Alexander Wilson
Encyclopedia
Alexander Wilson was a Scottish-American poet
, ornithologist, naturalist
, and illustrator
.
Wilson was born in Paisley
, Scotland
, the son of an illiterate distiller. In 1779 he was apprenticed as a weaver. His main interest at this time was in writing poetry
(Robert Burns
was seven years older than Wilson). Some of Wilson's work - commenting on the unfair treatment of the weavers by their employers - got him into trouble with the authorities. The "golden age of Renfrewshire
song" is embodied in the persons of Wilson and Robert Tannahill
. Alexander Wilson was born near the Hammils, a broad if not steep waterfall in Paisley where the River Cart
skirts Seedhill. It does indeed appear to be the case, as William Motherwell
states, that a great amount of literary activity began in Paisley around this time.
In May 1794 Wilson left Scotland with his nephew to find a better life in America. Wilson obtained employment as a schoolteacher in Milestown, near Philadelphia. In 1801 he left Milestown and found a new teaching post in Gray's Ferry
, Pennsylvania
; Wilson took up residence in nearby Kingsessing. It was here that he met the famous naturalist William Bartram
who developed Wilson's interest in ornithology
. In 1802 Wilson decided to publish a book illustrating all the North America
n bird
s. With this in mind he traveled widely, watching and painting birds and collecting subscribers for his book. The result was the nine-volume American Ornithology (1808–1814), illustrating 268 species of birds, 26 of which had not previously been described. He died during the writing of the ninth volume, which was completed and published after his death by his friend George Ord
. Wilson lies buried next to Ord at Gloria Dei Church cemetery
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
.
Wilson is now regarded as the greatest American ornithologist prior to Audubon
. It was his meeting with Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky
in 1810 which probably inspired the younger man to produce a book of his own bird illustrations, though Audubon's reaction to Wilson was decidedly ambiguous.
Several species of bird were named for Wilson, including Wilson's Storm-petrel
, Wilson's Plover
, Wilson's Phalarope
and Wilson's Warbler
. The warbler genus Wilsonia was also named for him by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
.
The Wilson Journal of Ornithology is named after him.
Alexander Wilson died in 1813 in Philadelphia, where he is buried. He is honoured in his home town of Paisley with a memorial and a statue. The statue stands in the grounds of Paisley Abbey, and the memorial stands on the banks of the River Cart at the Hammills waterfall in Paisley. It is inscribed "Remember Alexander Wilson 1766-1813. Here was his boyhood playground."
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, ornithologist, naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
, and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
.
Wilson was born in Paisley
Paisley
Paisley is the largest town in the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland and serves as the administrative centre for the Renfrewshire council area...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, the son of an illiterate distiller. In 1779 he was apprenticed as a weaver. His main interest at this time was in writing poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
(Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
was seven years older than Wilson). Some of Wilson's work - commenting on the unfair treatment of the weavers by their employers - got him into trouble with the authorities. The "golden age of Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfrewshire, the others being Inverclyde to the west and East Renfrewshire to the east...
song" is embodied in the persons of Wilson and Robert Tannahill
Robert Tannahill
Robert Tannahill was a Scottish poet. Known as the 'Weaver Poet', his music and poetry is contemporaneous with that of Robert Burns.He was born at Castle Street in Paisley on 3 June 1774, the fourth son in a family of seven...
. Alexander Wilson was born near the Hammils, a broad if not steep waterfall in Paisley where the River Cart
River Cart
The River Cart is a tributary of the River Clyde, Scotland, which it joins from the west roughly midway between the towns of Erskine and Renfrew....
skirts Seedhill. It does indeed appear to be the case, as William Motherwell
William Motherwell
William Motherwell , Scottish poet, antiquary and journalist, was born at Glasgow, the son of an ironmonger....
states, that a great amount of literary activity began in Paisley around this time.
Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Grays Ferry, also known as Gray's Ferry, is a neighborhood in South Philadelphia bounded by 25th Street on the east, the Schuylkill River on the west, Vare Avenue on the south, and Grays Ferry Avenue on the north. The section of this neighborhood west of 34th Street is also known as The Forgotten...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
; Wilson took up residence in nearby Kingsessing. It was here that he met the famous naturalist William Bartram
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...
who developed Wilson's interest in ornithology
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
. In 1802 Wilson decided to publish a book illustrating all the North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s. With this in mind he traveled widely, watching and painting birds and collecting subscribers for his book. The result was the nine-volume American Ornithology (1808–1814), illustrating 268 species of birds, 26 of which had not previously been described. He died during the writing of the ninth volume, which was completed and published after his death by his friend George Ord
George Ord
George Ord was an American ornithologist.Ord was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a rope maker and Ord joined him in the business, continuing after his father's death in 1806...
