Bassett Family Association Database

Dr. Bassett Maguire

Male 1904 - 1991  (86 years)


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  • Name Bassett Maguire 
    Prefix Dr. 
    Born 4 Aug 1904  Alabama City, Alabama Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    _UID 481CAC32D4DC1D4A978D9DF3AE8AF85390CF 
    Died 6 Feb 1991  New York City, New York Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Cause: Kidney Failure 
    Notes 
    • His SSN# was 053-30-3923. His death residence is listed as Bronx, Co-Op City, Dreiser Loop, and Einstein, all in the Bronx, New York.




      The Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, 10 Feb 1991
      Bassett Maguire

      Bassett Maguire, 86, former head curator of the New York Botanical Garden who led expeditions into remote sections of Venezuela and Brazil, died Wednesday of kidney failure in New York. Mr. Maguire conducted most of his work in the Guyana Highlands of northern South America, a vast area of deep jungles, swift rivers and towering sandstone mountains. From these nearly inaccessible regions, he returned with hundreds of thousands of specimens of exotic plants and pictures.

      Bassett Maguire, 86, a Botanist And Expedition Leader, Is Dead
      By ALFONSO A. NARVAEZ
      Published: February 08, 1991

      Bassett Maguire, a botanist who led many expeditions into nearly inaccessible reaches of Venezuela and Brazil, died on Wednesday at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan. He was 86 years old and lived in the Bronx.

      He died of kidney failure, said a spokesman for the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where Dr. Maguire had been head curator.

      He joined the botanical garden in 1943 after receiving his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1938 and teaching biology and botany at colleges in Georgia, Utah and New York.

      Much of his work was in the Guyana Highlands of northern South America, a vast section of deep jungles, swift rivers and towering sandstone mountains. He ventured into remote areas to bring back hundreds of thousands of specimens of exotic plants and pictures of six-foot-long earthworms and eight-inch-wide spiders. Botanically Rich Mountain

      In 1954, Dr. Maguire, who was born in Alabama City, Ala., discovered and named Cerro de la Neblina, or "Mountain of the Clouds," a mountain 8,000 feet high that straddles the border of Brazil and Venezuela. It is one of the most isolated and botanically rich of all table mountains in the area. He was awarded the David Livingstone Centenary Medal by the American Geographical Society in 1965.


      Records of the Herbarium (RG4)
      BASSETT MAGUIRE RECORDS (1930-1991)
      ca. 65 linear feet

      BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

      Bassett Maguire was born on August 4, 1904 in Alabama City (Gadsden) Alabama, the son of Charles Thomas and Rose Bassett Maguire. He went to high school in Savannah, Georgia and in the summers of 1921 to1923 was employed in the merchant marines as a sailor, able-bodied seaman and as quartermaster. In 1923 he enrolled in the University of Georgia and received a B.S. degree in three years, with first honors in botany and zoology. In 1925, with a generous gift from his Uncle Augustus Bassett, Bassett Maguire participated in the field program at the University of Pittsburgh in tropical ecology at Kartabo, British Guiana. Years later, in 1944, Maguire designated Augustus Falls for an unnamed cascade on Tafelberg, Surinam in honor of his uncle.

      In 1927, Basssett Maguire was appointed head of the Science Department at the high school he attended in Georgia. Aware of the need for graduate study he obtained a teaching assistantship in Botany at Cornell University in 1927. By 1931 he had completed his course requirements but not his thesis when he was offered a position as Assistant Professor of Botany at Utah State Agricultural College in Logan,Utah. While in Utah he developed the Intermountain Herbarium and served as its principal collector and curator until 1942.

      In January 1943, Bassett Maguire visited the New York Botanical Garden, where he was to work on the flora of Utah. By July he was listed as "curator" and subsequently served the New York Botanical Garden in many roles as Curator (1943-1958); Head Curator (1958-1961); Nathanial Lord Britton Distinquished Senior Curator (1961-1971); Assistant Director (1968-1969); Director of Botany (1969-1971, 1974-1975); Senior Scientist (1972-1974); and Senior Scientist Emeritus from 1975 until his death in 1991.

      While at the Garden, his research began to shift from North America to tropical America. In 1944 he arranged an expedition to the Kaieteur escarpment to continue the Garden's work in the Guayana Highlands. Later that same year he proceeded with an exploration of Tafelberg in central Surinam. He prepared maps, wrote descriptions of Tafelberg and of his explorations, and with collaborators, published six papers on describing many plants new to science.

