William Saunders and His Five Sons (and Daughter)

Of the nine children of James and Jane Saunders, it was the youngest son, William, who achieved the most fame outside the family circle. He, in turn, had five sons who all went on to have quite remarkable lives of their own. So let’s delve more deeply into the lives of Alice Miner’s Uncle William and her notable cousins.

William Saunders in 1897
Library and Archives Canada

Like the rest of the Saunders siblings, William (1836-1914) was born in Crediton and baptized at the Wesleyan Methodist church in Exeter. Shortly after his arrival in London at the age of thirteen, he was apprenticed to a local pharmacist, John Salter, and by the time he was nineteen he had opened his own drugstore. Two years later, he married Sarah Agnes Robinson (daughter of the minister who had performed the wedding of Bertha Saunders and Richard Patton the year before), and they had six children: Annie Louisa (1858-1938), William Edwin (1861-1943), Henry Scholey (1864-1951), Charles Edward (1867-1937), Arthur Percy (1869-1953), and Frederick Albert (1875-1963).

William Saunders was a good businessman, but he was also interested in the science of pharmaceuticals. His interest in the medicinal properties of plants led him into the study of botany and then to entomology. In the garden of the Saunders home in London, he established an extensive orchard where he studied plant diseases caused by insects. In 1873, William purchased six acres of land outside the city where he continued his work in entomology and fruit and flower hybridization. These orchards were also early laboratories for the Saunders children, where they received their first lessons in natural history by helping their father with his work.

Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, 1890
Friends of the Central Experimental Farm

By the mid-1880s, both William Edwin and Henry had qualified as pharmacists and were able to take over many aspects of the family business. This left their father free to pursue a new project: the establishment of Canada’s experimental farm system. In February 1886, Saunders submitted a report to the Minister of Agriculture describing what he had learned on his visits to numerous agricultural research stations in the United States, and proposing that Canada establish its own system of farms for research in cereal culture, dairying, animal husbandry, horticulture, forestry, and the application of chemistry and botany to agriculture. Soon thereafter, the Dominion Experimental Farms system was established, with William Saunders as its director.

In 1887, William, Sarah, Annie, and Fred moved to Ottawa, which was the home of the Central Experimental Farm. Four other farms were also established in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. The aim of all these farms was to produce practical results in the form of better varieties of grain, improved livestock, and fruit-trees that could thrive in the Canadian climate. One of its main goals was the development of strains of wheat suited to the climate of western Canada, and to this end, William Saunders appointed his son Charles to the position of Dominion Cerealist in 1903. 

Canadian postage stamp, issued in 2000,
honoring Sir Charles Saunders

Charles had studied chemistry at the University of Toronto and Johns Hopkins, but had been pursuing a career in music in Toronto. Now he took charge of a new department at the Central Experimental farm, the Division of Cereal Breeding and Experimentation and began work on what became known as Marquis wheat. The strains of wheat being grown in Saskatchewan and Alberta frequently matured too late and were damaged by frost. Marquis wheat matured earlier, produced yields as good or better than other varieties, and had excellent milling and baking qualities. By 1920, 90% of the wheat being grown in western Canada was Marquis wheat, and it was largely responsible for the boom in Canadian wheat exports. In 1934, Charles Saunders was knighted for his services to the Dominion.

Although Charles followed most closely in his father’s footsteps, all five sons shared William’s scientific interests. William Edwin ran the family pharmaceutical business, but he also engaged in a dizzying range of other activities, most related to the study and preservation of the natural world. He was an expert ornithologist and a founder of the Ontario Entomological Society, wrote a weekly nature column in the London Free Press from 1929 to 1943, and was instrumental in the preservation of what became Point Pelee National Park on Lake Erie—to name just a few of his accomplishments.

