Adam Seybert (May 16, 1773 – May 2, 1825) was an American politician who served as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

member of the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

for

Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district Pennsylvania's first congressional district includes all of Bucks County and a sliver of Montgomery County in southeastern Pennsylvania. It has been represented by Brian Fitzpatrick since 2019. The state congressional district map was redrawn ...

from 1809 to 1815 and 1817 to 1819. He was a faculty member at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and a

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

who organized the first mineralogy collection in the United States in the 1790s.

Early life and education

Seybert was born on May 16, 1773, in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He graduated in 1793 with a degree in medicine from the

. He continued his studies in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and attended schools in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He studied mineralogy at the Ecole des Mines and was the first American to study mineralogy in Germany. He returned to Philadelphia with a collection of minerals and worked as a physician for a short time before establishing himself as a "druggist, chemist and apothecary". He was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected as a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1797, and a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1824.

Political career

In 1809, Seybert was elected to the

11th United States Congress The 11th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from March 4, 1809, ...

as a Democratic-Republican representative for

to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Benjamin Say. In the fall of 1811, he reassured President

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

that his state had military gear and production to meet war needs. He was reelected to the Twelfth and

Thirteenth In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The thirteenth is most commonly major or minor . A thirteenth chord is th ...

Congresses. He was chairman of the United States House Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business during the Twelfth Congress. He was again elected to the

Fifteenth In music, a fifteenth or double octave, abbreviated ''15ma'', is the interval between one musical note and another with one-quarter the wavelength or quadruple the frequency. It has also been referred to as the bisdiapason. The fourth harmonic, ...

Congress and served from 1817 to 1819. He visited Europe from 1819 to 1821 and again in 1824 and settled in Paris, France, where he died May 2, 1825. He was originally interred at

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...

in Paris and re-interred to

Laurel Hill Cemetery Laurel Hill Cemetery, also called Laurel Hill East to distinguish it from the affiliated West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, Bala Cynwyd, is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls, Philadelphia, East Falls neighborhood ...

in Philadelphia.

Mineralogy

Seybert established the first mineralogy collection in the United States in the 1790s. The collection contained over 1,725 crystals and rocks. The noted mineralogist,

Benjamin Silliman Benjamin Silliman (August 8, 1779 – November 24, 1864) was an American chemist and science education, science educator. He was one of the first American professors of science, the first science professor at Yale University, Yale, and the firs ...

, was known to have traveled to Philadelphia to view the collection, and have Seybert analyze minerals from Silliman's collection. In 1812, Seybert sold his mineralogy collection to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. His political career took priority over his interest in mineralogy, and when

Parker Cleaveland Parker Cleaveland (January 1, 1780 – August 15, 1858) was an American geologist and mineralogist, born in Rowley, Massachusetts. He was identified with the early progress of the natural sciences. After having attending the Dummer Academy in B ...

wrote to him in December of 1813 with questions on mineralogy, he replied that he had lost interest in the science.

Legacy

After Seyberts' death, his mineralogy collection was put on display at the Free Natural History Museum of the

Academy of Natural Sciences The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading natur ...

in Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania philosophy department named a chair in the department the Adam Seybert Professor in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. The chair was funded by Adam's son, Henry Seybert. The duties of the chair included hosting the Adam Seybert committee which investigated the possibility of the spirit world. The committee met from 1883 to 1887 but was unable to discover any evidence and subsequent holders of the chair were freed from continuing the investigations.

Publications

*
Experiments and Observations on Land and Sea Air
', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1799 *
An Inaugural Dissertation: Being an Attempt to Disprove the Doctrine of the Putrefaction of the Blood of Living Animals.
', Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1793 *
Statistical Annals: Embracing Views of the Population, Commerce, Navigation, Fisheries, Public Lands, Post-Office Establishment, Revenues, Mint, Military and Naval Establishments, Expenditures, Public Debt and Sinking Fund of the United States of America
', Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson & Son, 1818

References

Citations Sources *

External links

Adam Seybert commonplace book, 1810 - from the American Philosophical Society Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seybert, Adam 1773 births 1825 deaths 18th-century American physicians Alumni of the University of Edinburgh American mineralogists 19th-century American pharmacists Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Chemists from Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the American Philosophical Society Mines Paris - PSL alumni Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni Politicians from Philadelphia Scientists from Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania faculty Pharmacists from Pennsylvania 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives