On This Day In Alabama History: English-born Naturalist Left The Black Belt

By Graydon Rust Alabama 200

December 31, 1838

English-born naturalist Philip Henry Gosse left Alabama after an eight-month stay in the Black Belt. One of the best-known zoologists in Europe, Gosse traveled to Alabama to collect fossil shells in Claiborne, but instead accepted a teaching job in Pleasant Hill, Dallas County. While in Pleasant Hill, he carefully recorded his observations of plant and animal life, plantation life and the common events in the lives of people. He published those observations in a series of articles in the English magazine “The Home Friend” in 1855 and in book form as “Letters from Alabama” in 1859, complete with engravings made from sketches and watercolors that he produced while in Dallas County.

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