SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONSVOLUME 95, NUMBER 8THOMAS WALTER, BOTANIST
BYWILLIAM R. MAXONU. S. National Museum
(Publication 3388)
APR 22 1936
CITY OF WASHINGTONPUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONAPRIL 22, 1936
1
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONSVOLUME 95. NUMBER 8THOMAS WALTER, BOTANIST
BYWILLIAM R. MAXONU. S. National Museum
(Publication 3388)
CITY OF WASHINGTONPUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONAPRIL 22, 1936
Z^<i £ovi (gaitimovi ^rteeBALTIMORE, MD., U. 8. A.
THOMAS WALTER, BOTANISTBy WILLIAM R. MAXONU. S. National MuseumThe first descriptive treatise upon the flowering plants of anydefinite region in eastern North America, using the binomial systemof nomenclature, is the " Flora Caroliniana " of Thomas Walter,published at London in 1788 by the famous botanical collector JohnFraser, at the latter's expense. This important and historically inter-esting volume, the specimens upon which it is based, Walter's botanicalactivity in South Carolina, and visits by more than one eminent botanistto his secluded grave on the banks of the Santee River have beenthe subjects of several articles, yet comparatively little is known aboutthe man himself. The present notice is written partly with the purposeof bringing together scattered source references, correcting an unusualand long-standing error as to the date of Walter's death, and furnishingdata recently obtained as to his marriages, and partly in the hope thatsomething may still be discovered as to liis extraction, education, andearly life and the circumstances of his removal to this country. Forthe sake of clearness and both general and local interest these pointsmay be dealt with somewhat categorically.Birth and education.—Walter was a native of Hampshire, England,and is known merely to have emigrated " as a young man " to SouthCarolina, where he acquired a plantation on the banks of the SanteeRiver and passed the remainder of his short life. The date of his birthhas been placed doubtfully at 1740. That he was a man of very con-siderable education is obvious from the text of his book, which through-out is written in classical Latin, from the character of his few letters,and from the testimony of his warm friend, Fraser.His home on the Santee.—The Walter plantation lay at the southernedge of the great swamp bordering the Santee River, in the coastalplain. Its location is given sometimes (probably with correctness) asin St. John's Parish, sometimes as in St. Stephen's, but in any case itis within the boundary of present-day Berkeley County. The date ofits acquisition is not known, nor whether it was obtained by purchaseor by original grant. Here, in this prosperous region so well describedby Coker, he lived during the Revolutionary period and its turbulentSmithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 95, No. 8
2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95internecine local warfare the life of a gentleman farmer, botany beingat least an absorbing avocation. Porcher states that Walter's " de-votion to the cause of science led him to the wilds of Carolina ", andit is not difficult for us to accept this as a motive, in spite of the doubtsimplied by Britten. It explains his assiduous study of the flora of theregion, his painstaking analysis of a majority of the species sought out,his laborious preparation (completely isolated though he was) of anerudite " flora " of the region, and the formation of a veritable botani-cal garden upon his estate, where he is said to have brought intocultivation, aside from exotics, a majority of the species described inhis book. According to Coker the plantation became after Walter'sdeath a part of the estate called Mexico and for a long time was ownedby the Porcher family.Marriage and descendants.—Walter was thrice married, the essentialdata being as follows :(i) March 26, 1769, apparently while residing in Charleston, toMiss Anne Lesesne, of Daniels Island,^ who died September 1 1 of thesame year.^ These published data are substantiated by Miss Anne A.Porcher, of Pinopolis, South CaroHna, a great-great-granddaughterof Walter, from records entered in the family Bible.(2) March 20, 1777, to Miss Ann (not Sarah) Peyre, born March26, 1755, the fourth child of Samuel Peyre and Sarah (Cantey) Peyre.According to the published record^ their issue was as follows: (i)Ann Walter, married May 29, 1794, to Thomas Hasell Thomas, ofSt. Stephen's Parish, died April 25, 1818; (ii) Mary Peyre Walter,born in 1780, married August 19, 1800, to Francis Peyre, her cousin,died January 4, 1818. This record is supplemented by Miss Anne A.Porcher to the effect that Ann (Nancy) was one of twins born in 1777,her sister (Polly) dying in October 1779, and that Mary Peyre Walterwas born December 5, 1780, her mother dying in childbirth.(3) Date unknown, to Miss Dorothy (Dolly) Cooper, concerningwhom nothing apparently is of record. Their daughter, Emily, mar-ried Judge Thomas Usher Pulaski Charlton.The record of Walter's numerous descendants was sketched byCoker in 1910, at which time some of the above data apparently hadnot been published, the fact of Walter's earliest marriage being un-mentioned. He refers to a son, Thomas, born of the Peyre marriage,who reached maturity but died (unmarried) before his father. Norecord of this son has been found by Miss Porcher.
' So. Car. Hist. & Gen. Mag. 11 : 37- 1910.
-Ibid. 10: 157. 1909; 16:91. 1915.
^ Ibid. 11: 221, 222, 241. 1910.
NO. 8 THOMAS WALTER, BOTANIST MAXON 3Death and burial.—Walter died January 17, 1789, " of fever ",according to Fraser, or on January 18, 1789, according to SylvanusUrban. Nevertheless, James Britten gives the year as 1788 in hisextended notice, " Thomas Walter (i740?-88) and his Grass ", thoughaccepting from Fraser the month, January, and at the same timequoting freely from two letters which, as he correctly states, wei-ewritten by Walter to Fraser from the Santee on February 18, 1788,and October 9, 1788! These letters are published in full by Fraser.Britten's error has apparently passed unnoticed by all save Dr. JohnHendley Barnhart (1928). It is not typographical, but is an odd in-advertence on the part of one well known for meticulous accuracy inbiographic and bibliographic detail, and is presumably due to Britten'shaving unconsciously accepted the erroneous date inscribed uponWalter's tombstone, now to be mentioned.At his own request Walter was buried on the Santee plantation.His grave was visited by Ravenel in 1856, by Brainerd in 1907, andby Coker in 1910, all of whom published interesting accounts of theregion, the gradual reversion of the estate to forest, and the consequentcomplete neglect of the grave. Each quoted also the inscription uponthe tombstone, which is a slab of white crystalline marble about 6 feetlong, 2 feet 8 inches broad, and 2 inches thick. According to Brainerdthe wording (with a single minor correction) is as follows
:
In memory of Thomas Walter. A native of Hampshire in England and manyyears a resident of this State. He died in the beginning of the year 1788. Aetatiscir. 48 ann. To a mind liberally endowed by nature and refined by a liberaleducation he added a taste for the study of Natural History and in the depart-ment of Botany science is much indebted to his labours. At his desire he wasburied in this spot, once the garden in which were cultivated most of thePlants of his Flora Caroliniana. From motives of filial affection his onlysurviving Children Ann and Mary have placed this memorial.This inscription, according to family records, was written by theSouth Carolina botanist, James Macbride, who died in 1817. Thephrase " his only surviving children ", if true, indicates that the monu-ment must have been erected many years after Walter's death, sinceEmily Walter (Charlton), born of his third marriage, lived to bearthree children, two of whom (sons) survived and left numerousprogeny.* The error, 1788 for 1789, is thus explainable; neverthelessthe erroneous inscribed date naturally found general acceptance.
* Further corroborative evidence is found in the signature below the inscription.According to Miss Porcher this, although the letters are worn, is definitely not" J. H. D.", as given by Brainerd, but " J. Hall." J. Hall was a stonecutter ofCharleston, who erected a number of stones in the vicinity, "all around 1812-1816."
4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95It may here be noted that Walter's grave, after its neglect for morethan a hundred years, has recently (1931) been put in order. Accord-ing to H. R. Dwight, of Pinopolis, it " has been completely restored,with new brick and cement foundation, and the slab repaired and re-placed, and a handsome wrought iron fence, 15 ft. square, with gate,has been placed around it." An excellent photograph substantiatesthis. Mr. Dwight has very kindly sent me also a copy of the inscriptionupon a bronze tablet to Walter recently erected on State Highwayno. 45, at a point where the road to the grave, 3 miles away,branches off.Flora Caroliniana.—Walter's " Flora " is an octavo volume of 263pages (exclusive of title page, dedication, preface, and index), de-scribing upward of 1,000 species distributed among 435 genera. Ofthe former, more than 200 are described as new ; of the latter, 32 areso indicated, but only 4 of these are given distinctive names. Thework is classical and well deserves the attention it has received. It isbased upon studies of specimens collected by Walter within a radiusof 50 miles from his plantation and upon similar material brought himby Fraser, who, according to his own account, landed at CharlestonSeptember 20, 1786, and " having resided in South Carolina andGeorgia nineteen months * * * returned to England in the month ofMarch, 1788." (Fraser's arrival in South Carolina is commonly dated1785, in error.) The preface of the " Flora " bears the date 30 Dec.1787. Fraser took the manuscript to England and published it in 1788,as previously stated. Concerning his own travels and the sources ofWalter's material he. writes most interestingly in the rare folio volumeto which reference is here repeatedly made.Along with Walter's manuscript Fraser carried to England " up-wards of thirty thousand dried specimens of plants " of his own col-lecting and, what is of greater importance to us, the