92 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



GOTTHILF H. E. MUHLENBERG. 



The late Prof. John M. Maisch, in an address on 

 Muhlenberg as a botanist, * emphasized the frequency with 

 which his name is met in works of systematic character as 

 that of an original describer. 



Members of the Muhlenberg family were conspicuous in 

 the early history of the United States. Pastor Heinrich 

 Melchior Muhlenberg, who came to Philadelphia by way of 

 Charleston, S. C, in 1742, was the patriarch of the Lutheran 

 Church in the United States. His eldest son. Pastor Johann 

 Peter Gabriel, was a major-general in the Revolutionary War, 

 Vice-President of Pennsylvania, a member of the House of 

 Representatives of the United States, a United States 

 Senator, and a well-known revenue officer. Another son, 

 Friedrich August, also a minister of the gospel, was a 

 member of the Continental Congress, a member and speaker 

 of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and a member of the 

 House of Representatives. 



Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, the third son and 

 the botanist and scientist of this distinguished family, was 

 born in New Providence, Montgomery County, Pa., November 

 17, 1753, and died in Lancaster, Pa., May 23, ISlS.f He 

 attended schools in his native place and in Philadelphia, to 

 which city his family removed in 1761. When he was ten 

 years old he went with his brothers to Halle, to finish his 

 studies and prepare for the ministry. After a visit to 

 Einbeck, his father's native place, he entered a school in 



* Delivered before the Pioneer Verein of Philadelphia, May 6, 1886, and 

 published in Dr. Fr. Hoffman's Pharmaceutische Rundschau, June, 1886; also 

 separately. See Popular Science Monthly, XLV, G89. Portraits. 



t See portrait in color. A portrait of him appears in " Pioneers of Science in 

 America," Edited and Revised by W. J. Youmans. Appleton's, 1896, p. 58. 



