When Marcus Eugene Jones was born in Jefferson, Ohio, on April 25, 1852, the botany of western North America was not well known, despite the tremendous efforts of pioneer botanists. Many prior, heroic attempts had been made to collect plants, and much of the information gathered was available in published works by John Torrey of Columbia University and Asa Gray of Harvard. Thomas Nuttall and Frederick Pursh had written botanical summaries as early as 1814 and 1818, and William Jackson Hooker's great Flora Borealis Americana discussed many of the known plant species. Nevertheless, vast areas of the American West remained unfamiliar or completely unexplored. Marcus E. Jones filled a portion of that void.
Jones was reared and educated near Grinnell, Iowa, having moved west with his family in 1865 ("on the very day that Lincoln was shot"). He eventually graduated from Grinnell College in 1875. After collecting plants in Iowa for two years, the youthful botanist left for Colorado in 1878, where he collected large numbers of specimens that were sold as "sets." Each set contained representatives of as many plant species as possible. This practice, typical of that period, allowed botanists to support themselves in the field, there being few benefactors and no foundations or governmental agencies to pay for such activities.
Jones returned to Colorado Springs in 1879, this time to fill an appointment as professor of natural science at Colorado College, a sister school to Iowa College. There, an event occurred that was to have a lasting effect on the young botanist. During a collecting foray, he happened to find a wallet belonging to a Gen. William J. Palmer. The wallet contained valuable papers and was returned to its owner. In appreciation of this honest act, Palmer sent Jones on repeated trips to explore regions for mining or agricultural potential. Probably the first of these was a trip to mining areas near Salt Lake City, where Jones collected at places not previously visited by botanists. The meeting with Palmer was to change the course of western American botany.
The Utah Years
In 1880, Jones established permanent residence in Salt Lake City, accompanied by his bride, Anna Elizabeth Richardson. It was the horse-and-buggy era, a time when trails served as roads. After arriving in Salt Lake City, the young couple left almost at once to visit St. George in southern Utah, a place where spring came early. His wife helped him collect, press, and dry the plants and assemble them into sets for shipment to eastern and European herbaria.
Jones traveled great distances by railroad (where that conveyance was available), on horseback, or by buggy, wagon, or cart. Traveling throughout the West required great effort, and his dedication to botany is indicated in part by the vast areas the covered.
Jones was a religious person, at least for most of his life. He taught Sunday school and regularly observed the Sabbath. While on collecting trips he would not travel or collect on Sunday, a practice some of his contemporaries considered peculiar. Despite his own religious leanings, Jones remained suspicious of the Mormons and never purchased a house in Salt Lake City because he did not want to live near them. Ironically, he lived and worked with Mormons for all his 43 years of residence in
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