The University of North Carolina Herbarium
(NCU) has catalogued only about a dozen plants collected by John
White Chickering, Jr. As only about 10% of our specimens have
been databased, it is likely that more will be found as cataloguing
continues. Most of Chickering's specimens that have been found
at NCU are from Roan Mountain, Mitchell County, North Carolina
and were collected in June and July of 1880.
J. W. Chickering, Jr. was born Bolton,
Massachusetts (USA) in 1831. He received an A.B. in 1852 and an
A. M. in 1855 from Bowdoin College in Maine (USA). Chickering
was a founding member of the Portland Society of Natural History
in 1843, and served as the Society's second president from 1849
to 1851.
On November 24, 1843, some 24 Portland luminaries met at Mr.
Stearn's schoolhouse on Free Street for the purpose of organizing
an investigative society to study Nature. Those in attendance
were already well known in Maine and in other parts of New England.
They included the Hon. Ether Shepley, Rev. John White
Chickering, Edward Gould, John Neal, Dr. Jesse Wedgwood
Mighels (pronounced "Miles"), Henry Quincy, Dr. William
Wood, and Dr. Augustus Mitchell ... It was decided that evening
that a natural history organization should be established in the
city of Portland. Within a month, the Society found a home in
the Merchants Exchange Building on Middle Street. The group was
incorporated in 1850 as the Portland Scoiety of Natural History.
(10, p. 3).
Ether Shepley was chosen as president
of the newly organized PSNH from 1843 - 1848. Judge Shepley was
both a former US senator and a US attorney for the state of Maine,
as well as a future Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court.
Shepley handed over the presidency to John W. Chickering,
minister of the High Street Congregational Church. Unlike Shepley,
who was considered an armchair naturalist, Chickering was very
active in the field, having climbed Mount Katahdin in 1850 and
again in 1858. He collected a number of alpine plant specimens
from the summit of Katahdin in 1850 that are still housed in herbaria
at the Smithsonian Institution, New York Botanical Garden, and
the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Chickering also
climbed Mount Washington in 1862 for the purpose of collecting
alpine plant specimens. (10, p. 4)
It is interesting that Edward S. Morse,
curator of PSNH ca. 1866, went on to become the director of the
Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and to found The
American Naturalist. Chickering published frequently
in this journal.
After teaching posts that included Theological Seminary of Bangor
[Maine] (1852-1856), Seneca College Institute (principal 1857-1858;
pastor 1860-1870), and pastorates in Springfield, Vermont and
Exeter, New Hampshire, Chickering became a professor of Natural
Science and Pedagogy at Gallaudet College in 1870. In1884 Chickering
and Prof. J.C. Gordon presented papers on the education of the
deaf to the Section of Economic Science and Statistics of the
American Academy of Arts and Science, an organization in which
he was an active member for many years:
Prof. J. W. Chickering, jun., and Prof.
J.C. Gordon of the National deaf-mute college, Washington, read
papers upon the condition of deaf-mutes and deaf-mute instruction.
Deaf-mutes average 1 in 1,500 of the world's population. In the
United States there were 33,878 reported by the last census. Over
15,000 have received an education, and are engaged in the ordinary
pursits of life, 12,000 are of school age, and from 1,000 to 2,000
are uneducated adults. There are fifty-eight schools and one college,
for this class, in this country. The usefulness of the educated
and the pitiful condition of the uneducated were described by
Professor Chickering. Proceedings
of the Section of Economic Science and Statistics. Science 4 (87):
346-348. (October, 1884)
It is interesting to note that Chickering
was a co-author with North Carolina botanist Gerald McCarthy who
was deaf. (For more information about Gerald McCarthy, see Troyer,
J.R. (1999) Stopped ears, open mind: Gerald McCarthy (1858 - 1915):
North Carolina botanist. J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. 115 (4):
201-212.)
Chickering spent 29 years at Gallaudet,
and retired in 1899 (1, 2).
CHICKERING'S BOTANICAL WORK
Chickering seems to have been particularly
interested in alpine plants. Eastman (10) refers to Chickering's
expeditions to Mount Katahdin in 1850 and 1858. In 1880 he ventured
to Roan Mountain in Mitchell County, North Carolina. This summer
on Roan Mountain was a highpoint in Chickering's botanical career,
as he published descriptions of several new taxa he found there.
Three years ago a party of fifteen
from the Nashville meeting of the American Association [American
Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS] made the ascent
[of Roan Mountain], by invitation of Gen. WIlder, the owner of
the mountain, and the writer [Chickering] collected largely at
that time. During the past summer an almost continuous scientific
convention has been informally assembled on the summit; Profs.
