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I am writing this so that I can say I have written in the sandbox. I hope to edit an article about André Michaux.

Early Years

The Marquis de Lafayette noted that André Michaux had risen "from simple farmer to have a name among learned men." Indeed, his origins were modest. Though he was born virtually in the shadow of the palace of the French kings at Versailles, he was no aristocrat, but the child of sturdy farmers on the king's estate. André Michaux obtained a typical eighteenth century education; it was brief and grounded in the classics. Learning Latin and some Greek, he first displayed the remarkable aptitude for languages that would help him throughout his life. Reading Latin classics aroused in him a desire to travel to exotic foreign lands. It is said that his schooling ended at age fourteen when his father took both André and his younger brother from school. The elder Michaux chose to instruct his sons in agriculture, and to inure them to the hardships that were an everyday part of farm life in the eighteenth century.

André Michaux learned his father's lessons well. He developed a marvelous ability to make plants grow and he would endure severe hardships without complaint. In a time when agricultural skills were held in the highest regard, he gained a reputation as a grower of difficult plants. This brought him to the attention of influential officials in the government of King Louis XVI. Nonetheless, André Michaux's life would have been like that of countless other men of his generation had tragedy not struck in the first year of his marriage to Cecile Claye. His young wife died within days after giving birth to their only child. Michaux never considered remarriage; Cecile was the love of his life. Losing her after only eleven months of marriage left him devastated. So strong were the painful memories of his beloved Cecile, that the beautiful forests and fields of home became unbearable. With their young son François André safely in his family's care, a despondent André Michaux sought new horizons.

The king's physician had observed the young man's extraordinary talent for agriculture and he encouraged André Michaux to study botany. Michaux now sought to make himself useful to his country. He would learn botany, then travel to foreign lands with climates similar to that of France, collect their useful plants, and return to naturalize them in his native soil. At first remaining on the farm, he applied himself zealously to his studies and experiments. Eventually he rose to become a student of the celebrated Bernard de Jussieu at Trianon. The foremost French botanist of the age, de Jussieu developed the first natural system of plant classification. Soon, Michaux moved on to Paris to study at the Jardin des Plantes (Garden of Plants), then known as the Jardin du Roi (King's Garden). There he became acquainted with André Thouin and other leading scientists of Paris. The Jardin des Plantes combined features of a great university and a botanical garden. Surrounded by the most brilliant minds in France, Michaux could have found no better place in the world to complete his training. He quickly impressed these men with his desire, energy, and capacity for hard work. Now a trained botanist, he soon realized his childhood dream of visiting exotic foreign lands.

Middle Eastern Adventures

In February 1782, Michaux joined the entourage of Jean François Rousseau, recently appointed Consul to Persia (now Iran), on the journey to take up his post. Travel to Persia included a voyage across the storm-tossed Mediterranean Sea in winter, a journey by camel caravan across deserts inhabited by lawless brigands and hostile tribes, and a boat trip across the Persian Gulf in the midst of hostilities. The travelers arrived safely, but not without life-threatening adventures. Soon separating from Rousseau to carry out his own mission to collect seeds and plants, Michaux's life was in danger many more times during his years in the Middle East. Once, he was captured by a hostile tribe and freed only by the timely intervention of the English Consul at Basra. Nonetheless, his reports are filled with the excitement of discovery, not complaints of difficulties. He had indeed found his life's work.

Michaux's reports and letters from the Middle East give us an indication of the character and strength of the man. He faced life-threatening dangers and endured many hardships, but he carried out his mission without complaining about difficulty or danger. Writing letters to his young son, he omitted the frightening details of his Middle Eastern travels, explaining only that "God had twice rescued him from the greatest danger when no number of men could have." In spite of setbacks and hardships, the botanist focused on his work. The Middle Eastern journey occupied three years as Michaux worked his way across Persia from the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean collecting seeds, plants, and other objects. Returning to Paris in June 1785 with his collections, he asked to be allowed to return to the area so that he might explore the regions of Kashmir and Tibet. Fortunately for North American botany, his superiors in the French government had other plans for this hardy, resilient scientist. His coolness, determination and his accomplishments on the perilous Middle Eastern expedition had earned him an even bigger prize. The North American continent was his to explore!

Mission to North America

Michaux was chosen to lead a scientific mission to the United States. Relations between the two countries were especially warm. French support had been crucial in the American Revolution which had ended only two years earlier. The young United States dispatched its brightest stars to represent America in France. The departing American minister in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, was beloved by the French. Franklin's successor in Paris was Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson dined with Buffon, the superintendent of the Jardin des Plantes, visited the garden and made a lifelong friend in André Thouin. America welcomed a French scientific mission to study American forests and gather plants which would strengthen her European ally.

The primary goal of Michaux's mission was to search American forests for new species of trees with which to rebuild the forests of France. For almost a century, France had been engaged in a series of wars with England. Waging this extended conflict, fought on land and sea from India to Quebec, had stripped the best timber from French forests for the building of warships. Healthy forests were a source of state power and France needed to rebuild her forests quickly. Michaux's mission served a vital national interest. Appointed King's Botanist, Michaux departed immediately, arriving in New York in November 1785. Accompanying the botanist were his 15-year old son François André, Paul Saunier, a young gardener trained by Thouin, and a servant. Michaux immediately established the brisk pace which he would maintain throughout his years in America. He overcame the initial obstacles of bad weather and unfamiliar language and territory to dispatch his first shipment to France almost immediately. The French Consul in New York readily assisted the energetic botanist, even delaying ships leaving port while Michaux's shipments were loaded aboard.

In the ensuing months Michaux established a 30-acre garden near Hackensack, New Jersey and began to travel outside the immediate environs of New York City. Though his journals for this period are lost, his expense reports and some letters survive. He soon visited Philadelphia to call on Benjamin Franklin and meet William Bartram, the leading American botanist of the time. Michaux then continued southward, visited George Washington at Mount Vernon, and traveled as far south as Fredericksburg, Virginia before returning to his New Jersey garden. William Bartram and André Michaux formed a bond of friendship and respect. Each time Michaux visited Philadelphia, he called on Bartram and the botanists began to exchange letters and seeds. In the 1770's William Bartram had made an extraordinary exploration of the southern frontier and it is likely that Bartram's stories of the region and the new plants to be found there at least partly inspired Michaux's subsequent move to Charleston, South Carolina. In September 1786 he left Saunier in charge of the New Jersey garden and sailed with his son to Charleston. There he established a larger garden on 111 acres a few miles outside the city. This garden became his base of operations for the next decade.

Charleston and Wilderness Exploration

The Charleston area suited Michaux's needs. Charleston was a large, wealthy city with a flavor of French culture from its Huguenot community. The French botanist was welcomed and assisted with his work. It was somewhat more difficult to make shipments to France from Charleston than from New York, but there were many offsetting advantages. Michaux quickly developed the garden and became acquainted with the leading citizens in the area. Among others, he visited the Drayton and Middleton plantations, seats of two of the most influential families in the region. Memories of his visits linger not only in diaries and letters, but in gardens. Because, in addition to shipping American plants to France, Michaux also introduced new plants to America. The mimosa or silk tree, Albizia julibrissin, the crape myrtle,Lagerstroemia indica, the tea plant, and the camellia are only some of the plants he is credited with bringing to America. Middleton Place identifies a particularly beautiful camellia as the gift of André Michaux and recently succeeded in propagating this treasured plant. Extended journeys exploring the frontier and collecting plants followed quickly upon Michaux's establishment of the garden in Charleston. His journals for the period from April 1787 onwards do survive and provide a detailed record of his explorations. In the spring of 1787, accompanied by the Scottish botanist John Fraser, he followed Bartram's route up the Savannah river on his first long journey to the southern frontier. Michaux and Fraser soon parted company and Michaux continued into Cherokee territory near the river's headwaters. In this locale he encountered the plant we know today as Shortia galacifolia, a rare species that has been linked with him ever since.

