Robert Kennicott was an American naturalist and explorer. He worked in 1850s at the Smithsonian Institution under Assistant Secretary Spencer F. Baird.
Background
Robert Kennicott was born on November 13, 1835 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, second of the seven children of Dr. John Albert and Mary Shutts (Ransom) Kennicott. While he was an infant, his parents moved to Northfield, Illinois, a small town some eighteen miles northwest of Chicago. Robert's father, a physician who eventually relinquished his medical practice and devoted his energies to horticultural pursuits, began at an early date to train his son's mind in the study of nature.
Education
In childhood Kennicott was rather delicate and was not able to pursue his education in the classroom, but this handicap was overcome later by his association with such men as J. P. Kirtland of Cleveland, Spencer F. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, P. R. Hoy, of Racine, Wisconsin, and others, under whom he was able to carry on studies in natural history.
Career
At the age of eighteen Kennicott was making extensive collections of natural-history material. In 1855 he made a comprehensive natural-history survey of southern Illinois for the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and some of his earliest scientific papers were devoted to the description of this material. In 1856, at the age of twenty-one, he united with others in the founding of the Chicago Academy of Sciences.
In 1857 he began building up a museum for Northwestern University. To supplement its collections he made a trip to the Red River of the North and later spent part of a winter in the Smithsonian Institution, studying and identifying the material obtained. He was at the Smithsonian during the winter of 1858-1859 also, studying collections made in California by Lieutenant W. P. Trowbridge, which under the expert hand of Kennicott were labeled and divided between the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Michigan.
In 1859 he made his first expedition to British and Arctic America, aided by the Smithsonian Institution and friends in Chicago who provided the necessary funds. Three years were spent on this expedition, during which the central area of British America as far north as Fort Yukon, including that part of the country known as Keewatin (laster Manitoba and western Ontario in part), was carefully explored and collections were made of the fauna. Kennicott's journal, which is replete with observations on the animal life, the inhabitants, and the country in general, shows an unusual breadth of perspective and an unusual ability to interpret the first-hand facts of observation. During the winter of 1862-1863 he was again at the Smithsonian, studying the material he had obtained, which included many animals new to science. The magnitude of Kennicott's collections and his reputation as an explorer stimulated a movement to bring a part of his material to Chicago. Accordingly the Chicago Academy of Sciences was reorganized and properly endowed, and Kennicott was made its curator (later director) and a trustee. The year 1864 was spent in transporting his collection from the Smithsonian to Chicago and arranging it in the hall of the Academy.
In 1865 the Western Union Telegraph Company sent an expedition to northwestern America for the purpose of surveying a route for an overland telegraph line to the Old World, and because of Kennicott's previous experience in this region he was chosen as leader of one party which was to survey Alaska and the Yukon River. In addition to the work of the survey his party was to secure specimens of the natural history of the region traversed, to be divided between the Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. Before his work was completed, however, he died of heart disease at Fort Nulato, Alaska. He was found in the early morning on the beach whither he had gone for exercise and observation. Robert Ridgway called Kennicott "Illinois's first and most gifted naturalist. " His writings were characterized by keen insight into the relationships of animals, their habits, and distribution. His published papers, about a dozen in number, relate mostly to the vertebrates of North America, but also include several valuable Indian vocabularies.
Views
Kennicott advocated for the study and protection of native prairie animals.
Membership
Kennicott was a member of the Chicago Academy of Sciences.
