Edwin Lincoln Moseley: Ohio's Early Naturalist

This past week the state mowed the grasses along the road across from my house. I was delighted when they skipped over the large plot of milkweed. I’ve shared seed pods with so many friends, knowing milkweed would help increase Ohio’s monarch butterfly population. Little did I know that it was illegal in Ohio to share non-commercial seeds! The prohibition of non-commercial seed sharing was an unintended consequence of an Ohio law. Recently, the Ohio Prairie Association brought it to the attention of lawmakers. If the bill becomes law, milkweed and endangered plants native to Ohio may also be protected, including ironweed, wild lettuce, and wild  mustard.  

E. L. Moseley

The Sandusky, Ohio, area was most fortunate to have naturalist Edwin Lincoln Moseley as a science teacher for nearly 25 years. Born shortly after the Civil War, Moseley graduated from the University of Michigan and later came to Ohio where he taught biology at Sandusky High School.

Moseley believed in the experimental method of teaching in which his students learned by observation and developed independent thought. On Saturdays, he and his students took field trips into the natural areas of Erie and Huron counties and the Lake Erie islands. They collected and documented the native plants of the Firelands Prairie that extended from Bellevue to Huron, Ohio. Together they created a large herbarium at the school.

After a decade of research, Moseley published “Sandusky Flora: A Catalog of Flowering Plants and Ferns Growing without Cultivation in Erie County Ohio, and the Peninsula and Islands of Ottawa County.” According to the Ohio Prairie Association, no tallgrass prairie in the United States has a more thoroughly documented native plant species from the 19^th century than that which Moseley’s historical records provide. Although no longer in print, it can be found on the internet.

Throughout the Midwest, milk sickness had claimed the lives of thousands of pioneers. Moseley’s interviews with Sandusky County farmers, his observations and experiments led him to believe that milk sickness was caused by eating the meat or drinking the milk of animals who had ingested white snakeroot. His 1906 published work on white snakeroot played an important role in solving this mysterious disease that had taken so many lives.

In 1914, Moseley left Sandusky High School to become one of the first faculty members of Bowling Green State University. While teaching botany and science courses at BGSU, he recognized, documented, and then mapped the unique prairie and savannas of the Oak Openings region west of Toledo. Oak Openings contains more than 1/3 of all of Ohio’s endangered plant species.

Ohio’s native plants were not Moseley’s only interest. He researched, wrote papers, and published books on solar events, the study of tree rings, weather forecasting, wildlife, glaciers, climate prediction, astronomy, and even his thoughts about extraterrestrial life.

To learn more about the native plants of Ohio’s prairies, see the Ohio Prairie Association website.