Melsheimer, Frederick Valentine

Frederick Melsheimer was born on September 25, 1749 at Regenborn, in the Duchy of Brunswick, Germany. He attended the University of Helmstadt until 1776 when he was ordained and became a chaplain with a regiment of Hessian dragoons. Soon afterwards he and his regiment were shipped to Quebec, Canada, and captured by American troops during the War of Independence. He remained in the United States after the war, and served as a Lutheran clergyman among the German settlers of Pennsylvania. Melsheimer became a professor of languages at Franklin and Marshall College, and also served as its president. Melsheimer pursued an interest in insects throughout his life, a source of amusement to his parishioners, who considered it an eccentricity. Nevertheless, Melsheimer made the first important collections and wrote the first important entomological work in the United States, “A catalogue of the insects of Pennsylvania” (1806). It remained the only publication available on American insects for 25...