Goodale and Gibbs of Harvard; Prof. T. C. Porter of Easton; Dr.
Leidy and Messrs. Thos. Meehan and Joseph Wilcox of Philadelphia;
Capt. J. Donnell Smith, of Baltimore; Profs. Phillips and Symonds,
of Chapel Hill, and Mrs. Geo. Andrews, of Knoxville, being of
the number, so that not only the plants but the minerals, the
rhizopods, the mollusks and the meteorology were all looked after.
J.W.
Chickering (1880) A Summer on Roan Mountain. Botanical Gazette
5 (12): 144-148.
Roan Mountain Rattlesnakeroot (Asteraceae),
was originally named Nabalus roanensis Chick., and was
published in 1880 in Botanical
Gazette
5: 155. "Found sparingly on the summit of Roan mountian,
N.C., growing in the clefts of precipices," notes Chickering
in his description of the plant. The lectotype is found in US.
This plant is now known as Prenanthes roanensis (Chick.)
Chick.
Blue Ridge Three-lobed Coneflower,
Rudbeckia rupestris Chick. was published in 1881 in Coult.
Bot. Gaz.vi: 188. This plant is found in Kentucky,
Tennessee and North Carolina, and is now known as Rudbeckia
triloba L. var. rupestris (Chickering) Gray.
Roan Mountain Bluet, Houstonia purpurea
L. var. montana Chick. is now considered to be a nomenclatural
synonym of Houstonia montana Small. NCU has
one specimen that Chickering collected on July 5, 1880, from an
altitude of 6,200 feet on Roan Mountain (NCU Accession number
30114). According to Weakley (7), this plant grows "in crevices
of rock outcrops at the summits of high elevation peaks of the
Southern Blue Ridge, also in thin, frost-heaved, gravelly soils
of grassy balds, near summit outcrops, from 1250-1950 m in elevation...
This species is endemic to the high Blue Ridge of northwestern
North Carolina and northeastern Tennessee, notably occurring on
Roan Mountain, Grandfather Mountain, Bluff Mountain, and Three
Top Mountain." It is listed as a federally endangered plant.
Chickering wrote of his botanical
explorations in several scholarly journals (see PUBLICATIONS,
below), and also presented his findings to a more general audience
of a meeting of the Appalachian Mountain Club, held June 14, 1882
in Boston, where he presented "Roan mountain notes"
(9). In 1888 Chickering was one of four lecturers for the Amateur
Botanical Club of Washington:
A WINTER course of four lectures before
the Amateur Botanical Club of Washington was as follows: Prof.
Miles Rock on the Guatemala forests, Prof. J.W. Chickering on
the flora of Alaska, Prof. Edw. S. Burgess on the fresh-water
algae of the District of Columbia, and Dr. George Vasey on some
important medical plants. The club is in a prosperous condition,
having forty members and a good attendance at its regular meetings.
Notes and News. Botanical Gazette 12 (2): 46-48.
Chickering
was listed as "Chickering, Prof. J.W., D.C. [District of
Columbia]" in the Botanical Directory for North America and
the West Indies of 1873 (6).
It seems that Chickering had wide interests,
for he took note of not only botanical matters, but zoological
and geological as well. In 1854 he privately printed "List
of Marine, Freshwater, and Land Shells Found in the Vicinity of
Portland, Maine" (3). The list contained 20 land snail taxa
(4). Chickering's collection of 1,500 shells was given to the
Gallaudet College museum, but was later donated to the Smithsonian
Institution (2). In 1879 "Prof. John W. Chickering, Jr. gave
a desciption of the newly descovered cave at Luray, Page county,
Va., which he said surpassed the Mammoth cave in beauty and in
the size of some of its chambers, and was inferior only in total
extent" (8).
PUBLICATIONS
Chickering, J. W., Jr. (1854) List of marine,
freshwaster, and land shells found in the vicinity of Portland,
Maine. Double sheet. Privately printed by the author. [reproduced
on pp. 243-245 of Bibliography of North American conchology previous
to the year 1860, by W. G. Binney (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections,
Vol. 5, 1864].
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1869) The
flowers of early spring. The American Naturalist 3 (3): 128-131
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1870) Our
native trees and shrubs. The American Naturalist 4(4): 214-218.
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1871) What
I found at Hampton Beach. The American Naturalist 5 (6): 356-360.
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1872) Botany
forty years ago. The American Naturalist 6 (8): 485-487.
