126 BOTANY IN ESSEX COUNTY 



a series of lectures on botany, the first of such given in 

 this part of the country. Dr. Nichols was later one of 

 the founders of the Essex County Natural History Society 

 and its president, and thus has had an important influence 

 upon local botanical work. In 1823, two young men, 

 both destined to be long remembered on account of their 

 contributions to botanical knowledge, began their work in 

 Essex County. These were William Oakes of Danvers, 

 later of Ipswich, and Charles Pickering, then spending 

 much of his time at the homestead of his grandfather Col. 

 Timothy Pickering at Wenham. 



Oakes, disgusted with the law, his chosen profession, 

 became the first critical botanist of the region, and at this 

 time converted Dr. Pickering from conchology, a study 

 he had first chosen, to botany. 



Oakes botanized with Pickering extensively in Essex 

 County, particularly in the Great Swamp, Wenham, a 

 region then almost in its pristine wild ness. Oakes after- 

 wards prepared a list of Vermont plants for Thompson's 

 history of that state, and had in contemplation a work on 

 the plants of New England, which, owing to the appear- 

 ance of Beck's Botany, was never completed. His most 

 elaborate work was a folio volume on White Mountain 

 scenery illustrated by Sprague, which, however, was not 

 published until after his death in 1848. Oakes was impul- 

 sive and generous, and thoroughly in earnest in his favorite 

 study. Like many men of note he was but little appre- 

 ciated while living, yet no monument could have been 

 erected to make his memory more cherished and his labors 

 more resp^cted than that which he left behind : an extensive 

 collection of beautifully prepared botanical specimens de- 

 termined with faultless accuracy, a portion of which formed 

 the nucleus of the present county botanical cabinet now in 

 the hands of the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem. 



