1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nuttall, Thomas

NUTTALL, THOMAS (1786–1859), English botanist and ornithologist, who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1842, was born at Settle in Yorkshire on the 5th of January 1786, and spent some years as a journeyman printer in England. Soon after going to the United States he was induced by Professor B. S. Barton (1766–1815) to apply himself to the study of the plants of that country. In 1825–1834 he was curator of the botanic gardens of Harvard university. In 1834 he crossed the continent to the Pacific Ocean, and visited the Hawaiian Islands. Some property having been left him in England on condition of his residing on it during part of each year, he left America in 1842, and did not again revisit it except for a short time in 1852. He died at St Helens, Lancashire, on the 10th of September 1859.

Almost the whole of his scientific work was done in the United States, and his published works appeared there. The more important of these are, The Genera of North American Plants, and a Catalogue of the Species to the year 1817 (2 vols., 1818); Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory during the year 1819 (1821); The North American Sylva: Trees not described by F. A. Michaux (3 vols., 1842–1849); Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada (1832 and 1834); and numerous papers in American scientific periodicals.