Michael Schuck Bebb

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Schuck_Bebb

Biography of Michael Schuck Bebb by Walter Deane in Botanical Gazette, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Feb., 1896), pp. 53-66

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2464314?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Photo of grave marker: The Dark Poet at Find A Grave

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184665425/m.-s.-bebb

Wilkins Family Tree:

http://www.wuelzer.com/familytree/Wilkins/MichaelShuckBebb.html

One of the five children of William and Sarah Schuck Bebb was Michael Schuck Bebb, who was born December 23, 1833 ; he grew up in Hamilton, where he began the study of botany in which sub- ject he became distinguished. The lad was seventeen when Governor Bebb moved his family to his five thousand acre estate in Illinois which he named Fountaindale ; Michael helped his brother-in-law drive a herd of short-horn cattle four hundred miles into Illinois, and the country over which they traveled opened up a new flora to the youth. Michael attended Beloit College at Beloit, Wisconsin, and his interest and enthusiasm in botany increased with the years. In 1857 he married Catherine Josephine Hancock, a connection of the celebrated Massachusetts family of that name; he and his wife lived in various sections of Illinois, where he made large collections of plants. He made a trip east in 1859 when he met the celebrated botanist,. Dr. Asa Gray, and attended the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Springfield, Massachusetts.

Michael Bebb, with his wife and two children, moved to Wash- ington, where he was employed in a government office; although leading a busy life through the war years, he pursued his favorite subject. He corresponded with and became the friend of many of the eminent botanists of the country. In 1867 the Michael Bebb family moved to Illinois to live on the Fountaindale estate which Gov- ernor Bebb had acquired. The venture was not always a success financially, but it gave Mr. Bebb an opportunity to develop into one of the noted botanists of the United States. He became the outstanding authority on Salix, and in 1873 he had a herbarium of 15,000 species, illustrated by more than 30,000 specimens.

Three varieties of willow were named for Michael Bebb by emi- nent scientists; in 1895, Prof. Charles Sprague Sargent of Harvard described him as "the learned, industrious and distinguished sali- eologist of the United States to whom, more than to any one else of this generation we owe our knowledge of American willows.

Excerpt from "Robert Bebb," (biography of Robert Bebb 1863-1942) by Carolyn Thomas Foreman, in Chronicles of Oklahoma

https://archive.org/stream/chroniclesofokla2119okla/chroniclesofokl...