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Collectors of the UNC Herbarium
Thomas Grant Harbison
(1862-1936)
Thomas Grant
Harbison was born in Union County, Pennsylvania on April 23, 1862.
He attended college during vacations, never actually being registered
for a continuous year. Most of his classes were taken at nearby
Bucknell University, but he also took short courses at the University
of Norway and the University of Leipzig. He learned much from
his own reading and owned a library of over one thousand volumes
by the time he was twenty-one. He earned his B.S., A.M., and Ph.D.
degrees through correspondence courses.
A formative event in Harbison's
youth was a walking tour of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
They carried a bag of ground wheat and a tin of brown sugar and
survived almost entirely on these rations throughout the trip.
While visiting Highlands, NC on this excursion, he apparently
impressed the residents with his knowledge so much that they later
asked him
to return as a school principal. |
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He served in some educational capacity
at Highlands from 1886 to 1896, with the exception of a trip to
Europe to study educational systems in 1893-94. In 1896 he married
Miss Jessamine M. Cobb, descendent of John Cobb, who built and
operated the first iron foundry in America.
The botanical work for which Harbison is
best known began in 1897 when he became a collector for the Biltmore
Herbarium of the George W. Vanderbilt estate. He was employed
in this capacity until the disbanding of the herbarium in 1903.
In his next job, he worked under C. S.
Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum and was charged with the collecting
of southern woody plants. His association with the University
of North Carolina Herbarium began in 1933 when he was asked to
help organize the W.W. Ashe Herbarium. The following year he was
appointed Curator of the Herbarium, a post which he held until
his death in 1936. Harbison was a close friend and frequent correspondent
of Ashe. Both of their herbaria are now housed at UNC.
"In his last illness, Mr. Ashe wrote
to Mr. Harbison, asking him in case of his death, to assist Mrs.
Ashe in disposing of the Ashe Herbarium, and also expressed the
hope that it could be secured by the University of North Carolina.
It must be a considerable satisfaction to botanists everywhere
that Mr. Harbison's own collection at Highlands has also since
his death been secured by the University of North Carolina, and
that the private collections of both of these men are to be found
together in the same Herbarium, where they will continue to assist
the present and later botanists in a way comparable to the assistance
their collectors so freely gave to others while in life."—Coker,
Totten, & Oosting in Harbison's obituary
Reliquiae
This image shows a letter written by Harbison
to Ashe. It may be clicked on to view a larger image. The Southern Historical Collection
at UNC contains a number of letters addressed
to Harbison from Charles Sprague Sargent.
Bibliography
Harbison was not a voluminous writer. His
contributions to botany were more through teaching and collecting.
His known publications are listed below:
New or Little Known Species
of Trillium. Biltmore Botanical Studies 1(1):
19, 1901 and 1(2): 158, 1902.
A Sketch of Sand Mountain
Flora. Biltmore Botanical Studies 1(2): 151. 1902.
Notes on the Genus Hydrangea.
American Midland Naturalist 11: 255, 1928.
Polycodium Ashei Harbisoni.
Midland Naturalist 22: 179, 1930.
Symplocos tinctoria Ashei,
a new Dyebush from the Southern Mountains. Journal of the
Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 46: 218, 1931.
A Preliminary Check-List
of the Ligneous Flora of the Highlands Region, North Carolina.
Highlands Museum and Biological Laboratory Publication no.3,
1931.
The bibliography and most of the above
biographical information is derived from an obituary notice written
by H. R. Totten, W. C. Coker, and H. J. Oosting which appeared
in the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society,
December, 1936
This page was constructed by Ron Gilmour with
the assistance of Mr. Bill Burk, Mrs. Mary Felton,
Dr. Jim Massey, and Mr. Jim Murphy. Additional information and
corrections are welcome.
  
Curriculum North Carolina UNC
In Ecology Botanical Garden Biology Department
University of North Carolina
Herbarium
CB# 3280, Coker Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280
phone: (919) 962-6931
fax: (919) 962-6930
email: herbarium@bio.unc.edu
Last Updated: 7 June
2004
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