Samuel Parsons
| Samuel Parsons | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1844 New Bedford, Massachusetts |
| Died | February 3, 1923 New York City, New York |
| Occupation | Landscape Architect |
| Parent(s) | Samuel Parsons, Sr. |
Samuel B. Parsons Jr. (1844 – February 3, 1923) was an American landscape architect. He is remembered primarily for his accidental introduction of the fungus that led to the near extinction of the formerly widespread American chestnut tree.
Before the early 1900s one in every four hardwood trees in North America's eastern forests was an American chestnut. Together with oaks they predominated in 80 million hectares of forest from Maine to Florida and west to the Ohio Valley, reaching heights of up to 40 meters and growing two meters around the middle. Chestnuts sometimes piled so high on the forest floor that people would scoop them up with shovels. Both humans and a wide variety of animals relied on this abundant and easily gathered resource for food, particularly in winter.
Chestnut trees also had significant economic value. American carpenters preferred chestnut over other materials for making certain products. Lightweight, rot-resistant, straight-grained and easy to work with, chestnut wood was used to build houses, barns, telegraph poles, railroad ties, furniture and even musical instruments.
In 1876 Samuel B. Parsons imported Japanese chestnut trees which he then sold to customers in several states across the country. Some of these shipments concealed the pathogenic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica. The disease chokes the trees to death by wedging itself into their trunks and obstructing conduits for water and nutrients. Asian chestnut trees evolved a resistance but their North American relatives were highly susceptible to chestnut blight.
First discovered in New York State in 1904, the blight was soon spotted in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Within 50 years, C. parasitica killed nearly four billion chestnut trees. The species has been almost completely extirpated within its native range in one of the greatest ecological catastrophes in American history.
Samuel Bowne Parsons Jr. was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1844 to Samuel Bowne Parsons Sr. who himself was the son of Samuel Parsons, who moved to Flushing from Manhattan around 1800 and married Mary Bowne. Samuel Bowne Parsons Sr. was an accomplished and well noted horticulturist, who was the first to import Japanese Maples and propagate rhododendrons. Samuel received his practical training and knowledge of landscaping and landscape materials working for J.R. Trumpy, the manager of his father’s nursery in Flushing, Queens. Parsons then went to school at Yale University and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy in 1862, after which he spent several years studying and practicing farming. When he returned home to the family nursery, a welcome surprise awaited him. The nursery was now in business with and supplying Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, two famous designers most notably responsible for New York’s Central Park design.
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