ALVIN WENTWORTH CHAPMAN. 
WILLIAM TRELEASE. 
Dr. ALVIN WENTWORTH CHAPMAN, whose Flora of the South- 
ern United States has been the only handbook at all useful for 
a study of the botany of that interesting region for the past 
thirty years, died at his home in Apalachicola, Florida, on the 
sixth of April. 
No name has been so familiar to the present generation of 
botanists in the South Atlantic region as that of Dr. Chapman, 
and yet few botanists now living 
ever saw him. In the Inter- 
esting little city at the mouth of 
the Apalachicola River, where he 
died, far removed from railroads 
and the bustle of great manufac- 
tures and commerce, he lived a 
life of seclusion for over half a 
century ; and as he rarely traveled, 
and the slowness of river and bay 
transportation make a journey of 
several days necessary from even 
the nearer gulf and coast cities 
before his home is reached, few 
visitors found their way to him. 
As a correspondent, even, he was 
known to relatively few now living. And yet by those who 
knew him personally, or through his letters, he was beloved to 
an unusual degree. 
Though a resident of Florida since 1835, Dr. Chapman was 
originally a New Englander. He was born at Southampton, 
Mass., Sept. 28, 1809. He graduated at Amherst in 1830, and 
passed the next few years as a teacher in Georgia and North 
Carolina. His medical education was completed in Kentucky, 
643 
Atvin WENTWORTH CHAPMAN. 1809-1899. 
