The man with dog and gun could answer all questions; was the only encyclopedia the collector had to consult; the formulator of scientific facts desired no other, could ask for no better. The Doctor in early days, was a man of science and literary attainments. And his avocation brought him in contact with the hunter and his valuable collections, observations and investigations, and in this way became the safety deposit of facts relating to natural history and collateral branches; in fact, the medical profession constituted a small army of zealous collectors and investigators—such men as Doctor Ezekiel Porter, president of the first medical society in Ohio; Doctors Eliphas Perkins, John Cotton and Samuel P. Hildreth, of Washington County; Doctors Ebenezer Bowen, Chancy F. Perkins and Columbus Bierce, of Athens County; Doctors Robinson and James S. Hibbard, of Meigs; Doctors Felix Reignier and J. G. Hamlin, of Gallia; Doctor Giles S. B. Hempstead, of Scioto; Doctor Alexander M. Millan, of Morgan; Doctor Joseph Whipple, of Hocking; Doctor Joseph Scott, of Madison; Doctor Ezra Chandler, of Muskingkum; Doctor Jared P. Kirtland, of Cuyahoga, and others equally well known and respected in other parts of the country and who were equally identified with the history of the state.
To Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth we owe the first extended and connected account of the geology of the Ohio Valley. His published notes on the salt springs and interesting observations on the coal deposits, with descriptions of the rocks, fossils, organic remains, illustrated by drawings of plants and shells, constitutes one of the most comprehensive documents that has ever been made of the geology of the state. And it was through his influence the legislature took steps for a geological survey, which was ordered March 27, 1837, with a corps composed of doctors chiefly—Professor W. W. Mather, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, Dr. John Locke, Dr. C. Briggs, Col. T. W. Foster, and Col. Charles Wittlesey.
Dr. Kirtland was a model specimen of those noble men with great hearts, clear heads and diligent hands. He was no closet naturalist, but a student of nature in its full degree. In 1829, while studying the unios or fresh-water mussels, he discovered that authors and teachers of conchology had made nearly double the number of species which are warrantable. Names had been given to species in which was only a difference of form due to males and females of the same species. The fraternity of naturalists in the United States and Europe were astonished because of the value of the discovery and the source whence it came. There were hundreds and probably thousands of professors who had observed the unios and enjoyed the pleasure of inventing new names for the varieties. “A practicing physician in the backwoods of Ohio had shattered the entire nomenclature of the naiads.”[10]
At the Cincinnati meeting of the American Association in 1852, Professor Kirtland produced specimens of unios of both sexes, from their conception through all stages to the perfect animal and its shell. Agassiz was present and sustained his views, and said they were likewise sustained by the most eminent naturalists of Europe.[11] And it is worthy of remembrance that it is only those who base their conclusions on observed nature that make permanent reputations, and show that theory and discussion do not settle any thing worthy a place in science.
The field was long and wide as it was inviting to the man of science. And the large corps of medical men dispersed over the state, working in concert with each other, and in daily contact with the observing hunter, constituted an academy of science that will not likely ever find its parallel in enthusiasm, character and efficiency. The country was so healthy that the practice of medicine was limited and unremunerative, and the doctor who carried a gun and whistle for a dog often had much of his time and attention taken up with things other than squirrels. He conversed with intelligent hunters, and listened attentively to all they had to say, and then investigated their statements of every thing in turn, from the habits and life of the black ant, that relieves the beasts and birds from annoying ticks, up to the most perplexing questions in natural history. His shelves were loaded with mineral and archæological specimens; his cases glistened with the bright plumage of rare taxidermic birds; his drawers filled with oological information; and every rare plant, tree and shrub accurately drawn and classified, with the fruits and flowers indigenous to different parts of the state, received attention and preservation.
And the question may be suggested, Where did all this wealth of thought and investigation, scattered over the state, go to?
The answer is found in the collections of nearly every natural history society in the United States—in the geological surveys of the state, and in the everlasting records made by Thomas Nuttall, John J. Audubon and Alexander Wilson. These noted authors with pens, pencils and brushes were in the new world collecting facts—each independent of the other. Nuttall, to make a compendious and scientific treatise on ornithology, hoping to produce it at a price so reasonable as to permit it to find a place in the hands of general readers. Audubon marked out his designs on a much larger and more expensive scale—to give the exact size, coloring, etc., of the birds and botany indigenous to the country. This required double elephantine sheets, three feet three inches long, by two feet two inches wide, to accommodate figures of the large birds. Exactness was a prominent feature in making this descriptive history. The eye was never trusted for size; every portion of each object—the bill, the feet, the legs, the claws, the very feathers as they projected beyond each other, were accurately measured. These full-size drawings were engraved and artistically colored by hand, according to the pattern drawings and colorings made by the author’s pencil and brush. Collecting and formulating the material for the four hundred plates, required six year’s labor in the unbroken forests, and the publication handicraft twenty more in a foreign country. It was nevertheless completed and will forever remain as pronounced, by the immortal Cuvier, “The greatest monument ever erected by Art to Nature.”
Alexander Wilson also contemplated nature, as nature is, and communed with her in her sanctuaries. In the forests, mountains and shores, he sought knowledge at the fountain head.
The observations and records made by these collectors are the corner stones of natural history of the United States, and their writings and illustrations will be consulted when other books on the subject have passed to oblivion. Still it can not be claimed that all valuable observations have been or ever will be registered; nor that collectors did not obtain much of their vast stores of information from pioneer residents, as the acknowledgment of this fact is so often met with in their works. These authors compliment the medical profession, who in turn refer to the pioneers, students and professors in natural history—the “Squirrel Hunters.”