SKETCH OF MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS. 405 



SKETCH OF MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS. 



THE Rev. Moses Ashley Curtis, D. J)., presents the example 

 of a clergyman wlio, doing hard pioneer missionary work in 

 the mountains of North Carolina, and caring actively and effi- 

 ciently for the wants of his parish, brought the botany of his 

 State to a full development. Making that study his pastime and 

 recreation, " he found pleasure in the quiet of the fields and forests, 

 and, without ever a thought of becoming a scientific botanist, 

 amassed a wealth of knowledge and won an exalted position 

 among the botanists of the world." His services to science have, 

 nevertheless, been unaccountably overlooked. Although he was 

 in constant co-operation with the most distinguished specialist in 

 the world on fungi, although he contributed more than any other 

 man to the knowledge of the botany of North Carolina, and par- 

 ticularly of its mountain-region, and was continually consulted 

 and relied upon for information by Dr. Gray and other American 

 botanists, his name does not appear in any cyclopaedia or publicly 

 circulated work. Our data for the present account of his career 

 are derived from a sketch of his botanical work prepared by Dr. 

 Thomas F. Wood, of Wilmington, N. C, and read by him before 

 the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society of the University of North 

 Carolina, in 1885. 



Dr. Curtis was born in Stockbridge, Mass., May 11, 1808, anci^ 

 died in Hillsborough, N. C, in 1872. He was graduated from 

 Williams College in 1827, and in 1830 became a tutor in the fam- 

 ily of Governor Dudley, at Wilmington, N. C. He returned to 

 Massachusetts in 1833, and spent two years in studying for the 

 ministry, under the Rev. William Croswell. He returned to the 

 South in the latter part of 1834, was married in December of that 

 year, and, having continued his theological studies under the Rev. 

 Dr. R. B. Drane, was ordained a clergyman in the Protestant 

 Episcopal Church in 1835. He immediately entered upon mission- 

 work in western North Carolina, from Charlotte to €ie mountain 

 country as far north as Morganton. Leaving this work at the end 

 of 1836, he was engaged as a teacher in the Episcopal school at 

 Raleigh during 1837 and 1838 and till May, 1839. During 1840 

 he performed missionary work about Washington, in Beaufort 

 County; then, in 1841, became settled in Hillsborough for six 

 years ; removed, in 1847, to Society Hill, S. C, where he resided 

 for nine years ; and returned, in 185G, to Hillsborough, which was 

 his home for the remainder of his life. 



The first mention of Mr. Curtis's field studies in botany is as- 

 sociated with his residence and tutorship in Wilmington, where 

 he devoted his leisure hours to the examination of the flora of the 



