Augustus Fendler (1813-1883), Professional Plant Collector: Selected Correspondence with George Engelmann

Abstract

Augustus Fendler, German-American interested in speculative physics, meteorology, and botany, was the first person to collect plants in the area around Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1846. His life can be partly documented through his correspondence with George Engelmann and Asa Gray, both of whom esteemed Fendler's friendship and expertise as plant collector. Many of Fendler's letters to Engelmann were written in German; the originals at the Missouri Botanical Garden have been translated into English by the second author and were used extensively to create the following biography. During the nineteenth century small number of people preferred to seek their livelihood far from the madding crowd chose the arduous life of the plant collector. Although the hardships of this modus vivendi attracted some, the exploration of nature's diversity-and doing so at one's own pleasure -lured most. For Augustus Fendler the quest for plants provided haven for his painfully diffident personality and inquiring mind (Canby, 1885). His philosophy practically coincided with that of his more famous contemporaries, Emerson and Thoreau, as may be seen in Fendler's privately published Mechanism of the Universe and in his letters. Despite his shyness or perhaps because of it, Fendler won the lasting affection of William Marriott Canby, Asa Gray, and George Engelmann. In their own ways these three persons contributed greatly to floristic botany in North America during the 1 800s. Fendler enriched the herbaria of all three as well as those of others purchased sets; of plants from him. The summer following Fendler's birth on 10 January 1813 in Gumbinnen, East Prussia, his father died, but he soon acquired stepfather. Although for some years the boy attended school, he eventually had to leave because his family could not afford the tuition. Apprenticed to the town clerk, he soon found this spirit-killing employment, and when given the opportunity to accompany government physician on an inspection tour of cholera quarantine stations along the Russian border, young Fendler volunteered, even though he had to clerk for the doctor (Canby, 1885). When Fendler returned to Gumbinnen, he learned the tanning trade, hoping that this would allow him to earn living anywhere he might travel. Tanning, however, so exhausted and, at times, nauseated the frail youth that Augustus decided to enroll in the Royal Gewerbe Schule, polytechnical school in Berlin. But after one successful year there, the daily schedule had so drained his strength that in the Fall of 1835 he withdrew. Following period of wandering in German cities, he sailed from Bremen for Baltimore, Maryland, in 1836. With little cash in his pockets he sought and found work in tanyard in Philadelphia, but he quickly abandoned that for lamp manufacturing in New York City, which proved to be more profitable occupation in lean years ahead. However, the money crisis and panic of 1837 so depressed the business that he was forced to quit the factory in the Spring of 1838. Even before the hard times of 1837, Augustus had read of the opportunities to be found in St. Louis and the Far West. After thirty days via canal-boat and steamer from Albany through Buffalo, Cleveland, and Portsmouth, Fendler finally reached the Mississippi city of 13,000 people. He worked for time with man who had just commenced making spirit-gas for lighting public houses, as the manufacture of coal-gas had not reached so far west (Canby, 1885). The prospect of working through the winter in an unheated room so discouraged Fendler, however, that he departed for the South shortly before Christmas in 1838, knapsack on his back. He walked through the forests of southern Illinois, the canebrakes of Kentucky and part of Tennesssee before meeting two other wayfar1 Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213. ANN. MissouRi BOT. GARD. 73: 520-53 1. 1986. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.177 on Wed, 16 Nov 2016 04:25:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1986] STEIBER & LANGE-AUGUSTUS FENDLER 521 ers. The three bought an old skiffjust below the Ohio River's mouth and managed to float good distance before finally sighting steamboat that had broken through the winter ice upriver. His inborn wanderlust urged him westward; so he left New Orleans for Galveston, Texas, in January 1839. Not finding Galveston particularly inviting-he described it as a dozen poor-looking houses scattered about its low and sandy surface (Canby, 1 885)-Fendler tried Houston. He explored the area and almost settled there, which would have been simple under the immigrant land grant law, but he had no interest in fighting Comanches for the right to secure his claim. After he returned from the then unsettled area known as Austin the ravages of yellow fever that greeted him at Houston clinched his decision. His wallet empty and his body fever-weakened, Fendler was forced to retreat north to Illinois, where he taught school for short time. At this time, possessed by particularly acute case of transcendentalism, Fendler wrote in his own autobiography (referring to himself in the third person) something akin to Thoreau's Walden: Autumn in North America, and especially in the Western States, always presented more charms to F.'s mind than any other part of the year. Hence in 1841, when autumn winds began to scatter the falling forest leaves, he was seized with an uncontrollable desire for solitary life in the wild woods, removed from the haunts of man, in short, for the independent life of hermit. In his search for proper place, he came upon little village called Wellington, situated on the banks of the Missouri River, three hundred miles above St. Louis. Here he learned that an uninhabited island, two and half miles long, called Wolf's Island, not very far below the village, was at his service. Without delay, F. packed his little baggage, including some bed-clothes and cooking utensils, rifle, an axe and some books, in canoe, also taking along some provisions, and started for his new home. This island was densely wooded with gigantic trees. On the lower part of it, farthest removed from the village, was an old, dilapidated log cabin, the former abode of some woodchoppers. The upper part of the chimney was gone, so that tall man standing on the outside of it could look down inside upon the low fireplace, from the burrows of which wild rabbits popped forth at the approach of man; part of the roof was gone, and the door carried off. There was plenty of game, however, especially wild turkeys. These latter had chosen the island as roosting place for the night and as place of safe retreat in daytime when chased on the mainland by hunters. In so-called turkey-pen they were easily entrapped, and thus an abundance of excellent food secured. To return the borrowed canoe to its owner and to make one of his own was his first aim. So he went to work at big trunk of prostrate tree, and with an axe shaped part of it into proper form of light canoe eight feet long. Removed from the crowd, the hum and strife of men, his pastimes consisted alternately in trapping, hunting, reading, musing and meditating, and on mild and sunny days in paddling up placid arm of the river, then turning round lean idly back in his canoe, thus floating home again. Occupied in this way F. lived for about six months, enjoying the sweets of solitude with satisfaction of inward peace of mind and bliss higher than he had expected-contented and happy as ever mortal man, similarly situated, can claim to be. His feelings of content would at times culminate into feelings of thankfulness, which then found vent in words akin to the soliloquy of Faust at his forest cave: Spirit sublime! Thou unto me gav'st ev'ry thing I pray for. Only once he met on the island with human being, namely, with its owner, coming to see him. How long F. would have continued to live here is hard to say, if the great spring rise in the Missouri River, which began to overflow part of the island, had not taken place. When its waters rose to within short distance of his cabin he thought 'twas time to leave, and entrusting himself and baggage to his frail canoe, was hurried along at no mean speed by the precipitate rush of the foaming and rapidly swelling stream. Dodging floating logs and broken ledges of ice, he expected every moment to be swamped by the high waves caused by stiff breeze blowing up stream. To land his tiny craft admidst eddies and whirlpools at Lexington, ten miles below the island, was, howThis content downloaded from 157.55.39.177 on Wed, 16 Nov 2016 04:25:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 522 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN [VOL. 73 ever, the most perilous part of the venture