January 28, 1963: St. Vincent College Herbarium (LAT)

A collection lost, rebuilt,
and now lives on at Carnegie Museum.

This specimen of shining clubmoss (Huperzia lucidula) was collected by Maximilian G. Duman near the campus of St. Vincent College.  It isn't dated, but his collector number and context clues suggestion 1979.  And for the sake of the blog, let's just go with the date January 28, 1978: 47 years ago.  It is an evergreen species, so it is reasonable.

Anyway, what's more timely for January 28 is that today marks the 63rd anniversary of the devastating fire at the campus of Saint Vincent College. Much like today, as Pittsburgh digs out of a winter storm from the weekend, the region was similarly hit with a blizzard and below zero degree F temperatures. A fire started that destroyed campus buildings, but perhaps most devastating...the Saint Vincent College Herbarium went up in flames.

Saint Vincent College is located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania - about an hours drive from Pittsburgh nestled in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.  Saint Vincent College was founded in 1846 (!) and is a private Catholic and Benedictine college boasting a well rounded liberal arts education.

Back in 1963, the campus president was no other than the collector of this specimen -- Father Maximilian Duman (1906-1990).  Duman was also a botanist, a world expert specializing in arctic plants (especially Carex) earning him the nickname of the "Arctic Priest."  It is said that Duman largely built the Saint Vincent College Herbarium.  His life's work. Up in flames.  I can only imagine the devastation.

But Duman re-built the collection from the ground up. And, in 1983, Father Duman gifted the "new" ca. 10,000 specimen strong Saint Vincent herbarium to Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where it would be integrated into the CM herbarium. And where it resides today.

With a college so old (especially for the mountains of western Pennsylvania), it also makes you wonder: what specimens were lost in the 1963 fire?  How large was the collection?  I imagine there were some incredible specimens, both historically and scientific.

We perhaps have some limited insight we can glean from other collections.  Father Duman was a prolific collector and had established a national reputation. Today, >4,000 specimens collected by him come up in a simple search on Mid Atlantic Herbaria Consortium, spread across more than a dozen herbaria.  Upon closer look, you can find specimens collected before the fire, such as this one at Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel (PH). Perhaps these were duplicates, with its partner duplicate burned to ash in 1963. 

His collection was critical in a recent project on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, which includes a bound herbarium that he transferred to CM in . Perhaps he had this collection in his office and it was spared from the flames?  

It makes you wonder what other collections have been lost over the years. And reminds us the value of digitization and of duplicates spread across multiple collections.

I'll have to do some more digging and research on LAT and Duman.  

Newspaper headline after the 1963 fire. Latrobe Bulletin, a local newspaper that continues today.