“Silvia Saunders” peony, named
after Percy’s oldest daughter

Arthur Percy and Frederick Albert also pursued careers in science. As his brother Charles had, Percy (as he was known) attended the University of Toronto and then went to Johns Hopkins, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry. From 1900 to 1939, he was a professor of chemistry at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He also carried on the family botanical tradition through his work in the hybridization of peonies. Percy, his wife Louise Brownell, and their four children were beloved members of the Hamilton community, and were remembered fondly by notable students such as Ezra Pound and James Agee (who liked them so much he married daughter Olivia).

The youngest son, Fred, followed in his brothers’ footsteps to the University of Toronto and Johns Hopkins, where his area of study was physics. He taught at Haverford College, Syracuse University, Vassar College, and Harvard University. At Harvard he began research into the field of acoustics, and was able to unite his interests in music and science by studying the mechanical properties of musical instruments, particularly the violin family. Fred also shared the family love of nature, particularly ornithology, and he and his wife maintained a bird sanctuary at their country home.

Cover of Henry’s book Parodies on
Walt Whitman, 1923

Henry Scholey’s path started off very much like that of his brothers. He shared their interests in nature and music, and followed William Edwin to the College of Pharmacy in Philadelphia. For thirteen years he worked with William to run the family business. But in 1898 he closed the business and decided to pursue his interest in music, playing the cello in various orchestras and string quartets in Toronto. What Henry ultimately became known for, however, was his extensive collection of material related to the life and work of Walt Whitman. This included every edition of all of Whitman’s writings (except for the first and last editions of Leaves of Grass). Henry also assembled 219 hand-made notebooks in which were gathered newspaper clippings, book reviews, and other printed material that referenced Whitman, and printed limited editions of books about Whitman. In 1932, Brown University purchased the entire Henry Scholey Saunders collection of Whitmaniana—some 15,000 items—for its library.

And what about Annie, the only daughter? As is so often the case, we know much less about the women of the Saunders family than we do about the men. She never married and continued to live with her parents until they died, after which she may have gone to live with one of her brothers in the United States for a time. By the early 1920s she was back in London, where she remained until her death in 1938, but what she was doing during all this time remains a mystery.

The five Saunders brothers in 1934: Percy, Henry, Fred,
Charles, and William

Also still something of a mystery is the extent of Alice Miner’s relationship with her cousins. The papers of William E. Saunders in the archives of the University of Western Ontario include some Heart’s Delight Farm greeting cards and calendars, which suggest that they kept in touch, at the very least. Certainly the Saunders brothers would have shared many interests with Alice and William Miner, from agriculture to literature. We hope that further study of Saunders family archival material will reveal more connections!

Sources:


T. H. Anstey, “Sir Charles Edward Saunders,” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada, 1985, article published May 16, 2008.

Dan Brock, “In Search of Annie: The Forgotten Saunders,” London and Middlesex Historical Society Newsletter, Summer 2016.

Harry F. Olson, “Frederick Albert Saunders, 1875-1963: A Biographical Memoir,” National Academy of Sciences, 1967.

Elsie M. Pomeroy, William Saunders and His Five Sons: The Story of the Marquis Wheat Family (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1956)

Ian M. Stewart, “SAUNDERS, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 31, 2017, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/saunders_william_14E.html.

P. A. Taverner, “Memories of William Edwin Saunders, 1861-1943,” The Auk: A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology 61, no. 3 (July 1944), 345-351.

Of Railways and Balloons

As we prepare for our program next week on Benjamin Franklin’s kite, we have been looking through the collection for Franklin-related items. One of the things we found, a facsimile of a letter written by Franklin on balloons, is interesting both for its subject matter and for the story behind the document’s owner. William K. Bixby printed 250 copies “for his friends,” presenting the letter (nicely bound along with a transcription) to Alice and William Miner as a New Year’s gift in 1924. Like William Miner, Bixby was a railroad man, though by this time he had retired to devote himself completely to collecting and philanthropy. There are a lot of similarities between the two Williams, as a matter of fact, and it’s not surprising that they became friends.

