LINCECUM, Gideon, naturalist,
born in Hancock county, Georgia, 22 April, 1793; died in Brenham, Washington
County, Texas, 28 November, 1874. He was self-educated, and became a practicing
botanical physician, serving also as county judge and town planner in Columbus,
Lowndes county, Mississippi, about 1815, as postmaster of two towns in that
state about 1840, and in the same office in Long Point, Texas, in 1856. During
the war of 1812 he served in the Georgia militia. A die-hard Confederate in the
Civil War, in 1868 he went into exile in Tuxpan, Mexico, where he spent five
years.
Dr. Lincecum was an enthusiastic student in natural history, a
correspondent of Charles Darwin and other prominent naturalists, and a member of
several scientific societies, to whose publications, notably those of the
Smithsonian institution, the Philadelphia academy, and the Essex institute,
Massachusetts, he contributed valuable specimens and papers. To the latter
institution he gave a collection representing forty-eight different species of
ants as well as scores of butterflies and moths, and to the Smithsonian he sent
hundreds of specimens of the insects and flora of Texas. Among his published
papers is a valuable essay on the red ant, to the study of which he devoted
fourteen years. An extensive collection of his letters and papers resides in the
Center for American History, University of Texas in Austin, and several volumes
have been published posthumously. These include "Adventures of a Frontier
Naturalist" (1994), "Science on the Texas Frontier" (1997), and "Gideon
Lincecum's Sword: Civil War Letters" (2001). An extensive manuscript on
"Oral Traditions of the Choctaw Indians," among whom he lived for several years,
is being edited for publication.
Edited Appletons Encyclopedia by
Jerry Lincecum
Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM
LINCECUM, Gideon, naturalist, born in Hancock county, Georgia, 22 April, 1793; died in Brenham, Washington County, Texas, 28 November, 1874. He was self-educated, and became a practising physician, serving also as county judge in Lowndes county, Mississippi, about 1815, as postmaster of two towns in that state about 1840, and in the same office in Long Point, Texas, in 1856. During the war of 1812 he served in the Georgia militia. In 1868 he went to Tuxpan, Mexico, where he spent five years. Dr. Lincecum was an enthusiast in natural history, a regular correspondent of Charles Darwin, Alexander yon Humboldt, Louis Agassiz, and other naturalists in this country and abroad, and a member of numerous scientific societies, to whose publications, notably those of the Smithsonian institution, the Franklin institute, and the Essex institute, Massachusetts, he contributed valuable papers. To the latter institution he gave a collection representing forty-eight different families of ants and butterflies, and to the Jardin des plantes in Paris he sent specimens of all the flora of Texas. Among his published papers is a valuable monograph on the red ant, to the study of which he devoted fourteen years. He wrote several works, which remain unpublished. These include "Traditions of the Choctaw Indians," among whom he lived for many years, "Medical History of the Southern United States," and an autobiography, now in the possession of his daughter.
