The McGlashans: The Patriarch and the Butterfly Princess.
Mar 27, 2016 8:33:07 GMT
deliasfanatic, mygos, and 3 more like this
Post by nomad on Mar 27, 2016 8:33:07 GMT
The McGlashans: The Patriarch and the Butterfly Princess.
The Article will consist of two other parts.
2. Ximena the Princess Butterfly Farmer.
3. The McGlashan Legacy.
The Patriarch; Charles Fayette McGlashan (1847-1931)
By the time the school teacher, Charles Fayette McGlashan moved to the violent and lawless railway and mining town of Truckee in Sierra Nevada Mountains of California during 1872, he was already corresponding with some great American lepidopterists. Reverend Charles J. S. Bethune, founder of the Entomological Society of Canada, W. Henry Edwards, Albert Koeberle and J. J. Rivers, all of whom recommended books that furthered McGlashan's study.
McGlashan wrote of the kindness of the English born stage actor, the renown Californian lepidopterist Henry Edwards who visited McGlashan at his Truckee home." I shall never forget your kindness in robbing your own cabinet to swell mine". Edwards who had a theater company in San Francisco, was regarded as one of the most kind and generous of the pioneer American lepidopterists.
Henry Edwards and Mcglashan hunted butterflies together in the meadows above Truckee. Edwards taught his new friend Charles to sugar for moths with a thick syrup, stale beer, brown sugar and a shot of Jamaica rum. Together they spread their bait on trees growing along the Truckee River, returning later to find a good mix of species sipping at the sugar edges. Mcglashan enjoyed this type of night time adventure, he recorded " One is thrilled with excitement at almost every step taken in the darkness amid the rustling bushes and trees along the river bank. There are surprises and half-adventures, such as the sudden whirl of a bird's wing or the crackling of a dead branch, and the gloom and solitude tend to make these harmless episodes almost tragic. The least noise and prize specimens will be sailing safely above your head".
Charles McGlashan, was to become a mover and shaker in the small pond that was Truckee, which had up grown up around the railway. McGlashan would become the Patriarch of a large family of eight daughters and one son. Leaving teaching, McGlashan became a skilled defense Attorney and at others times he was an editor of various newspapers. Above the town, McGlashan ploughed his money into building an elaborate mansion, the extraordinary 'Crystal Palace' with a footbridge leading to a similar building, his Rocking Stone Museum that was built on a glacial feature known as the Rocking Stone. Looking up at this strange and elaborate piece of architecture, there was no doubt who was now Truckee's leading citizen and the Patriarch like to sit in his favourite black leather chair gazing out through his palace windows on the town beneath and to his beloved historical and butterfly collecting area, the ' Donner Mountain' high up in the Sierra Nevada.
In a more shameful period in the town's history, was McGlashan's involvement in the local Truckee Caucasian League, who aims were to rid Truckee of its Chinese population that had grown up along the Truckee River in a shanty town. Some used terror tactics, in which they bought fire and brimstone to these unfortunate people. The Chinese came with the building of the Trans-continental Railroad but later some townsfolk called them the yellow peril, cheap labour to businesses, causing resentment with the natives and there was talk of opium dens. McGlashan would not adhere to violence although he did advocate that all the local merchants would neither sell goods nor food to that ethnic population and they had no option but to pack up and leave. In just ten weeks they were gone.
Charles McGlashan had many interests besides being a passionate bug collector. He studied geology, astrology and the history of the Truckee area. Charles McGlashan would become an innovator of introducing Winter Sports to Western America, promoting games in the Truckee area on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
McGlashan is perhaps most well known for in bringing the tragic story of the 'Donner Party' to the American public. The Donner Party were among the first emigrant pioneers to travel from the east to the promised land of California. After a long struggle across prairies and over mountain ranges, they climbed up into Sierra Nevada mountains to the Donner Pass lying at 2151 meters. The party found that the pass was blocked by snow and the party of 80 built a few log cabins at two camps near Donner lake. Trapped in the icy grip of the 1846-1847 winter, many perished through starvation and cold, some of those that survived resorted to cannibalism. It is a tragic and macabre story that McGlashan first told in his critically acclaimed book published in 1879 ' A History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra'. Online here
archive.org/details/historyofdonnerp01cfmc
McGlashan became captivated with the misadventure of the Donner Party and sought out the survivors to interview them for his book. He spent many days searching the Donner lake area for Donner Party relics and those he found he kept in his museum along with his collection of butterflies that was rumoured to consist of 20,000 specimens. His first wife Jennie, said the " real tragedy of the Donner Party was her " and for a time they separated and later divorced.
