Samuel Latham Mitchill

Samuel Latham Mitchill (August 20, 1764 – September 7, 1831) was an American physician, naturalist and politician from New York. He was born in Hempstead, New York. In 1786 he graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He served in the New York State Assembly in 1791 and again in 1798. Mitchill taught chemistry, botany, and natural history at Columbia College from 1792 until 1801, and was a founding editor of "The Medical Repository", the first U.S. medical journal. He was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives and served from 1801 until his resignation on November 22, 1804.

Mitchill was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Armstrong, Jr. and served from November 23, 1804 until March 3, 1809. He served once more in the United States House of Representatives from December 4, 1810 until March 3, 1813. Mitchill was the author of "The Fishes of New-York, described and arranged" (1815).

Mitchill was one of the founders of Rutgers Medical School and was vice president from 1826 until 1830. He celebrated the opening of the Erie Canal, sponsored by his friend and political ally DeWitt Clinton; they were both members of the short-lived New-York Institution.

During the United States of America's first decades a few efforts to change the nation's name were launched. The main criticisms of the name "United States of America" were that it was too long, vague or imprecise, and "unpoetic". The strongest proposal for a new name was Columbia, which failed to become the nation's name but did become the name of numerous places in the country. Another proposal was advanced by Mitchill. He combined the English word "freedom" with a Latin ending, creating Fredonia. While there were some advocates of renaming the nation Fredonia, it was never a serious contender. However, many towns and cities adopted the name, such as Fredonia, New York (Stewart, pg. 173).

References

* George R. Stewart. "Names on the Land". Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston (1967).

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