Ohio History Journal

EMINENT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SARGENT

FAMILY

 

CHARLES SPRAGUE SARGENT

The Sargent family, somewhat extensively noted,

in a previous issue of the QUARTERLY, is one of the most

continuously and favorably noted in American History.

The definite genealogy of this family begins with Wil-

liam Sargent, who married Mary, daughter of Peter

Duncan and Mary Epes of Gloucester, June 21, 1678.

The marriage ceremony was performed by Deputy Gov-

ernor Samuel Symonds of Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Their son, Epes Sargent, was born in Gloucester, July

12, 1690. From him are descended a long line of emi-

nent Americans whose genealogy is recorded in a sump-

tuous volume entitled, "Epes Sargent of Gloucester and

His Descendants."

Among the eminent members of this family whose

lives have reached the present generation was Professor

Charles Sprague Sargent VI, who was born in Boston,

April 24, 1841, and who passed away March 22, 1927,

on his beautiful estate, Holm Lea, Brookline, Massa-

chusetts. His death was editorially noted from ocean

to ocean in America and in lands beyond the sea. From

a number of these editorials we reproduce the following

from the Boston Evening Transcript of March 23,

1927, which appeared under the caption, "Greatest of

our Gardeners":

Charles Sprague Sargent, professor of aboriculture in Har-

vard University, director of the Arnold Arboretum, whose death

has taken place at his home in Brookline, was an eminent man in

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182       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

more fields than that of dendrology. A man of the highest gen-

eral culture, a citizen of standing, a man of taste and judgment,

he had throughout a long and most serviceable life exercised a

beneficial influence in his native city. Naturally he will be longest

remembered as the maker and developer of the Arnold Arbor-

etum. That noble reservation, the pride of Boston and of the

university of which its collections and library are an appanage,

is Professor Sargent's real monument, and it will be one that will

outlast, in the affections of our citizens, even the memorials of

marble and bronze. To the building up of the Arboretum Pro-

fessor Sargent brought the profoundest knowledge of trees and

shrubs that any man in America -- perhaps in the world -- pos-

sessed, and added to that knowledge a zeal and public spirit which

belonged to him by a high inheritance. He has made of the Ar-

nold Arboretum, and its herbariums and library, the completest

thing of the kind in the civilized world, and a place to which the

students of the dendrology of the northern temperate zone must

resort if they wish to master the subject.

A scholar, a man of perfect grace and breeding, a sagacious

adviser in matters of public taste and policy, he was one who

might well have been a public leader, but his heart was centered

in his particular work -- in the Arboretum, and in the preparation

and revision of his monumental works on North American den-

drology. His "Silva," and his "Manual of the Trees of North

America," are the standard books in this field. His dendrological

researches were honored throughout the world. His death is a

great loss to our community and our State -- to the whole Nation

as well.

 

Professor Charles Sprague Sargent was born in

Boston April 24, 1841. He was the son of Ignatius and

Henrietta (Grey) Sargent.      He prepared for college

at E. S. Dixwell's School, from which he entered Har-

vard and was graduated in the class of 1862.

The following year he entered the Union Army and

became a first lieutenant in the Second Louisiana In-

fantry. He was afterward promoted to captain and

aide-de-camp, Volunteers, on March 15, 1865. He was

brevetted Major of Volunteers March 26, 1865, "for

faithful and meritorious service" during the campaign

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Eminent Representatives of the Sargent Family  183 against Mobile, and was honorably mustered out of the service August 26, 1865. After the war he specialized in horticulture and arboriculture and became identified with Harvard Uni-

versity, where he was professor in 1872 and 1873 and a director of the Botanic Garden from 1873-1879. In 1872, James Arnold, a New Bedford merchant and officially connected with Harvard, gave the College for an arboretum an endowment of $104,000, with the

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184     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

understanding that 125 acres of the Bussey estate

should be used for the enterprise. The gift was con-

ditioned upon an agreement to develop an arboretum

which should "contain, as far as practicable, all the

trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, either indigenous

or exotic, which can be raised in the open air" at the

site of the institution.

