Follow Us
Like Us
Historical records matching Bishop Lewis David de Schweinitz
view all 16
Immediate Family
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
brother
-
-
sister
-
sister
-
brother
About Bishop Lewis David de Schweinitz
Bishop Lewis David de Schweinitz
"Father of North American Mycology"
- Memoir of the Late Lewis David von Schweinitz
- Find A Grave Memorial ID # 68812489
- NCPedia Biography
- Lewis de Schweinitz's Wikipedia Page
- Lewis de Schweinitz Artwork
- Lewis David de Schweinitz Manuscript and Biographical Sketch, Harvard University
Background
Lewis David de Schweinit was born on February 13, 178 at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States, the eldest son of Baron Hans Christian Alexander von Schweinitz of Leubla, Saxony, who came to America in 1770. He changed the German form of his name, Ludwig David von Schweinitz, to Lewis, and sometimes used Louis von or de Schweinitz. His sons adopted the form de Schweinitz. His mother was Anna Dorothea Elizabeth, daughter of Baron Johannes de Watteville and Henrietta Benigna Justina, daughter of Nicholaus Lewis, Count Zinzendorf.
Education
At seven years of age Lewis David was sent to Nazareth Hall, where, during eleven years he was distinguished for his linguistic abilities, his satiric humor, and for his awakening interest in botany. He accompanied his family to Germany in 1798 and entered the Moravian theological seminary at Niesky, in Silesia, where he distinguished himself in theological studies.
Career
Lewis David von Schweinitz continued most ardently his investigations in plant life under the inspiring direction of J. B. de Albertini, with whose assistance he published in 1805 his first work, The Fungi of Lusatia, a volume of four hundred pages in Latin, containing twelve plates showing seventy-three new species, drawn and engraved by von Schweinitz.
He taught at Niesky until 1807 when he began a pastorate of seven years at Gnadenberg. He then served at Gnadau in Saxony until March 1812 when he was appointed general agent of the Moravian Church at Salem, North Carolina. In the midst of the troublous days of the Napoleonic breakdown and the War of 1812, he started with his bride Louisa Amelia Ledoux, daughter of a Huguenot family of Stettin, via Denmark for Sweden in order to embark from a neutral country. The travelers were detained for some months at Kiel where his attainments so impressed the authorities that they conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of philosophy, causa honoris.
After thrilling adventures on the privateer-infested Atlantic they reached New York late in the year and at once set out for Salem. In spite of arduous official duties as administrator of the province and as head of the Salem Academy, he nevertheless found time to explore that uncharted botanical area and to keep up a constant correspondence with experts in England, Germany, and France.
His next work, The Fungi of North Carolina, also in Latin, was published in 1818 at Leipzig, under the editorial care of Dr. D.F. Schwaegrichen. In 1821 he published, at Raleigh, North Carolina, a pamphlet describing seventy-six Hepaticae, of which nine had been discovered by him, and in the same year submitted to the American Journal of Science (1822), a monograph on the genus Viola, naming five new species.
He was offered the presidency of the University of North Carolina which he declined because of the pressure of his work (Popular Science Monthly, 1894). In 1821 he became administrator of the northern province of the Moravian Church and removed to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he continued his botanical researches and diligently advanced his herbarium.
When Thomas Nuttall was called to England and unable to continue the description of the plants collected by Thomas Say on the expedition of Stephen Harriman Long to the Northwest, von Schweinitz completed the task. The catalogue was published in the second volume of W.H. Keating, Narrative of An Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River (1824).
In 1823 he made an analytical table of the genus Carex which he presented to the New York Lyceum of Natural History, and which, having been edited by John Torrey, was published under both names in the Annals of the society, June and October 1825. The American Journal of Science published his "List of the Rarer Plants found near Easton, Pennsylvania. "In August 1824. During his absence at a meeting of the General Synod in Germany, the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia published his description of a new American species of Sphaeriae.
When he returned to America early in 1826 he devoted his attention to his work, A Synopsis of North American Fungi, which he presented, in 1831, to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. An unusual pressure of official duties at this time cut off his out of door exercise, and sedentary work undermined his health. A trip to Indiana in the summer of 1831 to establish a church at Hope was temporarily beneficial, but the cold winter of 1833-34 and certain unfortunate exposures cancelled this gain.
He died in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Achievements
Lewis David von Schweinitz is considered by some the "Father of North American Mycology". His greatest work, A Synopsis of North American Fungi, classifies over 3,000 species of 246 genera of which 1,200 species and seven genera were of his own discovery. In his another famous work, The Fungi of North Carolina, he described over 1,000 species of which 300 were new to science. He bequeathed his collection of plants from all parts of the world, containing 23,000 phanerogams and many thousand cryptogams, to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. A new genus of plant was named Schweinitzia in his honor, and the polypore Phaeolus schweinitzii is named in his honor.
view all
Bishop Lewis David de Schweinitz's Timeline
| 1780 |
February 13, 1780
|
Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States
|
|
| 1816 |
October 26, 1816
|
Winston Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States
|
|
| 1819 |
September 20, 1819
|
Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States
|
|
| 1825 |
March 20, 1825
|
Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States
|
|
| 1828 |
August 16, 1828
|
Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States
|
|
| 1834 |
February 8, 1834
Age 53
|
Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States
|
|
| 1855 |
1855
Age 53
|
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
|
|
| ???? |
Moravian Cemetery, Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States
|