Walter herbarium.The Herbarium remained in the hands of the Fraser family until 1849,when (May 23) it was presented to the Linnean Society of London" by John Fraser, son of John Fraser, the indefatigable North Ameri-can Botanical Collector from the years 1786 to 181 1." It was pur-chased by the British Museum (Natural History) in 1863, at a sale ofthe Linnean Society's " surplus collections ", for the small sum of 15shillings. Upon Asa Gray's inquiry during his first visit to England(1839) it had been found in the possession of John Fraser 2d andwas submitted to Gray for study. It has been examined more or lesscritically by many later American botanists, a number of whom arelisted by Britten. The grasses have been discussed by Hitchcock.But unfortunately the herbarium is in poor condition and must have
NO. 6 THOMAS WALTER, BOTANIST MAXON 5consisted originally of meager specimens, so that its value in theinterpretation of Walter's short descriptions is often slight. Variousdetails as to its labeling and condition, the absence of certain specimens(including many types), the identification of Walter's own species,and his interpretation of earlier species are given by Blake, whosepaper is commented upon by Britten.Eraser's Carolina Grass.—This grass, the subject of Eraser's im-portant folio, is Agrostis pcremmns (Walter) Tuckerman, now knownas " autumn bent ", a widely distributed species of eastern NorthAmerica. The commercial venture entered into by Walter and Fraserof introducing this into general cultivation in England ended dis-astrously, and was cut short by Walter's death.Data sought.—Aside from such information as date and place ofbirth, education, early history, dates of arrival in South Carolina andacquisition of plantation, and the like, all of this unrecorded, it isdesirable surely to know something more of Walter's life in thiscountry and of the man himself than can be gained from his singlepublication, the two letters quoted by Fraser, and the latter's warmeulogy of his friend, whom he knew for so short a time. Dignity,scholarship, conservatism yet independence of judgment, and—aboveall—modesty and persistent zeal are so unmistakably reflected in thelines of his preface to the " Flora " that one earnestly hopes thatdiaries, letters, or contemporaneous accounts or records of some sortmay yet be found, which will shed real light upon the life history ofthis gifted scientist. Why should he have sought seclusion on theSantee? Miss Porcher writes (February 19, 1936): "EvidentlyWalter remained an Englishman to his death. In our family, wheneverhe was spoken of, the fact that he was never naturalized was alwaysstressed. His brothers-in-law, the Peyres, remained Loyalists andwere both put in prison in Philadelphia." Only one signature ofThomas Walter is known to exist, this in receipt of a bill of goods(September 28, 1787) amounting to 115 pounds, 11 shillings, 4 pence.SOURCE REFERENCESThe following list is believed to be nearly complete, except forseveral newspaper articles published in South Carolina
:
Eraser, John1789. A short history of the Agrostis Cornucopiae ; or, the new Americangrass : . . . also, some account of a journey to the Cherokee Nation,in search of new plants. 8 pp., i pi., folio. London.Urban, Svlvanus1789. Eraser's Carolina grass. Gentleman's Mag., vol. 59, pt. 2, pp. 872-873,October.
6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95PORCHER, F. A.1854. Historical and social sketch of Craven County (pp. 388-389). SouthernQuart. Rev., vol. 9, pp. 377-428, April.Ravenel, H. W.1856. In Proc. Elliott Soc. Nat. Hist. Charleston, vol. i, pp. 53-54,November.Gray, Jane LoRiNG (Editor)1893. Letters of Asa Gray, vol. i, pp. 134-136. Cambridge.Sargent, C. S.1897. Silva of North America, vol. 11, p. 132 (footnote).1897. Two southern botanical v^'orthies. Garden and Forest, vol. 10, pp. 301-302, Aug. 4.Hitchcock, A. S.1905. The identification of Walter's grasses. Ann. Rep. AUssouri Bot.Garden, vol. 16, pp. 31-56, Mar. 29.Brainerd, Ezra1907. A visit to the grave of Thomas Walter. Bull. Charleston Mus.,vol. 3, pp. 33-37, April.Barnhart, J. H.1909. Some American botanists of former days (p. 180). Journ. NewYork Bot. Garden, vol. 10, pp. 177-190, August.COKER, W. C.1910. A visit to the grave of Thomas Walter. Journ. Elisha Mitchell Sci.Soc, vol. 26, pp. 31-42, pi. 13, 14.Bragg, Laura M.191 1. Bibliography of the silva of South Carolina. Bull. Charleston Mus.,vol. 7, pp. 9-15, February.Blake, S. F.1915. Some neglected names in Walter's Flora Caroliniana. Rhodora,vol. 17, pp. 129-137, July 10.Gee, Wilson P.1918. South Carolina botanists : Biography and bibliography. Bull. Univ.South Carolina, no. 72, p. 52, September.Britten, James1921. Tliomas Walter (i740?-88) and his grass. Journ. Bot. Brit, andForeign, vol. 59, pp. 69-74, March.Barnhart, J. H.1928. Biographical note (p. 149), in J. K. Small, Botanical fields, historicand prehistoric. Journ. New York Bot. Garden, vol. 29, pp. 149-179, July-