In the development of this arboretum Professor

Sargent found his life work and left his enduring monu-

ment. Of it he himself has said: "In no other public

garden are there such cliffs or a more beautiful rem-

nant of a coniferous forest." In describing the begin-

ning of his work, he said that on November 24, 1873, he

"found himself with a worn-out farm, partly covered

with natural plantations of native trees, nearly ruined

by excessive pasturage . . without equipment or

the support and encouragement of the general public,

which then knew nothing about an arboretum or what

it is expected to accomplish."

Professor Sargent became an ardent advocate of na-

tional forests and it was largely through his influence

that the United States Department of Agriculture be-

came interested in this feature of conservation. A sur-

vey of the forest resources of the country was con-

ducted by him under the 10th Census of the United

States. In 1884 he became chairman of the New York

Commission on Forestry Policy. This led to immediate

developments in that state and formed the basis later

of the national forest policy. Congress then made it pos-

sible for the National Academy of Science to appoint a

commission of seven recognized experts to investigate

and report "on the inauguration of a National Forest

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Eminent Representatives of the Sargent Family  185

Policy for the forested lands of the United States."

Professor Sargent was chairman of this committee, and

as a result of its recommendations President Cleveland

proclaimed 21,000,000 acres of western lands as Forest

Reserves. Much opposition in the West was aroused by

this action and President McKinley was urged to annul

the proclamation. He did not comply, however, and

the Forest Reserves have since been extended until today

they occupy 150,000,000 acres.

Professor Sargent was an indefatigable worker and

his contributions to literature along the lines of his spe-

cial interests are extensive and voluminous. A bibliog-

raphy published in the genealogical work, to which ref-

erence has been made, covers eight and one-half com-

pactly printed pages in small type. Some of these items

are contributions to the various publications which he

edited and others extend through a number of volumes,

such as "The Silva of North America" in fourteen vol-

umes elaborately illustrated.

The list of learned societies of which he was a mem-

ber is a long one, including the National Academy of

Sciences, Linnaean Society of London, England, The

National Society of Agriculture of France, the Scot-

tish Arboricultural Society, American Academy of Arts

and Sciences, The American Philosophical Society, The

Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agricul-

ture, and The Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Of

a number of these he served at different times as presi-

dent and trustee.

Charles Sprague Sargent married Mary Allen Robe-

son November 26, 1873. Of this union five children

were born: Henrietta (Mrs. Guy Lowell); Mary (Mrs.

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186      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Nathaniel Bowditch Potter); Charles S.; Alice, and

Andrew Robeson, who died in 1918.

 

JOHN SINGER SARGENT

John Singer Sargent VII was born in Florence,

Italy, January 10, 1856. He died April 14, 1925, in

London, England. He was the son of Fitz William Sar-

gent VI and Mary Newbold Sargent.

He was educated in Florence, Rome and Nice and

studied for a short time in Germany. He never at-

tended a university. At the age of eighteen years he

began the study of painting in the studio of Carolus

Duran of Paris. For many years before his death he

was considered one of the world's greatest painters.

In the genealogy of the Sargent family he is thus

characterized:

Simple in life, stern in self-judgment, always kind and in-

dulgent in his judgment of others, devoted to the members of

his immediate family, and a kind and generous friend to all

struggling artists, Sargent the man, for the very few who really

know him, is not less remarkable than Sargent the artist, known

and admired by the whole world.

This was written about a year and a half before

his death. The picture of these two distinguished mem-

bers of the Sargent family, herein reproduced, is from

the genealogy of the Sargent family noted above.

 

WINTHROP SARGENT

Secretary of the Northwest Territory

Winthrop Sargent IV was born at Gloucester, May

1, 1753, and died on a steamboat, near New Orleans,

La., January 3, 1820. Sketches of his life have already

appeared in the Quarterly. He was Secretary of the

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Eminent Representatives of the Sargent Family  187 Northwest Territory from 1787 until 1798. In the ab- sence of Governor St. Clair he served as Governor of the Northwest Territory. A large collection of his

papers has recently come into the possession of The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society through the kindly interest of Winthrop Sargent VII, a life member of the Society, who has done much in recent years for upbuilding the manuscript department.

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