GOTTHILF HEINRICH ERNST MUHLENBERG. 



THE late Prof. J. M. Maisch, in his memorial oration on 

 Muhlenberg as a Botanist,* laid stress upon the frequency 

 with which his name is met in works of descriptive botany as 

 that of the person who first recognized as separate and scien- 

 tifically designated some particular genus or species. Waiving 

 all considerations of credit for priority or of personal fame, 

 the leading aim in all Muhlenberg's botanical work seems to 

 have been to assure the precise and accurate definition of the 

 plant with which he was for the moment dealing. 



Names of the Muhlenberg family are conspicuous in the 

 history of this country. Its founder in America, Pastor Hein- 

 rich Melchior Muhlenberg, who came to Philadelphia by way 

 of Charleston, S. C., in 1742, was known as the patriarch of 

 the Lutheran Church in the United States. His eldest son, 

 Johann Peter Gabriel, also a minister in his earlier life, was a 

 major-general in the Revolutionary War, Vice-President of 

 Pennsylvania, for six years a member of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives of the United States, a United States Senator, and 

 an officer of the revenue. Another son, Friedrich August, who 

 also began his career in the pulpit, was a member of the Con- 

 tinental Congress, a member and Speaker of the Pennsylvania 

 Legislature, and a member of the House of Representatives 

 of the first four Congresses, during two of which he was 

 Speaker. 



The third son, Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, the 

 subject of the present sketch, was born in New Providence, 



* Delivered before the Pioneerverein of Philadelphia, May 6, 1886, and 

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

 also separately. It is the principal source whence we have drawn the matter 

 of this sketch. 



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