Thomas Meehan
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- This article is about the American botanist, Thomas Meehan. For the writer Thomas Meehan see Thomas Meehan (writer).
Meehan, Thomas (March 21, 1826 - November 19, 1901), American Nurseryman and botanist.
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[edit] Early Life and Education
Meehan was born at Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England, but grew up on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, where his father was a gardener. His informal education was Lancastrian, but he began publishing at the age of fourteen, which prompted membership to the Wernernian Society. Further scholarship resulted in his admission to Kew Gardens (1846-1848), where he was taught horticulture by William Jackson Hooker and others.
[edit] Emigration to US
Meehan emigrated to America in 1848, where he worked in Philadelphia for Robert Buist, Caleb Cope, and for railroad entrepreneur Andrew M. Eastwick, then owner of Bartram’s Garden. Meehan established a nursery with William Saunders in Germantown, just north of Philadelphia, where he resided with his family for the remainder of his life. When the partnership with Saunders dissolved, he established Meehan’s Nurseries, later Thomas Meehan & Sons. The nursery supplied plants to gardens, orchards, and estates from California to Europe for seven decades, growing to 150 acres (0.6 km²) in the twentieth century. Meehan’s scholarly interest in botany resulted his appointment as editor to The Gardner’s Monthly (1859-1888), continued in spirit as Meehans' Monthly (1891-1902); these were two of the largest circulating horticultural magazines at the time. Meehan also wrote agricultural columns for five newspapers.
[edit] Honours awarded and other recognition
Meehan was elected to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the American Association of Nurserymen, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the American Pomological Society, the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, and the Penn Club; he was an honorary member of the Royal Horticultural Society (London). He was a colleague and/or correspondent with leading botanists of the day, such as William Darlington, Josiah Hoopes, William Saunders, George Engelmann, John Torrey, Asa Gray, Maxwell T. Masters, Ferdinand von Mueller, George Nicholson, and Charles Darwin.
Meehan was less interested in taxonomy and plant-naming than he was in the role of ‘sports’ (unexpected variants), variation within species, and the influence of local conditions on development and growth. Meehan gathered botanical specimens in many states east of the Mississippi, and collected formally in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, California, and Alaska in the 1870s. His herbarium exceeded 10,000 specimens. For his many contributions to botany, Meehan became the third American recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society of London’s Veitch Memorial Silver Medal (1901).
Meehan was elected to the School Board of Philadelphia (1876-1901), to the Common Council of the City of Philadelphia (1882-1901), and was appointed Professor of Vegetable Physiology and Botany for the State of Pennsylvania (1877-1892).
The genus Meehania (Britton, 1892) and several species or varieties of Halesia, Mohrodendron, and Hibiscus have been erected in his honor.
[edit] Social Concerns
Meehan was concerned with the education of disadvantaged children, with urban sanitation (‘breathing spaces’), and in his role as Common Councilman, directed the acquisition of 28 of Philadelphia’s existing parks and gardens, including Bartram’s Garden. He is known as the ‘father’ of Philadelphia’s parks, and an elementary school in Germantown was named for him in 1902. During the Civil War Meehan was involved with the United States Sanitary Commission, a precursor to the Red Cross. He was a member of the executive committee to the Centennial Horticultural Society in 1876.
Meehan was a member of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia and the Unitarian Society of Germantown; he was buried at Boehm’s Churchyard in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.
[edit] Publications
Meehan was the author of more than 600 publications including The American Handbook of Ornamental Trees (Philadelphia, 1853), The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States, 4 vols. (1878-1880), Wayside Flowers (1881), and "Contributions to the Life History of Plants" in 16 parts (Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, 1887-1902). He was editor of The Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser (1859-1888) and Meehan’s Monthly (1891-1901).
[edit] References
Anderson, Jeannette Meehan (n.d.), Meehan Family Papers, and personal communications to Larry Mai (1992-1994).
Mai, Larry L. (1999). The Meehans of Germantown: A genealogy. Germantown Crier, 49(1): 26-27.
Oberle, Stephanie Ginsberg (1999). The influence of Thomas Meehan on Horticulture in the United States. Germantown Crier, 49(1): 4-25.
