Asa Gray - Biography

Biography

Gray was born in Sauquoit, New York in 1810 and became an M.D. in 1831. In 1838, Gray became the very first professor at the newly founded University of Michigan. Appointed the Professor of Botany and Zoology, Gray was dispatched to Europe by the regents of the university for the purpose of purchasing a suitable array of books to form the university's library. His first purchase was a complete copy of Audubon's The Birds of America for the then extraordinary sum of $970.

In 1842, before ever returning to teach a course at Michigan, Gray accepted appointment as professor of natural history at Harvard University, a post he retained until 1873 while living in the Asa Gray House. Through the donation of an immense book and plant collection numbering in the thousands, he effectively created the botany department at Harvard; the Gray Herbarium is named after him. He was President of the AAAS in 1871. In 1859, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences .

He was a pupil of John Torrey, with whom he worked closely; they published the Flora of North America together. The "Elements of Botany" (1836), an introductory textbook, was the first of Gray's many works.

Gray traveled to the American west on two separate occasions, the first in 1872 and then again with Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1877. Both times his goal was botanical research: he avidly collected plant specimens to bring back with him to Harvard. On his second trip through the American west, he and Hooker reportedly collected over 1000 specimens. They were accompanied for a time by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, then in charge of the U.S. Geological and Geophysical Survey of the Territories. Gray and Hooker's research was reported in their joint 1882 publication, "The Vegetation of the Rocky Mountain Region and a Comparison with that of Other Parts of the World," which appeared in volume six of Hayden's Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geophysical Survey of the Territories.

On both trips he climbed Grays Peak, one of Colorado's many fourteeners. This mountain was named after Gray by the botanist and explorer of the Rocky Mountains Charles Christopher Parry, who was likely a student of Gray's at Harvard.

In 1880 David P. Penhallow was accepted by Gray as a research assistant. Penhallow aided in Grays work regarding the distribution of northern hemisphere plants, and in 1882 Gray recommended Penhallow as a lecturer to Sr John Dawson of McGill University in Montreal.

Gray was a member of First Church in Cambridge, where he served as a Deacon. When the congregation moved into its present building in 1872, at 11 Garden Street, Gray planted two Cladrastis trees in front of the church that still stand today.

He died in 1888 and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. The cemetery's Asa Gray Garden, with a central fountain and numerous usual tree varieties, is named in his honor.