Benjamin Leonard Covington Wailes was an American scientist and planter.
Background
Benjamin Leonard Covington Wailes was born in Columbia County, Georgia. He was the eldest of the nine children of Levin and Eleanor (Davis) Wailes, who were both natives of Prince George's County, Md. In 1807 the family moved to the Mississippi Territory.
Education
Wailes received his education in Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi Territory, and in the field, surveying with his father.
Career
From 1814 to 1820 he was engaged in surveying and in clerical work at land offices in the old southwest; for a time, he was also assistant to the Choctaw agent and attended the treaty conferences of 1818 and 1820 with the Choctaws. He became locally known as an authority on the geography of their country. Though Wailes was register of the land office at Washington from 1826 to 1835, his chief vocation was cotton planting. Eventually he managed, in addition to a small establishment at Washington, two plantations in Warren County which belonged in the family, and in all controlled about 150 slaves.
He is chiefly remembered, however, for his interest in the natural phenomena of the region in which he lived, its soil, rocks, fossils and shells, and the plant and animal life. For many years he collected specimens in all these fields and, in addition to stocking his own cabinet, helped build collections at Jefferson College, at the University of Mississippi, and at the state capitol.
His interests brought him in contact with John J. Audubon, Joseph Henry, Joseph Leidy, J. Louis Agassiz, and Benjamin Silliman, 1779-1864. To most of these, as well as to other scientists and to the Smithsonian Institution, he supplied information and specimens of the natural history of his region. In 1852 he was appointed assistant professor of agriculture and geological sciences in the University of Mississippi, and in this capacity performed the field work for a projected survey of the state. He entered with zeal upon this task. Later, the writing of the report unexpectedly devolved upon him. His Report on the Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi (1854) was written under too much pressure and covered too many fields of knowledge to remain a distinguished contribution to any one of them; nevertheless, judged as a pioneer work, it was well done.
Today it is chiefly valuable to the student of agricultural history. After the completion of this work, the history of his region became an increasingly absorbing interest to Wailes, and in November 1858 he organized a state historical society of which he was the first and only president. Though this died at the end of a year, a number of valuable documents were collected and preserved, and several worth-while studies were made. Wailes wrote a short life of General Covington, which was privately printed in 1928 under the title Memoir of Leonard Covington. In history as in natural science he was more interested in collecting information than in interpreting it and he was generous in furnishing information about the history of his locality to such men as James Parton, Charles Lanman, and Peter Force.
He served for nearly forty years as a trustee of Jefferson College and was president of the board at the time of his death. Except for serving in the state legislature in 1825 and 1826 he eschewed politics, but as a Whig he chafed at the rising power of the Democrats and he watched with apprehension their movement toward secession.
Achievements
Connections
On March 30, 1820, he was married to his distant cousin, Rebecca Susanna Magruder Covington, daughter of Brigadier-General Leonard Covington. They lived first near and then in the village of Washington, and ten children were born to them.