The 1787 journey was Michaux's first exploration deep into the American frontier, but he would return time and again. In all, he ventured into the territory of three fourths of the states east of the Mississippi, the Canadian province of Quebec, and the Bahama Islands. In Spanish Florida, he traveled by dugout canoe, in Canada he traveled by birchbark canoe, but most of his thousands of miles of wilderness travel were in the saddle or on foot. Each day he rode or walked a few miles more, stopping to examine any interesting plant he found in his path. He made the most of each journey, searching for new plants along his route. He found plants new to science not only when he was the first trained botanist to visit an area, but also along well-traveled paths. His friend William Bartram praised his skill in this regard. Bartram remarked that Michaux could find new plants in areas he and his father had already visited. While Michaux was at ease in the drawing rooms of Philadelphia or Charleston, most of his days were spent in far simpler circumstances. He traveled with a minimum of baggage and secured provisions along the way. On the long journey to the Mississippi River, he rode alone, carrying everything he needed on a single horse. The botanist might find hospitality among settlers, but he was ready to sleep under the stars. An incident mentioned in his journal demonstrates both his patriotism and his disregard of personal hardship. Despite his early years in the service of the King, the botanist became an ardent believer in the cause of revolutionary France. Michaux related that he had spent a hungry February night sleeping in the open on his deerskin rather than eat and sleep comfortably indoors with a host who disparaged France. There were many other times in less memorable circumstances when the botanist camped alone in the forest because he was simply near no dwelling when he stopped for the day. The routine hardships of wilderness travel meant nothing to him.

The Proposal to Jefferson and the Genet Affair

Visiting Philadelphia in 1792 after his most ambitious exploration to that time, a trip to the Hudson Bay region of Canada, he proposed an even more ambitious venture to Thomas Jefferson. Michaux offered to explore the sources of the Missouri River and down the rivers that drained into the Pacific Ocean if Jefferson could arrange financing through the American Philosophical Society, a private scientific organization. However, international politics intervened and Michaux's dreams of seeing the Pacific Ocean were thwarted. Instead, the botanist traveled across Pennsylvania and down the Ohio River into Kentucky delivering messages for the new French Minister to the United States, Citizen Genet. As a patriotic French citizen and government employee, Michaux could not have refused the request of his country. Nonetheless, Genet was a poor diplomat and participation in his scheme tarnished Michaux's reputation. Clearly, Genet sought to provoke American citizens to take up arms against Spain. President George Washington insisted upon American neutrality, and was outraged by Genet's intrigues. Genet's plot soon collapsed. However, Thomas Jefferson drew something useful from the incident. The instructions he gave to Lewis and Clark a decade later echo the contract he drew up for Michaux. This unique historic document, which is now on display at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, was not only written by Jefferson, it also bears the signatures of the first four United States Presidents.

Because Michaux's base of operations from 1787 onwards was Charleston, he most frequently traveled in the Carolinas and Georgia. Michaux both made shorter excursions within these states and traversed them enroute to more distant destinations. On his earliest journeys to the high mountains of Carolina, perhaps his favorite area for exploring and collecting plants, he followed William Bartram's route up the Savannah river from the coast to the mountains. However, beginning in 1789 Michaux found his own favorite route to the mountains through the central Piedmont of the Carolinas.

Carolina Piedmont Journeys

Michaux ultimately recorded seven journeys through the Carolina Piedmont crossing the Catawba River in the vicinity of what was then the village of Charlotte. Landsford Canal State Park, SCpreserves the scene of one of his Catawba River crossings just as it would have appeared to the botanist on horseback in 1795. The Tuckaseegee Ford in NC is another of his crossing points that we can locate today. On one of these journeys he chose a route that led him north along the west bank of the river past the future site of the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. Michaux often noted an interesting new species of magnolia tree he found nearby. He observed this new species several times in the Carolina Piedmont, then found it in bloom in the wilderness of Tennessee further west. He named his new species Magnolia macrophylla, but in the early years after its introduction into France many botanists and horticulturists wanted to call itMagnolia michauxii in his honor. It is an unusual tree with an almost tropical look and remains a rare plant in North Carolina. This magnolia's deciduous leaves are two to three feet long and up to a foot wide; its fragrant flowers are up to a to a foot and a half in diameter and are usually marked with a striking purple blotch at the base of the petals. This exotic tree caused a sensation in Europe among those who appreciated plants. Napoleon's Empress Josephine was among the first to have this new magnolia in her garden.

