Asa Gray
Asa Gray was an American botanist who was considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution. Gray was a strong supporter of Darwin while at the same time being a proponent of theistic evolution.
As a professor of botany at Harvard University for several decades, Gray regularly visited, and corresponded with, many of the leading natural scientists of the era, including Charles Darwin, who held great regard for him. Gray made several trips to Europe to collaborate with leading European scientists of the era, as well as trips to the southern and western United States. He also built an extensive network of specimen collectors.
A prolific writer, he was instrumental in unifying the taxonomic knowledge of the plants of North America. Of Gray's many works on botany, the most popular was his Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, from New England to Wisconsin and South to Ohio and Pennsylvania Inclusive, known today simply as Gray's Manual. Gray was the sole author of the first five editions of the book and co-author of the sixth, with botanical illustrations by Isaac Sprague. Further editions have been published, and it remains a standard in the field. Gray also worked extensively on a phenomenon that is now called the Asa Gray disjunction, namely, the surprising morphological similarities between many eastern Asian and eastern North American plants. Several structures, geographic features, and plants have been named after Gray.
In 1848, Gray was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Early life and education
Gray was born in Sauquoit, New York, on November 18, 1810, to Moses Gray, then a tanner, and Roxanna Howard Gray. Born in the back of his father's tannery, Gray was the eldest of their eight children. Gray's paternal great-grandfather had arrived in Boston from Northern Ireland in 1718; Gray's Scotch-Irish Presbyterian ancestors had moved to New York from Massachusetts and Vermont after Shays' Rebellion. His parents married on July 30, 1809. Tanneries needed a lot of wood to burn, and the lumber supply in the area had been shrinking, so Gray's father used his profits to buy farms in the area, and in about 1823 sold the tannery and became a farmer.Gray was an avid reader even in his youth. He completed Clinton Grammar School from about 1823 to 1825, in those years reading many books from the nearby library at Hamilton College. In 1825 he enrolled at Fairfield Academy, switching to its Fairfield Medical College, also known as the Medical College of the Western District of Fairfield, in autumn 1826. It was during this time that Gray began to mount botanical specimens. On a trip to New York City, he attempted to meet with John Torrey to get assistance in identifying specimens, but Torrey was not home, so Gray left the specimens at Torrey's house. Torrey was so impressed with Gray's specimens that he began a correspondence with him. Gray graduated and became an M.D. in February 1831, even though he was not yet 21 years of age, which was a requirement at the time. Although Gray did open a medical office in Bridgewater, New York, where he had served an apprenticeship with Doctor John Foote Trowbridge while he was in medical school, he never truly practiced medicine, as he enjoyed botany more. It was around this time that he began making explorations in New York and New Jersey. By autumn 1831 he had all but given up his medical practice to devote more time to botany.
In 1832 he was hired to teach chemistry, mineralogy, and botany at Bartlett's High School in Utica, New York, and at Fairfield Medical School, replacing instructors who had died in mid-term. Agreeing to teach for one year, with a break from August to December 1832, Gray had to cancel his plans for an expedition to Mexico, which at the time included what is now the southwestern United States. Gray first met Torrey in person in September 1832, and they went on an expedition to New Jersey. After completing his teaching assignment in Utica on August 1, 1833, Gray became an assistant to Torrey at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. By this time, Gray was corresponding and trading specimens with botanists not just in America, but also in Asia, Europe, and the Pacific Islands. Gray held a temporary teaching position in 1834 at Hamilton College. Due to funding shortages, in 1835 Gray was obliged to leave his job as Torrey's assistant, and in February or March 1836 became curator and librarian at the Lyceum of Natural History in New York, now called the New York Academy of Sciences. He had an apartment in their new building in Manhattan. Torrey's attempt to get Gray a job at Princeton University was unsuccessful, as were other attempts to find him a position in science. Despite Gray no longer being his assistant, Torrey and Gray became lifelong friends and colleagues. Torrey's wife, Eliza Torrey, had a profound impact upon Gray in his manners, tastes, habits, and religious life.
