Alexander Wilson

Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley, Scotland, and immigrated to the United States in 1794, after being charged and incarcerated for libel for a satirical poem he published indicting a local mill owner. Wilson settled first in Philadelphia, where he taught school, befriended the naturalist William Bartram, studied botany with Benjamin Smith Barton, and met local artists. In 1804, Wilson embarked with his students Isaac Leech and William Duncan on a walking trip from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls. The journey is described in Wilson’s long poem The Foresters. It sketches the progress of European settlement across early 19th-century America and provides many vivid descriptions of the plants, animals, and, most important, birds that Wilson and Leech came across. First printed in serial installments in the Philadelphia literary magazine The Port Folio, Wilson’s poem was published in book form in 1818 and again in 1838. The expedition confirmed his enthusiasm for ornithology and led to his masterwork, American Ornithology, with engravings from Alexander Lawson (nine volumes, published 1808–1814).

The self-described “biographer” of bird species in the United States, Wilson traveled to 15 states and four territories over two years, collecting birds for his massive study. American Ornithology included more than 260 species, 48 of which had never been recorded. Biographies of Wilson include Edward Burtt Jr. and William Davis’s Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology (2013) and Robert Cantwell’s Alexander Wilson: Naturalist and Pioneer (1961).