Robert Statham Williams records

Robert Statham Williams (1859-1945) was born on May 6th 1859. As a boy growing up in Minneapolis, MN, R. S. Williams was an ardent naturalist. When he was 20 years old his love of nature took him from Minneapolis to Montana where he became a successful businessman, miner and explorer and for a short while he was a rider for the famous Pony Express.

In 1898 during the early days of the “gold rush”, Williams joined one of the parties going to the Yukon by way of Alaska, where he engaged in business rather than search for gold which also gave him time to collect plants. His plants collected there during 1898 and 1899 represent the first extensive collections made there by a resident naturalist.

In 1899, R.S. Williams came to the New York Botanical Garden with his collections and determinations. He was appointed Museum Aid in 1899 which he held in absentia, until January 1906 when he was named Assistant Curator. In 1910 he became an Administrative Assistant and in 1932 his title became Research Assistant in Bryology.

Williams chose to work on Mosses and made a substantial contribution of his own collections of mosses from Alaska and the Yukon. In 1901, Williams accompanied an English land company on a exploration to Bolivia. He returned to NY with an enormous collection of plants from Bolivia and Peru. Later, in 1903 the NYBG sent him to the Philippine Islands. He made large collections which furnished him with enough material to publish and authoritative work on Philippine mosses (1914). His last expedition was to Panama in 1908.

In 1909, the NYBG had purchased the William Mitten Herbarium, an important collection of bryophytes containing type specimens of hundreds of new species described by Mitten. R.S. Williams was sent to Hurstpierpoint, England , to Mitten’s home, to supervise the packing and shipping of it.

Williams was one of the few botanists at the NYBG who could devote himself full time to bryology and was therefore called upon by many botanist for help with identification of mosses. He made every effort to identify these mosses and often prepared meticulously careful drawings to illustrate details.

Williams lost his fortune in the 1930’s during the financial depression which contributed to his waning health. He eventually lost his enthusiasm for bryology and finally retired to his boyhood home in Minneapolis where he remained until his death on March 13, 1945, at the age of 86.