Charles McGlashan was an imposing figure and in later life, he had a white receding hair line and a notable icy stare. He often rode out from Truckee on his horse to collect butterflies or historical relics in the meadows of the nearby Mountains. It was a good place to spend his day's butterfly collecting. Donner Mountain has one of the most diverse butterfly populations in America with 115 species recorded, 62 species in one day. Considering the British Isles have a mere 58 species that is some a truly marvellous array of butterflies.
He found new species too. In 1885, McGlashan discovered the butterfly J. J. Rivers named Melitaea macglashanii, 1888. Today his discovery is recognized as a subspecies of Euphydryas chalcedona. See butterfliesofamerica.com/euphydryas_chalcedona_macglashanii_specimens2.htm.
McGlashan was able to breed a good series of the new butterfly and he is also remembered by the Ghost Moth of the Hepialidae family that he also discovered; Hepialus macglashani Edwards, 1886 which is now known as Gazoryctra macglashani.
There has been some confusion regarding Charles McGlashan large collection of butterflies. Several sources mention that he had in the region of 20,000 specimens. Around the year 1900, McGlashan patented his own early design of riker mount wall cases and he made a large artistic display consisting of exotics and native Sierra Nevada species to thrill the visitors to his Museum. McGlashan exchanged many Sierra Nevada species for exotics with collectors from different parts of the world. After McGlashan died in 1931, with his wife living until 1932, the butterfly wall display was still in his Rocking Stone museum and survived the fire which destroyed the main house during 1935. Later, this large wall display was on view at the Nevada County Courthouse. Exposed to light for many years, it is in remarkably good condition and consists of around 1200 specimens. This fragment of the McGlashan collection can now be viewed in the Emigrant Trail Museum in Donner State Park near Truckee, California.
Professor Art Shapiro, the American butterfly expert mentioned in an article on the Butterflies of the Sierra Nevada Mountains that " A tiny remnant of the McGlashan collection is at Donner Memorial State Park. Thousands of McGlashan specimens are in museums all over the world. Unfortunately, almost everything is labelled “Truckee,” regardless of where they were caught." These include many of those specimens that were sold by his daughter Ximena.
For twelve years between 1875 and 1887 Charles McGlashan sent many of his moth specimens to Henry Edwards, to add to his collection. The Edwards collection together with those specimens taken by Charles McGlashan were the foundation for the lepidoptera collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. During the years 1884-1887 that great entomologist, William Henry Edwards of West Virginia received many specimens from McGlashen. W.H. Edwards would in exchange for specimens determine all of McGlashan insects. W.H. Edwards was no relation to Henry Edwards.
E.O. Esig who wrote an obituary of Charles McGlashan in the Pan Pacific Entomologist, Vol 3, 1931 mentioned that McGlashan had a large collection of some 20,000 specimens. In the biography of Charles McGlashan , 'Give Me a Mountain' written by his granddaughter Nona who the McGlashans adopted when their daughter died, the author refers to his artistic wall display comprising 20,000 specimens when in fact there is, as has been mentioned only 1200 specimens. Art Shapiro is doubtful that there was ever the vast amount of specimens as cited by Esig but Charles McGlashan certainly seems to have had a main cabinet collection, although the present whereabouts of the latter are unknown.
Give Me a Mountain: The life of Charles Fayette McGlashan. A biography by his granddaughter Nona McGlashan published originally in 1977, last edition in 1991 can be purchased here
www.amazon.com/Give-mountain-meadow-imaginative-lawyer-editor/dp/0913548413
John Wakefield, an entomologist residing in the Truckee area, wrote a newspaper article about the McGlashan's artistic butterfly display on the collections return to the Donner museum near the town in 1996.
