Henry Bryant

Henry Bryant (May 12, 1820 - February 2, 1867) was an American physician and naturalist. He was the grandfather of Henry Bryant Bigelow.

Biography

Bryant was born in Boston, and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1843. In 1847 he was forced to abandon medicine because of ill health and turned to natural history, especially ornithology.

Bryant was a member of the Megatherium Club a group of young naturalists at the newly formed Smithsonian Institution in the early 1860s. He appears in a famous photograph of the group, seated lower right. Others in the photograph are: Robert Kennicott, Henry Ulke, and William Stimpson.

He collected birds in Florida, the Bahamas, Ontario and Labrador, North Carolina, Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico.

Bryant served as surgeon in the 20th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers in the American Civil War, and was injured at the Second Battle of Bull Run. He resigned his commission because of ill health before the end of the war and went to Europe. He bought the Frédéric de Lafresnaye collection of birds in France, and presented it to the Boston Society of Natural History. He died in Puerto Rico.

References

*"Barbara and Richard Mearns" - The Bird Collectors ISBN 0-12-487440-1