22 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
THE HERBARIUM OF CHARLES S. SHELDON 
BY HOMER D. HOUSE 
The herbarium of Professor Charles S. Sheldon of Oswego, 
N. Y., was presented to the State Museum during the summer of 
1914. The herbarium represents the botanical activity of a lifetime 
on the part of Professor Sheldon, numbering over 14,000 mounted 
specimens from every portion of the United States, Canada, Mexico 
and Europe. Several valuable exissicati are represented in the 
collection, including Pringle (Mexico), Curtis (Florida), Langlois 
(Louisiana) and several others. 
Professor Charles S. Sheldon was born in Oswego, and received 
his early education in the public and high schools of that city. He 
was graduated from the Oswego Normal School in 1875. The next 
year was spent under Dr James Hall, arranging the State collection 
of minerals at Albany. From 1876 to 1880 Professor Sheldon was 
a student at Cornell University, from which he was graduated with 
honor. While at Cornell Professor Sheldon developed under Doctor 
Prentiss, then professor of botany, a love for the study of botany 
which resulted in the formation of an herbarium destined to become 
one of the largest private collections in the State. 
For the next thirty-four years Professor Sheldon followed the 
profession of teaching, beginning with the public schools of Alexan- 
dria Bay, N. Y. (1881-83), then as head of the science department 
of the Missouri State Normal School at Kirkville, Mo. (1883-93), 
and the chair of biology in the State Normal School at Oswego, 
N. Y. (1893-1914). 
During his years in Missouri, Professor Sheldon spent his sum- 
mers botanizing in the western states and territories, Nevada and 
Utah being the only states not visited. His collections in this region 
represent nearly 1500 different species. After coming to Oswego 
his opportunities to collect became more limited and most of his 
spare moments were devoted to the mounting and systematizing of 
his collections and enlarging his hebarium by means of extensive 
exchanges, until the collection contained close to 20,000 specimens. 
Owing to insect depredations, many specimens were ruined, so that 
the collection at present contains about 15,000 good specimens, 
exclusive of about 300 duplicates. 
