Page 70 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range

published the Plantæ Wrightianæ, Bigelow felt he deserved a larger share of credit and some years afterwards wrote he had been ‘Wrightized’ out of his plants.”*
In April 1853, Asa Wright sent Bigelow copies of Plantæ Wrightianæ. Bigelow’s response was — frank. A copy of that correspondence dated April 19, 1853, follows. In part it reads:
“I find in the publication of the second part that you and Mr. Wright have anticipated me in the publication of 30 or 40 new species and among them 3 or 4 new genera which I had collected either before or contemporane- ously with him. Clearly all the new plants collected at the Copper Mines (Santa Rita del Cobre) at the Organ Mts near Dona Ana (and) Lake Guzman expedition and those around Frontera and El Paso were collected under the foregoing circumstances. I went to the Copper Mines about the middle of Apr 1851 he did not come until the following July. And Mr. Wright may recollect that Mr. Thurber gave me the right to collect in that neighborhood!!!!” (Ed. “right” is underlined several times in the original - see following page.)
All too often we look back and
assume only the best from the
people who made the natural
history of this place known more
than it had been. But they were
people: Sometimes they did not
get along, sometimes there were
misunderstandings, sometimes things got a bit underhanded, and sometimes feelings, reputations, and friendships suffered severely.
Regardless of the merits of his feelings, his expertise was recognized, because when the survey was disbanded and Bigelow had just settled back into life in Ohio, he was appointed to the Whipple Expedition.
And regardless of some of the interpersonal strife that occurred during and after the expeditions in the West, including the Boundary Survey, most of the participants came out of the
experience with their knowledge and reputations greatly enhanced.
________________
*”Dr. John Milton Bigelow, 1804-1878 - An Early Ohio Physician- Botanist”, by A. E. Waller, Vol. 51, No. 4, 1942, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly; Ohio Medical History, 1836-58, p. 326.
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