. Wilson lies buried next to Ord at Gloria Dei Church cemetery
Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church National Historic Site
Gloria Dei Church, founded in 1677, and built between 1697 and 1700, is a historic church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The congregation was originally Swedish Lutheran, but has been Episcopalian since 1845.-Background:...
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
Wilson is now regarded as the greatest American ornithologist prior to Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...
. It was his meeting with Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
in 1810 which probably inspired the younger man to produce a book of his own bird illustrations, though Audubon's reaction to Wilson was decidedly ambiguous.
Several species of bird were named for Wilson, including Wilson's Storm-petrel
Wilson's Storm-petrel
Wilson's Storm Petrel , also known as Wilson's Petrel, is a small seabird of the storm-petrel family. It is one of the most abundant bird species in the world and has a circumpolar distribution mainly in the seas of the southern hemisphere but extending northwards during the summer of the northern...
, Wilson's Plover
Wilson's Plover
The Wilson's Plover is a small plover.Wilson's Plover is a coastal wader which breeds on both coasts of the Americas from the equator northwards. Its range extends north to include much of the U.S. eastern seaboard, and the Pacific coast of Mexico on the west.It is a partial migrant. Birds leave...
, Wilson's Phalarope
Wilson's Phalarope
The Wilson's Phalarope, Phalaropus tricolor, is a small wader. This bird, the largest of the phalaropes, breeds in the prairies of North America in western Canada and the western United States. It is migratory, wintering around the central Andes in South America. They are passage migrants through...
and Wilson's Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
The Wilson's Warbler, Wilsonia pusilla, is a small New World warbler. It is primarily greenish above and yellow below, with rounded wings and a long, slim tail. The male has a black crown patch which is greatly reduced or missing entirely in the female...
. The warbler genus Wilsonia was also named for him by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
Charles Lucien Bonaparte
Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano was a French naturalist and ornithologist.-Biography:...
.
The Wilson Journal of Ornithology is named after him.
Alexander Wilson died in 1813 in Philadelphia, where he is buried. He is honoured in his home town of Paisley with a memorial and a statue. The statue stands in the grounds of Paisley Abbey, and the memorial stands on the banks of the River Cart at the Hammills waterfall in Paisley. It is inscribed "Remember Alexander Wilson 1766-1813. Here was his boyhood playground."
Biographies of Alexander Wilson
Wilson was a prolific letter writer giving biographers insight into his life. Below are major biographies written, in part, from his letters.- The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson by Clark Hunter. The American Philosophical SocietyAmerican Philosophical SocietyThe American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
for its Memoirs series, Volume 154, Philadelphia. 1983. ISBN 087169154X.
- Alexander Wilson: Wanderer in the Wilderness by Robert Plate. David McKay Company, Inc. New York. 1966. Library of Congress Number 66-11348 (no ISBN).
- Alexander Wilson: Naturalist and Pioneer by Robert CantwellRobert CantwellRobert Emmett Cantwell was a novelist and critic. His most notable work, The Land of Plenty, focuses on a lumber mill in a thinly disguised version of his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington....
. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York. 1961. Library of Congress Number 61-12246 (no ISBN)
- Alexander Wilson, Poet-Naturalist: A Study of His Life with Selected Poems by James Southall WilsonJames Southall WilsonJames Southall Wilson was an author, professor, and founder of the Virginia Quarterly Review. He organized the 1931 Southern Writers Conference. His wife, Julia Tyler, was the granddaughter of President John Tyler and a founder of Kappa Delta sorority...
. Neale Publishing Company, New York and Washington. 1906.
- Wilson the Ornithologist: A New Chapter in His Life by Allan Park Paton. Longmans, Green & Company. 1863.
- Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson by George OrdGeorge OrdGeorge Ord was an American ornithologist.Ord was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a rope maker and Ord joined him in the business, continuing after his father's death in 1806...
. Harrison Hall, 1828. Biographer Clark Hunter adds: "This is substantially enlarged from that which Ord wrote for vol. 9 of the American Ornithology. Contains many more letters."
- Biographical Sketch of the Late Alexander Wilson to a Young Friend by Thomas Crichton. J. Neilson, Paisley. 1819.
External links
- Alexander Wilson, American Ornithologist Complete illustrations from the 9 vol. edition with critical biography.
- Alexander Wilson Cornell University, Mann Library
- Wilson's poetry A collection of Wilson's poetry compiled at Virginia Tech