Michaux's expeditions to the mountains of the Carolinas were especially fruitful. In this remote region he ascended many of the highest peaks. To reach the summits of Grandfather Mountain, Roan Mountain, the Black Mountains, the unique peaks of Table Rock and Hawksbill, and many other mountains the indomitable explorer followed his local guides on routes traveled only by hunters. He was well aware of his vulnerability, yet he pressed on. The lure of discovering new plants always drew him onward. Often he was rewarded with new species of rare beauty. Michaux was high in these mountains near the headwaters of the Catawba River when he discovered a magnificent new evergreen shrub with flowers that turned entire mountain peaks into vast oceans of purple blossoms. He named it Rhododendron catawbiense for the river whose waters he had followed to find this treasure. Today, this shrub is known not just for its beauty in the wild places where Michaux found it, but as one of the genetic parents of many of the beautiful hybrid rhododendrons found in gardens.

Return to France

Michaux became an ardent republican proud of his country and its ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, but the revolution also disrupted his work. With disorder at home, he was unable to continue his shipments of plants and seeds. Money for his salary and expenses stopped coming from France. Nonetheless, he continued to work tending the gardens, exploring and collecting and cultivating plants in his gardens in Charleston and New Jersey for eventual shipment to France. With all chances of a trip to the Pacific for Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society long lost, he gathered his meager resources and set out in the spring of 1795 on yet another journey into the frontier alone. Returning almost a year later, having crossed eastern North America to the Mississippi River, all his resources were exhausted and he had to return to France.

Misfortune marked his voyage to France in 1796. The ship was driven ashore on the Dutch coast in a gale. Nearly drowned, Michaux was rescued, but his personal possessions and some boxes of seeds were lost. Part of his journal was also lost and his magnificent herbarium was damaged by salt water. Of course, being Michaux, he immediately set to work repairing the damage to his herbarium. The task required weeks of painstaking work, but this most recent brush with death likely only induced him to work harder and faster. Returning to a Paris very different from the city he had left in 1785, Michaux was received with acclaim by his scientific colleagues and reunited with his son François André. Soon, however, Michaux discovered to his dismay that the new government had no intention of paying him the salary he had been promised by its Royal predecessor. He was financially ruined. Of necessity, he lived simply and began to draft his two landmark books, the Oaks of North America and the Flora of North America. Before he could finish both these works with the limited resources available to him, he chose to accompany a new voyage of exploration to the south seas. Departing in 1800, Michaux accompanied the Baudin expedition as far as the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. There Michaux and the young zoologist Bory de St. Vincent left the ill-fated expedition after differences with the captain. Bory de St. Vincent soon departed Mauritius to survey and map the lovely neighboring island of Réunion; he went on to a long and varied career. Michaux, however, chose to leave Mauritius to study the plant life on the larger island of Madagascar. Accustomed to long days of untiring labor all his life, Michaux ignored friendly warnings and kept up his torrid work pace on this disease-ridden tropical island. Sadly, he soon succumbed to a tropical fever.

When word of his death finally reached France many months later, Michaux was eulogized by his colleagues in Paris. Initially, there was a plan for a statue, but ultimately no statues were erected in his memory. However, his books had been completed and printed while he was on his last voyage. Each landmark volume advanced the cause of the science to which Michaux had dedicated his life. His name is still attached to the names of hundreds of plants new to science that he named. The herbarium that he gathered with such great effort is still studied by botanists today. Each year botanists from North America make the pilgrimage to Paris to study plants in the Herbarium Michaux housed in the Laboratorie de Phanerogamie of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Moreover, his son François André followed in his father's footsteps. The younger Michaux became a celebrated botanist in his own right and authored the first comprehensive book on North American trees, the Sylva of North America.

Legacy

Heritage Trail

André Michaux Symposium