Frederick Valentine Melsheimer. The “Father of American Entomology,” was born in Regenborn, Brunswick (now part of Germany) in 1749. The son of the Duke of Brunswick’s Superintendent of Forestry, Melsheimer claimed entomologist August W. Knoch as a childhood friend. At the University of Helmstedt in Brunswick, Melsheimer studied sciences and religion from 1769 to 1772. Afterward, he served as a tutor for two families in Halberstadt
Then, in early 1776, Melsheimer received a call to the post of Chaplain with the Duke of Brunswick’s Dragoon Regiment, a class of calvary generally equipped and paid as infantrymen on horseback. As a result of the 1774 marriage of the Duke of Brunswick’s son, Charles William Ferdinand, to Princess Augusta, the sister of Britain’s King George III, Brunswick naturally allied with Great Britain. Through a January 1776 treaty between Great Britain and Brunswick, Brunswick loaned its army to Brittain. Thus, the dragoons including Melsheimer set out for North America on February 22, 1776, just twelve days after he preached his first sermon to the regiment. They landed in Quebec City on June 3rd. Melsheimer documented the voyage from Brunswick to England, then across the Atlantic and up the Saint Lawrence River in his journal.
During the August 1777 Battle of Bennington, along the New York and Vermont border, the Americans decisively defeated the British troops, and Melsheimer found himself wounded and a prisoner of war. Then in 1779, Melsheimer resigned his position as chaplain in the Brunswick Dragoon Regiment, “on account of some difficulties I had with my brother officers.” He then began to preach in Pennsylvania. Having accepted a call to pastor five Lutheran congregations, he married Maria Agnes Man on June 3, 1779. He then served as pastor at several congregations in Pennsylvania. While pastor at New Holland, Melsheimer promoted an effort to create a single school for English and German students. The opened in 1787. Melsheimer also served as a Professor of Languages, and then as President of Franklin College. Throughout, he remained pastor at New Holland until his death from lung disease in 1814.
Throughout his life, Melsheimer documented and collected insects. He and his childhood friend Knoch traded specimen of insect species throughout their lives. George Prowell wrote, “His devotion to this line of original work amused, rather than interested, some of his parishioners, when they observed him coming to their places of worship with some new species of bug, beetle or butterfly, that he had found on his way to his country church.” In 1806, Melsheimer published A Catalogue of Insects of Pennsylvania, describing 1,363 species. In the book, he offers to exchange duplicate specimen from his collection for those of additional species. Though, this side hobby merely amused his parishioners, Thomas Say, a fellow entomologist of the time, dubbed Melsheimer “The Father of American Entomology.”
Later, two of Melsheimer followed in his entomologist footsteps. Each subsequently inherited the collection. Then, in 1864, Louis Agassiz purchased the Melsheimer collection for Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. The collection, then packed in 41 boxes, included thousands of specimens, mostly beetles. 2,200 of those species came from the United States. Many of Melsheimer’s specimens remain in the collection today, despite their age!
Sources:
- Lloyd, J. (2018, February 3). York County Insects at Harvard, thanks to the Melsheimer family. York Daily Record. https://www.ydr.com/story/news/history/blogs/universal-york/2018/01/30/york-county-insects-at-harvard-thanks-to-the-melsheimer-family/109950278/
- Wikipedia contributors. (2025, August 16). Frederick Valentine Melsheimer. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:15, September 17, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frederick_Valentine_Melsheimer&oldid=1306271841
- Wikipedia contributors. (2025, September 6). Brunswick troops in the American Revolutionary War. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:15, September 17, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brunswick_troops_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War&oldid=1309938944
- Melsheimer, F. V. (Frederick Valentine). (1891). Journal of the voyage of the Brunswick auxiliaries from Wolfenbü ttel to Quebec. [Quebec?: s.n.] from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t75t4879v&seq=9
- Heisey M. L., . (1937). Frederick Valentine Melsheimer, entomologist. Lancaster, Pa: Lancaster County Historical Society from https://lancasterh.bywatersolutions.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-retrieve-file.pl?id=55eaf62d8c953635df8bf375b5c30b59
- Mallis, A. (1971). American entomologists. Rutgers University Press from https://archive.org/details/americanentomolo0000mall/page/522/mode/2up