" In January 1996, I was approached with the offer to view and evaluate a collection of lepidoptera, the likes my eyes had never beheld in all my years. Not only to view it, but to repair and restore it as best I could to its magnificent splendor. With magnifying glass in hand, I began slowly to peruse the large collection of approximately 1200 animals, as they are known in entomological terms. The colors were dazzling to the naked eye, and made me wonder how this treasure could be more than a hundred years old. The collection is housed in four wooden panels, hinged together like an Oriental screen. Each panel is divided into 15 sections -- 5 down by 3 across -- each set up individually. The specimens are arranged artistically, without regard to classification or biography. Eight of the individual sections have the specimens on an underlying bottom known as Ryker mount style. Others are displayed on entomological pins. Usually a given section has a large, showy blue (morpho) butterfly as a center piece with smaller decoratively mounted specimens surrounding it. I would say 85% of the display is in good to excellent condition with some loss of pigment (fugitive) in the moths. The value of the collection, of course, cannot be determined at this time, until I have had sufficient time to identify the species. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that surprises are forthcoming as I begin to uncover the identity of all or most of these beauties! "
" Historically, this collection is priceless as it represents a time in our culture never to be seen again. My utmost desire is that this absolutely magnificent collection will inspire future generations to seek education in the sciences of ecology and entomology that deals with these glorious creatures ". The late John Wakefield first became interested in a career in Entomology when he saw a film about Charles McGlashan's daughter, Ximena the butterfly farmer.
Art Shaprio who also reviewed the McGlashan collection when it arrived at the Donner Museum, was less enthusiastic, mentioning that it was of minimal scientific value. The scientist records " I noted no particular rarities, just a fairly random group of exotics with a few nice "oh, mys." Judge for yourself from the photos with Nona's article!. There is a Prepona that might be a "goodie," but one needs to see the underside. The Parnassius are nearly all legally protected now." (Pers Comm March 2016). Shaprio also mentioned there were many of the montane Plebejus saepiolus.
The Article will consist of two other parts.
2. Ximena the Princess Butterfly Farmer.
3. The McGlashan Legacy.
The Patriarch; Charles Fayette McGlashan (1847-1931)
By the time the school teacher, Charles Fayette McGlashan moved to the violent and lawless railway and mining town of Truckee in Sierra Nevada Mountains of California during 1872, he was already corresponding with some great American lepidopterists. Reverend Charles J. S. Bethune, founder of the Entomological Society of Canada, W. Henry Edwards, Albert Koeberle and J. J. Rivers, all of whom recommended books that furthered McGlashan's study.
McGlashan wrote of the kindness of the English born stage actor, the renown Californian lepidopterist Henry Edwards who visited McGlashan at his Truckee home." I shall never forget your kindness in robbing your own cabinet to swell mine". Edwards who had a theater company in San Francisco, was regarded as one of the most kind and generous of the pioneer American lepidopterists.
Henry Edwards and Mcglashan hunted butterflies together in the meadows above Truckee. Edwards taught his new friend Charles to sugar for moths with a thick syrup, stale beer, brown sugar and a shot of Jamaica rum. Together they spread their bait on trees growing along the Truckee River, returning later to find a good mix of species sipping at the sugar edges. Mcglashan enjoyed this type of night time adventure, he recorded " One is thrilled with excitement at almost every step taken in the darkness amid the rustling bushes and trees along the river bank. There are surprises and half-adventures, such as the sudden whirl of a bird's wing or the crackling of a dead branch, and the gloom and solitude tend to make these harmless episodes almost tragic. The least noise and prize specimens will be sailing safely above your head".
