Frederick Valentine Melsheimer
The reverend Frederick Valentine Melsheimer is a man of the church and a American Entomologiste of origin German E, called the father of American entomology by Thomas Say (1787-1834), born born the September 25th 1749 with Regenborn in the Braunschweig and died the June 30th 1814 in Hanover in Pennsylvania.
He studies at the university of Helmstadt of 1772 with 1776 before becoming chaplain near a regiment of dragon of the area of Hesse. It is with this regiment that it arrives at the Canada in February 1776 to fight at the sides of the British troops. It is made prisoner by the American army the August 16th 1777 and remains in prison during fourteen months. Released on word during a few months, he is again imprisoned in Pennsylvania. There, he resigns of his load of chaplain and starts to preach in the County of Lancaster. He marries Maria Agnes Man the June 3rd 1779. He exerts a strong influence on the German colony of Pennsylvania and officiates in many parishes of the area.
Melsheimer carries out the first true collection of Insecte S of the the United States. It publishes has off Catalog Insects off Pennsylvania in 1806 which constitutes the beginning of the literature on the insects of the United States and will play a big role on the first entomologists of the country. The work of Melsheimer will be the only available one until the publication of the book of Say, American Entomology , nearly thirty years later, in 1837.
The book of Melsheimer is the first publication only devoted to American fauna even if other specialists had, of course, studied American specimens like Charles de Géer (1720-1778), Réaumur (1683-1757) or Linné (1707-1778). Melsheimer describes 1.363 S including 400 still valid today.
Melsheimer is also interested in the Minéralogie and the Astronomie. Two of his/her eleven children will be also devoted to the Natural history: Frederick Ernst Melsheimer (1782/4-1873) and John Frederick Melsheimer (1786-?).
Source
- Arnold Mallis (1971). American Entomologists . Rutgers University Close (New Brunswick): xvii + 549 p.
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