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1873) The
flora of the Dismal Swamp. The American Naturalist 7(9): 521-524.
Chickering, J.W. (1876) Catalogue of the alpine and sub-alpine
flora of the White Mountains of N.H. [New Hampshire]. Field and
Forest, Vol. ii, Washington.
Chickering, J.W. (1876) Field notes in New England. Field and
Forest, Washington, D.C. [September, 1876, precise citation unknown;
found in Botanical Bulletin 1 (12): 51].
Chickering, J.W. (1878) Catalogue
of phaenogamous and vascular cryptogamous Plants collected druing
the summers of 1873 and 1874 in Dakota and Montan by Dr. Elliott
Coues; with which are incorporated those collected in the same
region at the same times by Mr. G. M. Dawson. IN: Bull. U.S. Geol.
and Geog. Surv, 1878, Vol. iv, No. 4. Washington, D.C.
Chickering, J.W. (1880) A
summer on Roan Mountain. Botanical Gazette 5 (12): 144-148.
Chickering, J. W. (1880) Nabalus
Roanensis, n. sp. Botanical Gazette 5 (12): 155
Chickering, J.W. (1881) Notes
on Roan Mountain, North Carolina. IN: Philosophical Society
of Washington, Science 2(33): 62-63.
Chickering, J.W. (1881) Prenanthes
(Nabalus) Roanensis. Botanical Gazette 6(3):
191.
Chickering, J.W. (1881) Rudbeckia
rupestris, n. sp. Botanical Gazette 6 (3): 188-190.
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1882) The
Canadian flora. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 9(11):
140. [Here, Chickering lists his address as "Deaf-Mute College,
Washington, D.C.]
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1888) Queries:
Are bats diurnal? Science 12(290): 96.
Chickering, J.W., Jr. (1888) Some
Maine plants. Botanical Gazette 13 (12): 322.
Smith, John Donnell, Isaac C. Martindale, J. W. Chickering, Jr.,
Chas. E. Bessey, A. W. Chapman, R. I. Cratty, J. D. Davis, Chas.
F. Johnson, C. E. Smith, and Gerald McCarthy (1886) Specimens
and specimen making. Botanical Gazette 11 (6): 129-134.
Chickering, J.W. (1894) The
botanical landscape. Science 23 (578): 118-119.
Other herbaria that the Harvard University
Herbaria database (5) lists as possessing specimens by Chickering
include:
CGE (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, U.K.)
F (Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA)
GH (Gray Herbarium, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)
MO (Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, USA)
NY (New York Botanical Garden, New York, USA)
P (Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France)
PH (Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)
POM (Pomona College, Claremont, California, USA)
TENN (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA)
WELC (Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA).
Sources:
1. Stafleu, Frans A. and Richard S. Cowan. 1978-1988. Taxonomic
Literature: a selective guide to botanical publications and collections
with dates, commentaries and types, 2nd edition. Utricht: Bohn,
Scheltema & Holkema.
2. Gallaudet Almanac. Washington, DC: The Gallaudet College Alumni
Association, 1974. page 231.
3. Chickering, J. W., Jr. 1854. List of marine, freshwaster, and
land shells found in the vicinity of Portland, Maine. Double sheet.
Privately printed by the author. [reproduced on pp. 243-245 of
Bibliography of North American conchology previous to the year
1860, by W. G. Binney (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections,
Vol. 5, 1864].
4. Martin, Scott M. 2000. Terrestrial snails and slugs (Mollusca:
Gastropoda) of Maine. Northeastern Naturalist [Humboldt Field
Research Institute].
5. http://cms.huh.harvard.edu/databases/botanist_index.html
6. Anon. (1873) Botanical Directory for North America and the
West Indies. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 4(11): 49-53.
7. Weakley, Alan S. (2007) Flora
of the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia and Surrounding Areas,
Draft of Jan. 1007. University of North Carolina Herbarium, North
Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill, NC.
8. Geology
and Paleontology. The American Naturalist 12 (11): 719.
9. Scientific news. The American
Naturalist 17(1): 116-118.
10. Eastman, L.M. (2006) The Portland Society
of Natural History: The rise and fall of a venerable institution.
Northeastern Naturalist 13 (Monograph 1): 1-38.
Special thanks to the following individuals for providing information
on J.W. Chickering, Jr.:
Jane Rutherford, Reference & Instructional Librarian of Gallaudet
University
Scott Martin, for information on Chickering's zoological interests
and for providing a reprint of Eastman (2006).