Cover (featuring a design adapted from an 18th c. toile de jouy) and title page

William Keeney Bixby was born in 1857 in Michigan. At the age of 16, he left home to work as a railway baggage handler in Texas. Here he caught the eye of H.M. Hoxie, president of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, who eventually convinced W.K. to come work with him in St. Louis. In 1883 he made what would turn out to be a wise decision, switching from railway management to railroad car manufacturing; by 1887 he was the vice president and general manager of Missouri Car and Foundry. In 1899, he led the consolidation of eighteen railway supply companies into the American Car and Foundry Company, of which he was the president. The St. Louis-based company controlled all aspects of railroad car production, from ore deposits and timber tracts to the car-building shops.

W.K. Bixby (1857-1931)

After just six years as president, at the age of 48, W.K. Bixby retired from business and turned his attention to collecting art, rare books, and manuscripts. He was a great admirer of Robert Burns, and is said to have developed such expertise that he could identify a forged Burns document from a single letter. Bixby also endowed institutions such as the St. Louis Art Museum and Washington University, and served as president of the Missouri Historical Society. Bixby produced several dozen books of facsimiles of manuscripts from his collection, which he had printed in small editions and gave to friends and fellow collectors. The reproductions themselves are collectors’ editions, with great attention being paid to illustrations, covers, and paper—for Benjamin Franklin on Balloons, Bixby used paper made by the same company that provided the paper used to make the Montgolfier brothers’ first balloon!

Charles and Robert’s first (unmanned) balloon,
which was destroyed by the residents of Gonesse

The letter itself is one written on January 16, 1784 by Benjamin Franklin, who was then United States Ambassador to France, to his friend and fellow scientist Jan Ingenhousz. Ingenhousz had evidently asked Franklin for information about the balloons that had recently been launched in Paris, with the idea that he might try to construct one himself. Franklin sent him this information along with some advice not to promote a ballon launch unless he was really sure it would work! As Franklin said, “It is a serious thing to draw out from their Affairs all the Inhabitants of a great City & its Environs, and a Disappointment makes them angry.” A would-be balloonist at Bordeaux had learned this the hard way, when the crowd tore down his house when he failed to deliver the promised spectacle.

The “Charlière” rising above the Tuileries

Franklin himself had recently attended two historic ballooning events. First, on August 27, 1783, Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers launched the first hydrogen balloon (which ultimately crashed outside Paris and was destroyed by alarmed villagers). Then, on December 1, Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert made the first manned hydrogen balloon flight. Charles and Robert launched their balloon from the Jardin des Tuileries and ascended to about 1800 feet and traveled about 22 miles in two hours. Charles then made a second ascent to nearly 10,000 feet, but had to return to earth when he began feeling the effects of altitude. It is said that some 400,000 spectators witnessed the launch, 100 of whom had paid a crown each to help pay for the balloon’s construction and had access to a special enclosure where they got a close-up view of the takeoff. Franklin was part of this group, and presumably he and his fellow spectators felt that they got their money’s worth!

The second Montgolfier balloon

This launch came only ten days after the first manned hot-air balloon flight, during which Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier piloted a balloon designed by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. Thus, in January 1784, Europe seemed to be poised on the brink of a new era, when the possibility of flight would reshape geopolitics. As Franklin said to Ingenhousz, “Five Thousand Balloons capable of raising two Men each, would not cost more than Five Ships of the Line: And where is the Prince who can afford to cover his Country with Troops for its Defense, as that Ten Thousand Men descending from the Clouds, might not in many Places do an infinite deal of Mischief, before a Force could be brought together to repel them?” In fact, it would be a long time before aircraft played a significant role in warfare, but Franklin was certainly correct about its far-reaching possibilities. 

If you would like to learn more about Benjamin Franklin and the world of 18th-century science, join us at the museum on Friday, July 22 at 7:00 p.m. for “Secrets of Benjamin Franklin’s Kite.” The program is free and open to children of all ages.

You can read the complete text of Franklin’s letter here.