Charles McGlashan, was to become a mover and shaker in the small pond that was Truckee, which had up grown up around the railway. McGlashan would become the Patriarch of a large family of eight daughters and one son. Leaving teaching, McGlashan became a skilled defense Attorney and at others times he was an editor of various newspapers. Above the town, McGlashan ploughed his money into building an elaborate mansion, the extraordinary 'Crystal Palace' with a footbridge leading to a similar building, his Rocking Stone Museum that was built on a glacial feature known as the Rocking Stone. Looking up at this strange and elaborate piece of architecture, there was no doubt who was now Truckee's leading citizen and the Patriarch like to sit in his favourite black leather chair gazing out through his palace windows on the town beneath and to his beloved historical and butterfly collecting area, the ' Donner Mountain' high up in the Sierra Nevada.
In a more shameful period in the town's history, was McGlashan's involvement in the local Truckee Caucasian League, who aims were to rid Truckee of its Chinese population that had grown up along the Truckee River in a shanty town. Some used terror tactics, in which they bought fire and brimstone to these unfortunate people. The Chinese came with the building of the Trans-continental Railroad but later some townsfolk called them the yellow peril, cheap labour to businesses, causing resentment with the natives and there was talk of opium dens. McGlashan would not adhere to violence although he did advocate that all the local merchants would neither sell goods nor food to that ethnic population and they had no option but to pack up and leave. In just ten weeks they were gone.
Charles McGlashan had many interests besides being a passionate bug collector. He studied geology, astrology and the history of the Truckee area. Charles McGlashan would become an innovator of introducing Winter Sports to Western America, promoting games in the Truckee area on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
McGlashan is perhaps most well known for in bringing the tragic story of the 'Donner Party' to the American public. The Donner Party were among the first emigrant pioneers to travel from the east to the promised land of California. After a long struggle across prairies and over mountain ranges, they climbed up into Sierra Nevada mountains to the Donner Pass lying at 2151 meters. The party found that the pass was blocked by snow and the party of 80 built a few log cabins at two camps near Donner lake. Trapped in the icy grip of the 1846-1847 winter, many perished through starvation and cold, some of those that survived resorted to cannibalism. It is a tragic and macabre story that McGlashan first told in his critically acclaimed book published in 1879 ' A History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra'. Online here
archive.org/details/historyofdonnerp01cfmc
McGlashan became captivated with the misadventure of the Donner Party and sought out the survivors to interview them for his book. He spent many days searching the Donner lake area for Donner Party relics and those he found he kept in his museum along with his collection of butterflies that was rumoured to consist of 20,000 specimens. His first wife Jennie, said the " real tragedy of the Donner Party was her " and for a time they separated and later divorced.
Charles McGlashan was an imposing figure and in later life, he had a white receding hair line and a notable icy stare. He often rode out from Truckee on his horse to collect butterflies or historical relics in the meadows of the nearby Mountains. It was a good place to spend his day's butterfly collecting. Donner Mountain has one of the most diverse butterfly populations in America with 115 species recorded, 62 species in one day. Considering the British Isles have a mere 58 species that is some a truly marvellous array of butterflies.
He found new species too. In 1885, McGlashan discovered the butterfly J. J. Rivers named Melitaea macglashanii, 1888. Today his discovery is recognized as a subspecies of Euphydryas chalcedona. See butterfliesofamerica.com/euphydryas_chalcedona_macglashanii_specimens2.htm.
McGlashan was able to breed a good series of the new butterfly and he is also remembered by the Ghost Moth of the Hepialidae family that he also discovered; Hepialus macglashani Edwards, 1886 which is now known as Gazoryctra macglashani.
There has been some confusion regarding Charles McGlashan large collection of butterflies. Several sources mention that he had in the region of 20,000 specimens. Around the year 1900, McGlashan patented his own early design of riker mount wall cases and he made a large artistic display consisting of exotics and native Sierra Nevada species to thrill the visitors to his Museum. McGlashan exchanged many Sierra Nevada species for exotics with collectors from different parts of the world. After McGlashan died in 1931, with his wife living until 1932, the butterfly wall display was still in his Rocking Stone museum and survived the fire which destroyed the main house during 1935. Later, this large wall display was on view at the Nevada County Courthouse. Exposed to light for many years, it is in remarkably good condition and consists of around 1200 specimens. This fragment of the McGlashan collection can now be viewed in the Emigrant Trail Museum in Donner State Park near Truckee, California.
