Josiah Hoopes (November 9, 1832 – January 16, 1904) was an American botanist specializing in

arboriculture Arboriculture (, from ) is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. The science of arboriculture studies how these plants grow and respond to cultural practices and to their env ...

. He founded one of the largest commercial plant nurseries in the United States in his hometown of West Chester,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Life and career

Hoopes was born to parents Pierce and Sarah A. Hoopes in West Chester in 1832. He attended

Philadelphia 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 ...

high schools. In 1853, he founded Cherry Hill Nurseries (later Hoopes Brothers & Thomas) in West Chester, which expanded to one thousand acres by 1913 and became one of the largest commercial plant nurseries in the United States. Hoopes supplied fruit trees to all the country's national cemeteries and sold overseas in Europe and Australia. The business formally dissolved in July 1948. Hoopes was lifelong friends with botanists David Townsend and

William Darlington William Darlington (April 28, 1782 – April 23, 1863) was an American physician, botanist, and politician who served as a Democratic-Republican Party, Democratic-Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 2nd cong ...

. He wrote for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''The Horticulturist'', ''

Botanical Gazette The ''International Journal of Plant Sciences'' covers botanical research including genetics and genomics, developmental and cell biology, biochemistry and physiology, morphology and structure, systematics, plant-microbe interactions, paleobotany, ...

'' and other horticultural periodicals and served as founder and president of the Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania for seven years. His ''Book of Evergreens'' (1868) was an authoritative treatise on

conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

s. Hoopes was a fifth-generation

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

. He collected taxidermy birds, nearly eight thousand of which were acquired by the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and served as a trustee of West Chester State Normal School for fifteen years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoopes, Josiah 1832 births 1904 deaths People from West Chester, Pennsylvania 19th-century American botanists Nurserymen Arborists