Andre Michaux was a French explorer and botanist. He studied North American flora and collected specimens in England, Spain, France, and Persia. His work was part of a European effort to gather information about the natural world.
His work and contributions to the world of botany would be referenced into the 19th century.
Early Life
Andre Michaux was born in Satory, part of Versailles, France. His father managed farmland on the king's estate. It was here where he was trained in agricultural sciences due to being groomed to take over his father's duties when he was older.
He also received a classical education, which included Latin and some Greek, until the age of fourteen.
In 1769, he married Cecil Claye, the daughter of a wealthy farmer. Unfortunately, she died a year later, giving birth to their son, Francois Andre.
Botanical Education and Expeditions
Michaux became a student of Bernard de Jussieu and began studying botany. He moved his studies to England in 1779, and a year later, he explored Auvergne, the Pyrenees, and northern Spain.
In 1782, he was sent by the French government as secretary to the French consul on a botanical mission to Persia. His journey began unfavorably, as he was robbed of all his equipment except his books, but he gained influential support in Persia after curing the shah of a dangerous illness.
After two years, he returned to France with a fine herbarium and introduced numerous Eastern plants into the botanical gardens of France.
King Louis XVI appointed Andre as a Royal botanist under Batiments du Roi and was sent to the newly formed United States in 1785. The American Revolution had ended just 2 years prior.
He was paid a comfortable annual salary and was to make the first organized investigation of plants that could be of value in French building and carpentry, medicine, and agriculture.
He and his son traveled to Canada and then the United States. In 1786, he attempted to establish a horticultural garden of thirty acres in Bergen's Wood on the Hudson Palisades near Hackensack, New Jersey. The garden failed due to the harsh winters in New Jersey.
Michaux went on to establish a botanical garden in South Carolina that would survive.
Michaux described and named many North American species during this time. Between 1785 and 1791, he shipped ninety cases of plants and many seeds to France.
At the same time, he introduced many species to America from various parts of the world, including Camellia, tea-olive, and crepe myrtle.
Work in America
During the French Revolution, the monarchy was toppled, and Andre Michaux was left without a job.
He began to lobby the American Philosophical Society to support his next exploration. In 1793, Thomas Jefferson asked him to undertake an expedition of westward exploration. It was a decade prior to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. At the time, Meriwether Lewis was 18 years old and requested to be included in the expedition. Jefferson refused.
Before Michaux set out, however, he volunteered to assist the French Minister to America, Edmond-Charles Genet. Genet was engaging in war-like acts against English and Spanish naval interests, aggravating relations between America, England, and Spain.
George Rogers Clark offered to organize and lead a militia to take over Louisiana territory from the Spanish. Michaux's mission was to evaluate Clark's plan and coordinate between Clark's actions and Genet's.
Michaux went to Kentucky, but without adequate funds, Clark was unable to raise the militia, and the plan eventually folded.
It is not true, as sometimes reported that Thomas Jefferson ordered Michaux to leave the United States after he learned of his involvement with Genet.
Though Thomas Jefferson did not support Genet's actions, he was aware of Genet's instructions for Michaux and even provided Michaux with letters of introduction to the Governor of Kentucky.
On his return to France in 1796, he was shipwrecked. However, most of his specimens survived. His two American gardens declined. Saunier, his salary unpaid, cultivated potatoes and hay and paid taxes on the New Jersey property, which is now still remembered as "The Frenchman's Garden," part of Machpelah Cemetery in North Bergen.
Death
In 1800, Andre Michaux sailed with Nicolas Baudin to Australia. Along the way, he investigated the flora of Mauritius and Madagascar.
It was during this time that's contracted a tropical fever and died.
His work in botany would be very influential in American History.