Everything about Nutt totally explained
Thomas Nuttall (
January 5,
1786 -
September 10,
1859) was an
English botanist and
zoologist, who lived and worked in America from
1808 until
1841.
Nuttall was born in the village of Long Preston, near
Settle in the
West Riding of Yorkshire and spent some years as an apprentice printer in England. Soon after going to the United States he met Professor
Benjamin Smith Barton in
Philadelphia. Barton encouraged his strong interest in natural history.
The Genera of North American Plants
In 1810 he travelled to the
Great Lakes and in
1811 travelled on the
Astor Expedition led by
William Price Hunt on behalf of
John Jacob Astor up the
Missouri River. Nuttall was accompanied by the English botanist
John Bradbury, who was collecting plants on behalf of
Liverpool botanical gardens. Nuttall and Bradbury left the party at the trading post with the Arikara Indians in
South Dakota, and continued further upriver with
Ramsay Crooks. In August they returned to the Arikara post and joined
Manuel Lisa's group on a return to
St. Louis.
Although
Lewis and Clark had travelled this way previously, many of their specimens had been lost. Therefore the 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 to
London via
New Orleans. In London he spent time organising his large plant collection and discussing his experiences with other scientists.
Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada
In 1815 he returned to America and after spending some more time collecting published
The Genera of North American Plants in 1818. From 1818 to 1820 he travelled along the Arkansas and Red Rivers, returning to Philadelphia and publishing his
Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory during the year 1819. In 1825 he became curator of the botanical gardens at
Harvard University. He published his
Manual 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 by
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, this time accompanied by the naturalist
John Kirk Townsend. They travelled through
Kansas,
Wyoming and
Utah, and then down the Snake River to the Columbia. Nuttall then sailed across the
Pacific Ocean to the
Hawaiian Islands in December. He returned in the spring of 1835 and spent the year botanizing in the Pacific Northwest, an area already covered by
David Douglas. On his return trip he stopped off in
San Diego, where he met
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.. The character of 'old curious' in Dana's book
Two Years Before the Mast is based on Nuttall.
From 1836 until 1841 Nuttall worked at the
Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. During this time he made contributions to the
Flora of North America being prepared by
Asa Gray and
John Torrey. 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. His
North American Sylva: Trees not described by F. 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. He died in
St Helens, Lancashire and is buried in Christ Church in the nearby village of
Eccleston, Merseyside
Various plants and birds were named after Nuttall, including
Nuttall's Woodpecker Picoides nuttallii by his friend
William Gambel, and
Yellow-billed Magpie Pica nuttalli and
Common Poorwill Phalaenoptilus nuttallii by
John James Audubon. He is also commemorated in the
Pacific Dogwood Cornus nuttallii,
Nuttall's oak Quercus texana and the Catclaw briar
Mimosa nuttallii.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Nutt'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://thomas_nuttall.totallyexplained.com">Thomas Nuttall Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
