History of Radnor, (Delaware County) Pennsylvania United States of America

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Thomas Potts James, botanist and bryologist, was born at Radnor, Pa., Sept. 1, 1803; son of Isaac and Henrietta (Potts) James; and great grandson of David James, of Welchpoole, Wales, a member of the Society of Friends and a colonial settler of Pennsylvania, who brought his family over with William Penn, and purchased a large tract of land which is now embraced by Bryn Mawr, Rosemont, and the hills to the west. Thomas Potts James was for forty years a wholesale druggist in Philadelphia, Pa., in the meantime studying botany from a love of the subject. He made himself one of the three acknowledged authorities in the United States on mosses. In 1867 he removed to Cambridge, Mass., where he continued his studies and engaged in the classification and microscopical drawing of each variety of moss. He married Isabella Bachelder, of Cambridge, Mass. He was an active member of the Philosophical society of Philadelphia, a founder and for many years treasurer of the American Pomological society and secretary of the Horticultural society of Pennsylvania for nineteen years. His collection of mosses and his drawings were placed in the Harvard Botanical collection. He is the author with Leo Lesquereux of: The Manual of American Mosses. He died at Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, 1882.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Radnor, (Delaware County) Pennsylvania

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