      Dr. Maguire continued to lead expeditions to South America, particularly the Amazonas territory of Venezuela and what was then British Guiana. In 1948, accompanied by Louis Politi from the Garden's horticultural staff and his son Bassett Maguire, Jr., Dr Maguire led a major expedition to the summit of Cerro Sipapo via Rio Cuao and the upper Orinoco. Richard Cowan and John Wurdack, graduate students who later became staff members of the New York Botanical Garden, were recruited to go with Dr. Maguire on a trip to Venezuela in 1950 and accompanied him on many expeditions thereafter.

      Dr. Maguire's first marriage ended in divorce and in 1951 he married Celia Kramer. Celia Maguire accompanied her husband and assisted on many trips. In 1953, the Maguires and John Wurdack were finishing up the exploration of the Amazonas, Venezuela but extended their trip to retrace the travels of the pioneer Amazonian explorer, Richard Spruce. Travelling up the Yatua to Laja Catipan, on clear day, they saw the expanse of Cerro Neblina (then unknown and unnamed). Upon their return to Caracas, the Maguires reported their findings to the United States Ambassador. The discovery of a new mountain mass was a crowning achievement in a career of exploration. Cerro Neblina's location on the Venezuelan-Brazilian border had international implications and a boundary commission was created to determine the division between the two countries.

      Dr Maguire organized and participated in 3 subsequent trips to Neblina, one of the most botanically rich table mountains of Guayana. For his discovery, he was awarded the David Livingstone Centenary Medal by the American Geographical Society in 1965.

      Throughout the 1960's, Dr. Maguire continued his explorations of South America collecting with Julian Steyermark on the sandstone escarpment and northern slopes of the upper Cuyuni, Estado Bolivar, Venezuela and later to British Guiana collecting in the southern Pakaraima Mts. Also in 1962, the Maguires collected in the upper Rio Cuyuni and rios Uiri and Chicanan, Venezuela. Between 1966 and 1969, the Maguires traveled to Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Colombia and Puerto Rico.

      Back at the Garden, Dr. Maguire was largely responsible for securing many National Science Foundation Grants (NSF) facilities grants, to acquire new herbarium cases and renovate existing herbarium space. He was also involved in many professional scientific societies and organizations. He was the President and a founder of the Association of Tropical Biology (ATB), participated as a founder and councilor of the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), and served as President of the Torrey Botanical Club. He developed fruitful collaborations with other botanical gardens and conducted herbarium studies in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the USSR.

      In 1975 Bassett Maguire turned over his administrative duties at the Garden and officially retired, becoming Senior Scientist Emeritus. He continued his primary research on the floristics of the Guayana Highlands and monographic studies of Clusia and the Dipterocarpaceae, Pakaraimeae.

      Dr. Maguire was a pioneer explorer and an inspiring teacher to a generation of botanists. He died on February 6, 1991 at the age of 86.

      SCOPE AND CONTENT

      The Bassett Maguire collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts and typescripts, organizational records, personal papers, and research records that include field notebooks, photographs, negatives, Kodachrome slides, movie film and video, artwork, micrographics, reprints, clippings, scrapbooks and artifacts. The collection covers Dr. Maguire's career as Curator of the Intermountain Herbarium in Logan Utah throughout his career at the New York Botanical Garden. Also included are correspondence and organizational records of his affiliations with organizations such as the Association of Tropical Biology and the Organization for Flora Neotropica.


      The collection is currently being arranged and described by Dr. Maguire's wife Celia Maguire with the assistance of Stephen Sinon, NYBG Archivist.
    Person ID I68  40B Nelson Bassett of Genesee County, New York
    Last Modified 4 Sep 2013 

    Father Charles T. Maguire 
    Mother Rose "Rosa" Bassett,   b. Abt 1875, Maine Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 1942  (Age ~ 67 years) 
    Married Abt 1896  New York Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F9  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Living 
    Children 
    +1. Dr. Bassett Maguire, Jr.
    +2. Grace Maguire,   b. 5 Sep 1928, Athens, Georgia Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 30 Nov 1972, Riverdale, Georgia Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 44 years)
    Last Modified 11 May 2023 
    Family ID F23  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 2 Celia Kramer 
    Married 1951 
    Family ID F24  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart