JOHN MITCHELL 



1 680?- 1 768 

 Mitchella repens — LINNAEUS 



Much research into old biographical and bo- 

 tanical works resulted in failure to find in any de- 

 tails of John Mitchell's early life. Scotch by 

 name, he may also have been a reservist of an 

 ultra-Scotch type and told little of his life to his 

 American friends. Three letters in the Corre- 

 spondence of Linnaeus show him to have been a 

 fellow of the Royal Society, and, piecing other 

 items together, it is certain that he was born and 

 educated in England and did take a medical 

 degree. 



About 1700 he came over to America, settling 

 on the Rappahannock River, near Richmond, 

 Virginia, being one of the earliest chemists and 

 physicists in this country. It is assumed that he 

 practised medicine, and the amount of writing on 

 botanical and other subjects may have been the 

 result of unusually healthy neighbors and much 

 leisure. His Dissertatio brevis de Principiis Bo- 

 tanicorum was dated Virginia, 1738, and dedi- 

 cated to Sir Hans Sloane. Three years later 



33 



