THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 191 



THE MELSHEIMER FAMILY AND THE MELSHEIMER 



COLLECTION. 



BY DR. H. A. HAGEN, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



The Melsheimers have been considered by Th. Say to be the fathers 

 of Entomology in the U. States. Nevertheless very little is known about 

 them, and that little is not perfectly accurate. In fact, concerning the 

 older Melsheimer there exists only a note in A. W. Knoch's " Neue 

 Beitraege zur Insectenkunde," 1801, p. 18, and concerning his second son 

 only the necrology by the late Dr. John L. LeConte in the Proc. Acad. 

 Nat. Sci. Phil., 1873, p. 257, reprinted in the Can. Ent., vol. vi., 1874, 



P- 39- 



Through the courtesy of Dr. Geo. H. Horn, the manuscript diary of 



Dr. Carl Zimmerman is before me, which contains the following state- 

 ments : — 



" From York, Pa., I walked 18 miles to the S. W. to Hanover, where 

 I arrived Jan. 7, 1834. Introduced to a Mr. Lange, the owner of the 

 only press in the town, and editor of the Hanover Gazette, I was 

 informed that the older Melsheimer died 20 years ago. Mr. Lange had 

 been well acquainted with him, and the widow and several children are 

 still living in the town. The following I copied out from the obituary in 

 the Hanover Gazette at the time of Melsheimer's death : — 



" ' Friedrich Valentin Melsheimer, minister of the Evangelic-Lutheran 

 Church in Hanover, died June 30, 1814, in consequence of a lung disease 

 of 30 years duration, 64 years, 10 months and 7 days old. He was born 

 Sept. 25, 1749, at Negenborn, in the dukedom of Brunswick. His father, 

 Joachim Sebastian Melsheimer, was superintendent of forestry to the 

 duke. F. V. Melsheimer was sent in 1756 to school in Holzminden ; in 

 1769 he went to the university in Helmstsedt. He received, 1776, the 

 appointment as chaplain to a regiment, which he accompanied to America, 

 and arrived July ist in Quebec. In 1779 he came to Bethlehem, Pa., and 

 married, June 3, Mary Agnes Man, by whom he had 11 children. From 

 August 19, 1789, he was minister in Hanover, Pa.'" 



Dr. Zimmermann called on Mrs. Melsheimer, and was told by her and 

 her daughter that after his death his eldest son, Johann Friedrich Mel- 

 sheimer, succeeded his father as minister, whose love for natural history 

 he had inherited, together with his collection and library. This J. F. 

 Melsheimer is the entomologist quoted so often by Th. Say. The year of 



