the validity of Sorex niger Horsfield, 1851. While Sorex niger Ord remains a nomen nudum, the animal it referenced can now be identified. Keywords: Eulipotyphla, Guthrie’s Geography, nomenclature, Soricidae, Soricomorpha, Suncus montanus, taxonomy, -
When We Were Young: the American Philosophical Society in the 18Th Century1
When We Were Young: The American Philosophical Society in the 18th Century1 GARY B. NASH Distinguished Research Professor University of California, Los Angeles n 2018 the American Philosophical Society celebrated its 275th anniversary, though in truth, 1743 is a shadowy date. Some think Ithe APS began in 1727, when Benjamin Franklin, at age 21—having resided in Philadelphia for less than two years since he first arrived in late 1723—convened his famous Junto of leather apron men (Figure 1). Drawing up rules for this private self-improvement group, 12 in number and limited to that size, he tasked “every Member in his Turn” to produce “one or more Queries . to be discuss’d by the Company.’’2 Among the founding group, four were from Samuel Keimer’s print shop (Franklin, Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb) while the others were shoemakers (John Jones and William Parsons); a surveyor (Nicholas Scull); a scrivener (Joseph Breitnall); a carpenter (William Coleman); an ironmaker (Robert Grace); a glass maker (Thomas Godfrey); and a cabinet maker (William Mangrudge). It was a noble start, indeed an astounding venture, ushered into the world by such a youth striving to implant himself in a young river port, where Quaker merchants and landowners of growing wealth held sway.3 The APS website today claims our Society as an “offshoot” of 1 Read 26 April 2018. My thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions for this paper. 2 The editors of the comprehensive edition of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin aver that Franklin had been influenced by Boston’s venerable Cotton Mather’s Essays to Do Good (1710), which proposed voluntary groups to encourage morality and religion. -
The Lewis & Clark Expedition
The Lewis & Clark Expedition: Philadelphia, First Stop on the Journey Component Description Title of Lesson The Lewis & Clark Expedition: Philadelphia, First Stop on the Journey Content/Subject Area US History Context Thomas Jefferson, during the 1780s and 1790s, approached American military hero George Rogers Clark and French scientist Andre Michaux to undertake a scientific expedition across the continent, and he offered to finance adventurer John Ledyard’s proposal to cross North America from west to east. These plans did not mature; but once Jefferson became president in March 1801, he had the power of his office to propel his beloved project forward. Jefferson embraced Enlightenment-era science, especially the documentation of nature based on empirical investigation. Reflecting that interest, his library at Monticello included hundreds of volumes, maps, and scientific reports on North American subjects, places, and discovered species. There was only one city in America to which Jefferson would send Lewis to prepare for his task, Philadelphia. Philadelphia had the learned men of science and medicine who could teach Lewis what he’d need to know to fulfill Jefferson’s enumerated requests. Philadelphia was the city where he could purchase all the goods he would need for the expedition. Meriwether Lewis arrived about May 12, 1803, in Philadelphia, a city of twelve thousand dwellings inhabited by eighty-one thousand residents. Philadelphia had served as the nation’s capital from the American Revolution to 1800. No other American community possessed the concentration of learning needed to teach Captain Lewis what he must know to succeed in the vast, uncharted western wilderness. -
Thomas Jefferson, Naturalist
Banisteria, Number 41, pages 5-16 © 2013 Virginia Natural History Society Thomas Jefferson and Virginia’s Natural History Lucia Stanton 1308 Gibson Mountain Lane Charlottesville, Virginia 22903 [email protected] ABSTRACT In forty years as a public servant, Thomas Jefferson often lamented being a “prisoner of state.” He described natural history as his passion and, when tied to his desk by political duties, he longed to be out in the “rich fields” of nature, studying grain weevils or noting the blooming dates of flowers. Jefferson had a lifelong fascination with the flora and fauna of Virginia and a reputation for a wide knowledge of botany and zoology. This paper focuses primarily on Jefferson’s interest in and interactions with birds, insects, and plants, particularly those of his own state. On April 16, 1803, the President of the United States was in his study in the White House, writing down these words: “3. house flies of ordinary size to- day.” Thomas Jefferson made this observation in a weather diary in which he had been recording the temperature of his nation since its birth in July 1776. Besides taking readings of his thermometer, he noted other “indexes of climate” — biological events, like the flowering of plants, falling of leaves, and the comings and goings of birds and insects, which marked the cycle of the seasons. Throughout his presidency, he jotted down more signs of spring than just house flies. Such entries included “redbreasts” (7 March 1804), “weepg. willow leafing” (9 March 1808), “frogs sing” (12 March 1807), “shad at table” (19 March 1808), “martins appear” (1 April 1806), “whippoorwill” (2 April 1805), “dogwood blossomd.” (7 April 1807), and “Magnolia glauc.