Professor Art Shapiro, the American butterfly expert mentioned in an article on the Butterflies of the Sierra Nevada Mountains that " A tiny remnant of the McGlashan collection is at Donner Memorial State Park. Thousands of McGlashan specimens are in museums all over the world. Unfortunately, almost everything is labelled “Truckee,” regardless of where they were caught." These include many of those specimens that were sold by his daughter Ximena.
For twelve years between 1875 and 1887 Charles McGlashan sent many of his moth specimens to Henry Edwards, to add to his collection. The Edwards collection together with those specimens taken by Charles McGlashan were the foundation for the lepidoptera collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. During the years 1884-1887 that great entomologist, William Henry Edwards of West Virginia received many specimens from McGlashen. W.H. Edwards would in exchange for specimens determine all of McGlashan insects. W.H. Edwards was no relation to Henry Edwards.
E.O. Esig who wrote an obituary of Charles McGlashan in the Pan Pacific Entomologist, Vol 3, 1931 mentioned that McGlashan had a large collection of some 20,000 specimens. In the biography of Charles McGlashan , 'Give Me a Mountain' written by his granddaughter Nona who the McGlashans adopted when their daughter died, the author refers to his artistic wall display comprising 20,000 specimens when in fact there is, as has been mentioned only 1200 specimens. Art Shapiro is doubtful that there was ever the vast amount of specimens as cited by Esig but Charles McGlashan certainly seems to have had a main cabinet collection, although the present whereabouts of the latter are unknown.
Give Me a Mountain: The life of Charles Fayette McGlashan. A biography by his granddaughter Nona McGlashan published originally in 1977, last edition in 1991 can be purchased here
www.amazon.com/Give-mountain-meadow-imaginative-lawyer-editor/dp/0913548413
John Wakefield, an entomologist residing in the Truckee area, wrote a newspaper article about the McGlashan's artistic butterfly display on the collections return to the Donner museum near the town in 1996.
" In January 1996, I was approached with the offer to view and evaluate a collection of lepidoptera, the likes my eyes had never beheld in all my years. Not only to view it, but to repair and restore it as best I could to its magnificent splendor. With magnifying glass in hand, I began slowly to peruse the large collection of approximately 1200 animals, as they are known in entomological terms. The colors were dazzling to the naked eye, and made me wonder how this treasure could be more than a hundred years old. The collection is housed in four wooden panels, hinged together like an Oriental screen. Each panel is divided into 15 sections -- 5 down by 3 across -- each set up individually. The specimens are arranged artistically, without regard to classification or biography. Eight of the individual sections have the specimens on an underlying bottom known as Ryker mount style. Others are displayed on entomological pins. Usually a given section has a large, showy blue (morpho) butterfly as a center piece with smaller decoratively mounted specimens surrounding it. I would say 85% of the display is in good to excellent condition with some loss of pigment (fugitive) in the moths. The value of the collection, of course, cannot be determined at this time, until I have had sufficient time to identify the species. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that surprises are forthcoming as I begin to uncover the identity of all or most of these beauties! "
" Historically, this collection is priceless as it represents a time in our culture never to be seen again. My utmost desire is that this absolutely magnificent collection will inspire future generations to seek education in the sciences of ecology and entomology that deals with these glorious creatures ". The late John Wakefield first became interested in a career in Entomology when he saw a film about Charles McGlashan's daughter, Ximena the butterfly farmer.
Art Shaprio who also reviewed the McGlashan collection when it arrived at the Donner Museum, was less enthusiastic, mentioning that it was of minimal scientific value. The scientist records " I noted no particular rarities, just a fairly random group of exotics with a few nice "oh, mys." Judge for yourself from the photos with Nona's article!. There is a Prepona that might be a "goodie," but one needs to see the underside. The Parnassius are nearly all legally protected now." (Pers Comm March 2016). Shaprio also mentioned there were many of the montane Plebejus saepiolus.