Richard Reichwald

The Birds of Novasola exhibit is meant to showcase famed naturalist Richard Reichwald’s work as a member of the Novasola Research Corps and his contributions to the fields of ornithology, ecology, and Novasolan natural history.  

Richard Reichwald, 1898

Born on August 26, 1867 in upstate New York, Reichwald developed an interest in nature and the natural sciences at an early age. His father was a first-generation German American and his mother had mostly English and Irish heritage. Reichwald graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, in 1888 and earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1898, focusing on zoology and ornithology, after which he began working for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City acquiring specimens for their ornithological collections. While on a trip to the Pacific northwest to collect bird skins he met army captain Virgil Dyer and the two became fast friends. By 1900 Dyer had begun recruiting for the Novasola Research Corps, and when he offered the position of NRC ornithologist to Reichwald, Reichwald accepted without hesitation. He would be among the youngest scientists in the Corps, and where he lacked experience in exploration and wilderness trekking, he compensated with a vast knowledge of ornithology and a willingness to abandon his current life for years of expeditions across Novasola.

    Reichwald was one of the first of the Novasola Research Corps’ scientists to be hired, and as such he played a significant role in the early planning stages. While Dyer and others consulted maps, interviews, and other materials to determine the routes, acquire provisions and transports, and so on, Reichwald compiled lists of scientific equipment and writing materials needed and oversaw their ordering and delivery to Cape George, most of which he coordinated and supervised from his home in New York. He moved to Novasola in 1902 and arrived at Cape George on March 1^st, only one month before the first expedition would embark. He used this time to study the known materials on Novasola and its bird life. He was provided a room in the home of Lieutenant Joseph Mackenzie, also a member of the NRC, and an office in the back of the schoolhouse where he did most of his work during the off seasons between expeditions.

    During the NRC expeditions, Reichwald was the Corps’ only ornithologist, and it was his job to catalogue or document every species of bird the group encountered, along with other standard duties. After three expeditions through the Novasola wilderness in as many years, he started compiling all his notes, illustrations, and other writings and materials, as well as any bird specimens he had not sent to Washington D.C., which he planned to use to write a comprehensive book on Novasolan ornithology. A few years later he published his seminal work Native Birds of Novasola, an incredibly in-depth natural history of every native bird species Reichwald encountered during his ten years on Novasola. The book had a tremendous impact on not just American ornithology, but also public interest in the Novasola territory, and it is still published to this day. Not only were people enthused by his illustrations and descriptions of the animals, but also by the anecdotes and stories of his travels across the island he included. Two years later he followed it with a second book, Manual to Novasolan Birds, which was smaller, more succinct and textbook-like, closer to what we would now call a field guide.

Reichwald original journal sketches, 1902

    Reichwald bought a home in Cape George shortly after the last NRC expedition and lived on Novasola the rest of his life. He became an incredibly influential naturalist and conservationist, and an important figure in the conservation of Novasolan wilderness. He pushed to have many areas of the island turned into parks, reserves, and protected areas. Reichwald devoted the rest of his life and career to studying and preserving Novasola, more so than any other member of the Corps, many of whom went back to the mainland after the 1904 expedition. He was a regular columnist in sportsmen’s and conservation magazines, especially Forest and Stream, the popular magazine helmed by George Bird Grinnell, with whom Reichwald maintained correspondence. Reichwald lobbied for more protections for the territory and for birds, including for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, and in his later years was a vocal proponent of Novasolan statehood. He hosted trips across the island for many other prominent scientists and political figures, including President Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Mather, the director of the National Park Service, famed ornithologists and naturalists Florence Merriam Bailey and Vernon Bailey, Roger Tory Peterson, and Aldo Leopold. His works have inspired many writers, most notably Paul Sibyl, author of Cedar Chapel, a 1945 collection of essays and stories contemplating nature and spirituality.

    In 1948 Reichwald passed away, age 81, in his home in Cape George. Today, his home and property have been converted into a museum and nature center. The Richard Reichwald Historical Museum and Nature Center have partnered with the Museum of Novasola for the Birds of Novasola exhibition and have provided many of the supplemental materials. In his lifetime, Richard Reichwald had observed and documented the vast majority of Novasola endemic birds.  Most Novasolan birds still trace their common or scientific names back to him. Other species have since been posthumously named in his honor. He kept detailed notes of not only his ornithological observations, but also of the expeditions themselves, and many historians use his first-hand accounts when researching the Novasola Research Corps.

    One of the most prolific scientists in Novasolan history, Richard Reichwald has left a profound mark on both the physical and intellectual landscapes of the island. Environmentalist, conservationist, ornithologist, writer, lobbyist, naturalist, and philosopher, Reichwald has played a crucial role in developing our understanding of not just Novasolan bird life, but of nature as a whole and of our relationship to it.  

Richard Reichwald (left) and Alec Ovid Peterson (right), 1902 NRC Expedition. Photos provided by the Richard Reichwald Historical Museum and Nature Center.