James was born on September 1, 1803, in Radnor, Pennsylvania. His parents, Dr. Isaac James and Henrietta (Potts) James, were both from families of prominence in the early history of the American colonies. A paternal ancestor, David James, an emigrant from Wales, bought land from William Penn in 1682, and settled at Radnor. James's grandfather on the maternal side, Thomas Potts, attained the rank of colonel in the Continental Army and was active in public affairs at the time of the formation of the new government.
Education
A few years after his marriage at Radnor, James's father moved his family to a place near Trenton, New Jersey, where there were better facilities for educating his two sons, of whom Thomas was the younger. Financial reverses prevented his sending them to Princeton, as had been planned, and they began early to support themselves.
Career
In 1831 James and his brother started a wholesale drug business in Philadelphia, which they continued for thirty-five years. Thomas studied medicine, and was for many years professor and examiner in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. He probably found his first notable interest in botany while studying the materia medica, and soon saw in the higher cryptogams (mosses and liverworts) a fertile field for original investigation.
In 1866 James was able to sell out his share of the drug business and move to Cambridge, where he lived the remainder of his life, devoting all his time to his study of mosses. His earlier works included a section on mosses and liverworts in Dr. William Darlington's third edition of Flora Cestrica (1853); an article on the flora of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in Dr. George Smith's history of that county (1862); "An Enumeration of the Mosses Detected in the Northern United States, which are not Comprised in the Manual of Asa Gray, M. D. ," in Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. VII (1856); and a list of mosses in J. T. Rothrock's "Sketch of the Flora of Alaska" (Smithsonian Report for 1867). He published a catalogue of western mosses in Vol. V (1871) of the Report of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel and in Vol. VI (1878) of the Report of the United States Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian in Charge of Lt. Geo. M. Wheeler. These papers set a high standard of excellence and contained a vast amount of pioneer work. Soon after beginning his studies James started a correspondence with Charles Leo Lesquereux which later led to their collaboration.
To restore his broken health he made a journey to Europe in 1878, during which he spent many profitable hours with the great European student of mosses, W. Ph. Schimper, making comparisons of American and old-world species. He was soon recognized as the foremost specialist on American mosses, and undertook, with Lesquereux, the preparation of a Manual of North American Mosses. At his death on February 22, 1882, James left his share of this labor in such a condition that it could be finished by other workers, and it was published in 1884, a classic in the bryology of the new world.
Achievements
James is primarily known as the pioneer in the sphere of botany, who made important contributions to the study of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts).
Membership
James was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, secretary of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, treasurer of the American Pomological Society, a member of the American Philosophical Society, member of the American Pharmaceutical Society, and a member of the Boston Society of Natural History.
Personality
James was a modest, retiring individual, generous and self-denying, spending little on himself except for instruments and books with which to carry on his work.
Connections
In 1851 James married Isabella Batchelder, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mrs. James had a natural interest in botanical science and proved to be entirely sympathetic and helpful in all of her husband's work.
Father:
Isaac James
Mother:
Henrietta Potts
Spouse:
Isabella Batchelder
colleague:
Charles Léo Lesquereux
He was a Swiss bryologist and a pioneer of American paleobotany.
