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Botanical Gazette 



Vol. VIII. APRIL, 1883. No. 4. 



Some North American Botanists. 



IV. John Eatton LeConte. 



Fifty years ago the writer of this notice was botanizing in the 

 Pine barrens of New Jersey. While Iris quarters were in the little 

 wayside inn at Quaker Bridge — then a kind of Mecca to which all 

 good botanists were bound to make a pilgrimage — the entire loneli- 

 ness of his sojourn was one day brightened by the arrival of a 

 middle-aged man, of very pleasant demeanor, who came in a pri- 

 vate vehicle from Philadelphia, and who, although then searching 

 for certain insects, was at once seen to be an accomplished botanist. 

 The writer had just found, at Atsion, a little below Quaker Bridge, 

 the plant which we now call Breweria Pickeringii, and it was, with 

 one possible exception, the first time it had been found in the 

 Northern States and before it had been made known from North 

 Carolina. The natural relationships of plants were not well under- 

 stood in those days by youthful botanists; and the discoverer 

 thought he had found a new Solanaceous plant; and was rather 

 surprised when the gentleman told him that it was a Convolvulus. 

 The geutleman was Major LeConte. During several succeeding 

 years the writer, along with his master, Dr. Torrey, used to call in 

 now and then and take tea with Major LeConte, at his house in 

 New York. Mr. LeConte was a widower, with one son, an only 

 child, then a lad, whose actual knowledge of natural history, and 

 whose intense avidity for more, exceedingly interested and amused 

 his older companions, and foreshadowed the entomologist who was 

 to give new eclat to the name he inherited. 



The following sketch, supplied to my hand, succinctly indi- 

 cates the principal points in the genealogy and uneventtul life of 

 the subject of this notice. 



John Eatton LeConte Avas born near Shrewsbury, New Jersey, 

 February 22, 1781:, and died in Philadelphia, November 21, 1860. 

 His residence was partly in New York, where he was educated at 

 Columbia College, partly in Georgia, where his father possessed a 

 large tract of property in Liberty County. His family is of Hu- 

 guenot descent, his ancestor, William, having left Normandy on 

 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to join the army of Will- 

 iam, afterwards King of England. Thence coming to America he 

 settled in New York, about the year 1692. His son, Peter Le- 



