Elam Bartholomew was a man of many talents. He was a successful pioneer, farmer, family man, and botanist. He achieved notoriety in many areas of his life, especially in botany and mycology. He collected well over 290,000 specimens, including more than 450 types, many of which are now housed at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas. Other achievements during his lifetime include being editor of the Fungi Columbiani and receiving an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from Kansas State Agricultural College. His success can be attributed to his natural abilities, faith, hard work, and the able and lifelong assistance of his wife, Rachel Montgomery, and his children and grandchildren.
Elam Bartholomew was born in Strasburg, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1852. It was there that he obtained his love of the land and his introduction to farming. In 1874 he moved to Stockton, Kansas where he would spend most of his remaining life. Elam built and maintained a large farm near Stockton and also became very involved in the community, especially the Presbyterian church. In his free time, he furthered his knowledge about his favorite biological organisms, plants. Besides traditional crop farming, Elam planted many types of trees, shrubs and flowers around his homestead. He also started a botanical survey of the area. With the help of his wife, Rachel Montgomery, Elam built a reputation for himself as one of the best botanists in the area. This caught the attention of the Kansas State Agricultural college as well as the United Stated Department of Agriculture. Throughout the years he worked closely with these two institutions, eventually conducting crop experiments on his farm and traveling on long collecting trips throughout the United States. During his collecting trips his family helped him by continuing to maintain the farmstead.
Elam was very active throughout his later years, eventually serving as Curator of the Herbarium at the Kansas State Teacher's College in Hays, Kansas until his death in 1934. The original building he constructed on his farm in 1912 to serve as a herbarium for his work is still standing. Dr. David M. Bartholomew, Elam's grandson, kindly provided information from Elam's diary that shows historically Elam shipped mycological specimens to the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1896, Tych Vestergran (Sweden) in 1902, the Egyptian Department of Agriculture (Cairo) in 1928, the Cawthorn Institute (New Zealand) in 1929-30, as well as a number of other domestic and foreign individuals and institutions between 1896-1934. More than 50,000 of his specimens, mycological and otherwise, remain at Fort Hays State University with other significant mycological collections now located at Harvard University (Farlow Herbarium) and the New York Botanical Garden (Kansas State University donated 32,000 Bartholomew specimens there in 1997).
Books written about Elam's life include Pioneer Naturalist on the Plains: The Diary of Elam Bartholomew, 1871-1934, David M. Bartholomew (grandson), (1998, Sunflower University Press, Manhattan) and Elam Bartholomew, Pioneer, Farmer, Botanist by Leonard Erle Muir (1981, privately published). Both books are available through the bookstore at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.
Elam Bartholomew Herbarium
References to images of Elam's type specimens are provided on the next page. The Bartholomew collections, including both his fungi and other plant specimens, are housed in the herbarium at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. The herbarium is under the direction of Dr. Joseph Thomasson, Curator of Botany and Paleobotany at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.
A very positive and exciting recent development regarding the collections was the establishment in February 2000 by the Bartholomew family, under the leadership of David Bartholomew, of the Elam Bartholomew Herbarium Fund (Project 4031) at the Fort Hays State University Endowment Association (1-888-628-1060). Among other things, monies donated to this fund will be used to ensure the continued preservation of the herbarium specimens and to make available and encourage the use of the specimens for research and educational purposes. Immediate needs for the collections are approporiate specimen storage cabinets and the development of the herbarium collections room at the Sternberg Museum in which the specimens are located. Long range goals include moving Elam Bartholomew's original herbarium building from the Stockton, KS vicinity to the grounds of the Sternberg Museum for use as a building to house for public display historical materials associated with the Bartholomew collections.
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Original Web Site Creator: Lisa Tholen
l_tho@hotmail.com
Last Updated: June 25, 2001
by J. R. Thomasson