16 Facts About Thomas Say

Thomas Say was an American entomologist, conchologist, and herpetologist.

Thomas Say served as librarian for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, curator at the American Philosophical Society, and professor of natural history at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Thomas Say family had a house, "The Cliffs" at Gray's Ferry, adjoining the Bartram family farms in Kingessing township, Philadelphia County.

At the Academy, Thomas Say began his work on what he would publish as American Entomology.

In 1818, Thomas Say accompanied his friend William Maclure, then the ANSP president and father of American geology; Gerhard Troost, a geologist; and other members of the Academy on a geological expedition to the off-shore islands of Georgia and Florida, then a Spanish colony.

In 1823, Thomas Say served as chief zoologist in Long's expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

Thomas Say traveled on the "Boatload of Knowledge" to the New Harmony Settlement in Indiana, a utopian society experiment founded by Robert Owen.

Thomas Say was accompanied by Maclure, Lesueur, Troost, and Francis Neef, an innovative pedagogue.

On January 4,1827, Thomas Say secretly married Lucy Way Sistare, whom he had met as one of the passengers to New Harmony, near the settlement.

Thomas Say was an artist and illustrator of specimens, as in the book American Conchology, and was elected as the first woman member of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

At New Harmony, Thomas Say carried on his monumental work describing insects and mollusks, leading to two classic works:.

Many of the scientific names assigned by Thomas Say are no longer accepted.

Thomas Say was a modest and unassuming man, who lived frugally like a hermit.

Thomas Say abandoned commercial activities and devoted himself to his studies, making difficulties for his family.

Thomas Say died, apparently from typhoid fever, in New Harmony on 10 October 1834, when he was 47 years old.

Thomas Say described more than 1,000 new species of beetles, more than 400 species of insects of other orders, and seven well-known species of snakes.