Career
In October 1836 Gray was selected to be one of the botanists on the United States Exploring Expedition, also known as the "Wilkes Expedition", which was supposed to last three years. Gray began getting paid well for his work preparing and planning for this expedition, even to the point of loading supplies onto a ship in New York harbor. However, the expedition was fraught with politics, bickering, turmoil, inefficiency, and delays. Referring to the Secretary of the Navy, Mahlon Dickerson, Gray wrote of "abominable management & stupidity". Despite this, Gray resigned from the Lyceum in April 1837 to devote his time to the preparations. By 1838 the expedition was in utter turmoil. The new state of Michigan was starting its university, and Gray applied for a professorship in early 1838. He resigned from the Wilkes Expedition on July 10, 1838. In 1848 Gray was hired to work on the botanical specimens, and published the first volume of the report on botany in 1854, but Wilkes was unable to secure the funding for the second volume.On July 17, 1838, Gray became the very first permanent paid professor at the newly founded University of Michigan, although in the event he never taught classes. His position was also the first one devoted solely to botany at any educational institution in America. Appointed Professor of Botany and Zoology, Gray was dispatched to Europe by the regents of the university for the purpose of purchasing a suitable array of books to form the university's library, and equipment such as microscopes to aid research. Botanist Charles F. Jenkins states that the main purpose of this trip was to examine American flora in Europe's herbariums. Gray departed on the packet ship Philadelphia on November 9, 1838, sailing through The Narrows out of New York Harbor nine days before his 28th birthday. Gray and the regents were both involved in stocking the university library. In 1839 the regents purchased a complete copy of Audubon's The Birds of America for the then-extraordinary sum of $970. Gray's first stop was in Glasgow, visiting William Hooker, who aided and financially supported many botanists, including Gray. On January 16, 1839, he arrived in London and stayed until March 14. He then spent time in Paris, where he collaborated with Joseph Decaisne at the Jardin des Plantes. In mid-April 1839 he left Paris for Italy by way of southern France, then visiting Genoa, Rome, Florence, Venice, Bologna, Padua, and Trieste. After Italy, Gray went to Vienna, Austria. While in Vienna, he spent twelve days studying specimen collections and gardens with Stephan Endlicher, who also introduced him to other local botanists. In 1840 Endlicher became director of the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna. Departing Austria, Gray went to Munich, Zürich, and Geneva, where he met the prominent botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, who died in 1841. Gray continued extensive collaboration with deCandolle's son Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle. Gray returned to Germany, going to Freiburg, Tübingen, Dresden, Halle, and then Berlin, where he stayed for a month. While in Berlin, he spent most of his time in Schöneberg, where the region's Botanical Gardens were then located. Gray then returned to London by way of Hamburg. Gray admitted he just managed some of the book purchasing and that he delegated the actual buying of books to George Palmer Putnam, who was then living in London. Gray spent a year in Europe, leaving for America from Portsmouth, England, aboard the sailing ship Toronto on October 1, 1839, and arriving back in New York on November 4. Gray, together with his agents, eventually purchased about 3,700 books for the University of Michigan library. The regents at the University of Michigan were so impressed by Gray's work in Europe, including his spending about $1,500 of his own money on specimen collections, that they granted him another year's salary that covered him until the summer of 1841. However, finances at the university were so bad that they asked him to resign in April 1840.
While he was in Paris at the Jardin des Plantes, Gray saw an unnamed dried specimen, collected by André Michaux, and named it Shortia galacifolia. He spent considerable time and effort over the next 38 years looking for a specimen in the wild. The first such expedition was in late June to late July 1841 to an area near Jefferson, Ashe County, North Carolina. His further expeditions searching for this species were also unsuccessful, including one in 1876. In May 1877 a North Carolina herb collector found a specimen but did not know what it was. Eighteen months later the collector sent it to Joseph Whipple Congdon, who contacted Gray, telling Gray that he felt he had found Shortia. Gray was ecstatic to confirm this when he saw the specimen in October 1878. In spring 1879 Gray led an expedition, in which the collector helped, to the spot where S.galacifolia had been found. Gray never saw the species in the wild in bloom, but made a final trip to this region in 1884.