Visible Astronomy: Colonel Clapp Takes on Newton

William H. Miner’s maternal grandfather, Ephraim Wheeler Clapp, was born in 1796 in Salem, New York. He was one of the six children of Stephen Clapp, a Revolutionary War veteran who operated a mill, and Catherine Wheeler. Ephraim served in the War of 1812, and was thereafter known as “Colonel Clapp.” He married Sarah Rice in 1814 and they established a farm at East Salem and had nine children. Martha, their second daughter, was William Miner’s mother.

Title page of Ephraim Clapp’s manuscript

Sarah Small, a cousin of William’s, recalled that Grandfather Clapp was “a great student. Could tell you all about the different planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and which one would be the ruling planet for the year, and tell of the big and little dippers and where they were placed, and each year would write it all down. He had complied quite a book on different subjects. He was always pleased when some of the friends came in to visit them, and would be interested in his writings on these subjects.”

A portion of this manuscript, written between 1846 and 1850 and titled “Visible Astronomy,” is in the collection of the Alice T. Miner Museum. Colonel Clapp began his text with a bold claim: “In the following work I propose to introduce a new System of Astronomy, and if in so doing the Newtonian system, should be assailed as incorrect, or if it should merely be annihilated, my only apology is that I have not at any time of my life fully believed in that system.” 

Portrait of Newton by
Godfrey Kneller, 1702

Sir Isaac Newton published his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687. In this book, he laid out the laws of motion and of universal gravitation, and showed that these laws—which could be expressed mathematically—explained both celestial and earthly phenomena: the motion of the planets, tides, equinoxes, and so on. Newton’s work was seen by many as definitive proof of the validity of the heliocentric theory, and by the mid-18th century the Newtonian model of the universe was broadly accepted across Europe and North America.

However, this did not mean that Newton was universally accepted, or that people agreed with all aspects of his work. Challengers to Newton ranged from those who saw unexplained problems in his theories (such as the precise nature and source of gravity) that they attempted to resolve, all the way through proponents of fringe theories like Flat- and Hollow-Earthers. Others objected to Newton on scriptural grounds, arguing that his picture of the universe was contrary to the Bible’s description of sun, moon, and stars fixed in a firmament that revolved around the earth. Some people felt that Newton’s mechanistic universe, running on mathematical principles, opened the door to rationalism and free thought.

Clapp’s diagram showing Newton’s supposed error
regarding the size of the sun.

Still, by Ephraim Clapp’s day, anti-Newtonianism was a pretty eccentric position. His objections to Newton seem to have come from his belief that Newton was mistaken about some fundamental facts. Clapp argued that the sun cannot be as large as Newton says it is, because if it were, the earth would never experience days and nights of equal length. Moreover, Clapp claimed, if Newton were correct about the size of the sun and the distance of the earth’s orbit around it, the earth would have to be moving so fast that gravity would cease to function and “every thing moveable would fall from the earth.” (This is just in the first two pages of the manuscript, by the way.)

Page from Principia Mathematica

I am not a scientist, but it seems to me that Clapp’s theories are doubtful, to say the least. But his manuscript does raise some interesting points about how ordinary people understood science and tried to incorporate it into their own lives. It would be very interesting to know where Clapp got his knowledge about the Newtonian system. Principia Mathematica is a dense text, full of mathematical equations and diagrams—and it was in Latin. So relatively few people actually read it in its original form, instead relying on translations and books that simplified Newton’s work for a general audience, such as The System of the World, Demonstrated in an Easy and Popular Manner: Being a Proper Introduction to the Most Sublime Philosophy, published in 1740. Americans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries also had access to a wide variety of encyclopedic works on natural history aimed at the general public. Astronomy had an important place in these texts. In addition, lecturers traveled around the country, giving talks and performing scientific demonstrations. Ephraim Clapp might very well have read these types of books and attended scientific lectures. But his ideas about the nature of the universe seem to have been entirely his own.