John Kirk Townsend

For other people with the same name, see John Townsend (disambiguation).

John Kirk Townsend
John Kirk Townsend
Born	August 10, 1809 (1809-08-10) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	February 6, 1851 (1851-02-07) (aged 41)

John Kirk Townsend (August 10, 1809 – February 6, 1851) was an American naturalist, ornithologist and collector.

Townsend was a Quaker born in Philadelphia, the son of Charles Townsend and Priscilla Kirk. He attended Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania and was trained as a physician and pharmacist. He developed an interest in natural history in general and bird collecting in particular. In 1833, he was invited by the botanist Thomas Nuttall to join him on Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's second expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Townsend collected a number of animals new to science. These included birds such as the mountain plover, Vaux's swift, the chestnut-collared longspur, the black-throated grey warbler, Townsend's warbler and the sage thrasher, and a number of mammals such as the Douglas squirrel; several of these were described by Bachman (1839) from samples collected by Townsend. Townsend collected skulls of indigenous people, procured by stealing them from graves.

Family

John Kirk Townsend was the son of Charles Townsend and Priscilla Kirk, he had five brothers and four sisters. His sister Mary, a naturalist with an interest in entomology, wrote a popular book called "Life In the Insect World" in 1844. Mary and another sister, Hannah, wrote The Anti-Slavery Alphabet in 1846, which was sold at the Anti-Slavery Fair in Philadelphia. His brother Edward was President of the Philadelphia Institution for Instruction of the Blind and helped organize the Philadelphia Dental College.

Oregon

While at Wyeth's Fort William in Oregon, Townsend served as the appointed magistrate to the first public trial by Europeans in Oregon. This occurred when the post's gunsmith, Thomas J. Hubbard, attacked and killed the fort's tailor in an argument over a young native girl. The gunsmith was acquitted by a jury when they ruled the death was justifiable homicide.

Work

Townsend collected numerous animal specimens during his travels. He sent many of these back to John James Audubon for further assessment and characterization. Audubon gave Townsend broad authority in naming specimens that he collected.

On his return, Townsend wrote The Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands (1839). This is a narrative of a journey by Wyeth's expedition over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean between 1834 and 1835.

A number of North American mammals are named for Townsend. Many of these were described from specimens collected during his travels. Townsend's ground squirrel (Spermophilus townsendii) is endemic to the southwestern region of the state of Washington. Townsend's chipmunk (Tamias townsendii), Townsend's mole (Scapanus townsendii), and Townsend's vole (Microtus townsendii) all occur in the northwestern United States and southwestern British Columbia. Townsend's pocket gopher (Thomomys townsendii) is found in southern Oregon, northern California, northern Nevada, and through the Snake River Valley in Idaho. Townsend's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii) is found from southern British Columbia south through the western United States to southern Mexico. The white-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii) ranges through southern Canada and the west-central U.S. through eastern California and Colorado. Two North American birds, Townsend's warbler (Setophaga townsendi) and Townsend's solitaire (Myadestes townsendi), are also named after Townsend.

Townsend died of arsenic poisoning. He had developed a formula used in taxidermy preparations and arsenic was the "secret" ingredient.

Further reading

• Excursion to the Oregon by John Kirk Townsend
• Mearns, B. & R. John Kirk Townsend: Collector of Audubon’s Western Birds and Mammals (2007).