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Cage 316
William Conklin Cusick
Papers, 1906-1924

The papers of William C. Cusick, 1842-1922, of Union County, Oregon, were acquired by the Washington State University Herbarium about 1921, along with Cusick’s "Second Herbarium."

BIOGRAPHY

William C. Cusick was born in Illinois in 1842 and emigrated to Oregon while a youth. He had a modest "collegiate" education and worked as a teacher for a time. Most of his adult life he spent as a rancher in the area of the Wallowa Mountains. He began botanical collecting and distribution sometime in the 1870s, encouraged by Harvard’s Asa Gray. Most of his plants came from the area of the Wallowa and Blue Mountains and were arranged in two successive herbariums, one of which he transferred to the University of Oregon, while the second went to Washington State University.

Encouraged by C. V. Piper, Cusick’s second herbarium project included extensive and exhaustive botanical surveys of the area in the two mountain ranges. Unlike his earlier efforts, this second phase did not include large distributions of plants. Cusick died in 1922.

Cusick’s life and botanical experiences are discussed in Irwin F. Lange, "Pioneer Botanists of the Pacific Northwest," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 57 (1956) 115-118 and Harold St. John, "William Conklin Cusick," Rhodora, 25 (1923) 101-105.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PAPERS

Cusick’s extant papers consist primarily of his field books, which doubled as the catalog for the second herbarium, and the draft list of the floral surveys he conducted about 1910. A few surviving items of correspondence are included.

ARRANGEMENT OF THE PAPERS

The Cusick papers are arranged to content, with the meager extant correspondence segregated. The field books follow Cusick’s numbering system. An index for this collection is available in Manuscripts Archives and Special Collections. Additional Botanical manuscripts in MASC may be found in the following collections:

Cage 53 Botanical Papers, 1881-1973
Cage 318 Beattie, Rolla Kent Papers, 1899-1956
Cage 317 Piper, Charles Vancouver Papers, 1888-1926
Cage 315 Suksdorf, Wilhelm Nicolaus Papers, 1867-1935
Cage 319 St. John, Harold Papers, 1912-1957

CONTAINER LIST

Folder Description

1	Correspondence, letters from C. V. Piper, 1914-1921. 3 items
2	Biographical Sketch of Cusick by Willard W. Eggleston, ca. 1924. 1 item
3	"A Catalogue of Grasses of Eastern Oregon," 1908. 1 item
4	"A List, From Memory, of the Plants to be Seen Near at Hand in Crossing the Canyon of the Immaha Near its Source," 1911. 3 items
5	"An Annotated List of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of Northeastern Oregon: Wallawa, Union, Baker and Umatilla Counties," 1909. 2 items
6	"Distribution of Characteristic Alpine and Hudsonian Plants of the Wallowa Mountains," n.d. 2 items
7	"Distribution of Characteristic Alpine and Hudsonian Plants of the Wallowa Mountains," n.d. 2 items

Field Books/Catalogs, 1906-1916

Specimen Number

7	2739-2783
8	3060-3145
9	3150-3339
10	3340-3420
11	1(3509) - 51 (3560)
12	3422-3709
13	3710-4038
14	4039-4241
15	4242-4435
16	4436-4522
17	4546-4783
18	4604-4883
19	4884-4935