author
John Kirk Townsend
1809–1851
A young Philadelphia naturalist who crossed the Rockies in the 1830s, he helped bring the birds and mammals of the American West to a wider audience. His fieldwork, collecting, and travel writing made him an important early observer of North American wildlife.
1 Audiobook
Wyeth's Oregon, or a Short History of a Long Journey, 1832; and Townsend's Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, 1834
by John B. (John Bound) Wyeth, John Kirk Townsend
About the author
Born in Philadelphia on August 10, 1809, John Kirk Townsend was trained as a physician and pharmacist, but natural history became the work he is remembered for. A Quaker by upbringing, he developed a strong interest in birds and collecting while still young.
In 1834 he joined the expedition led by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, traveling west with the botanist Thomas Nuttall across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River region. Over the next several years he collected bird and mammal specimens, visited the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, and recorded his experiences in Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands.
Townsend's specimens were important to other leading naturalists of his day, including John James Audubon, and his name remains attached to several species. He died relatively young, on February 6, 1851, but his work still offers a vivid glimpse of scientific exploration in the early nineteenth century.