Portrait of William Maclure and pupils.""Born to wealth in Ayr, Scotland, on October 27, 1763, William Maclure came to the United States in 1778. Before 1800, he had owned businesses in the new country, traveled extensively in Europe, and joined the American Philosophical Society. In 1803 Maclure served in Paris on a United States Commission representing American citizens with losses resulting from the French Revolution. In Switzerland in 1805, he visited the educational leader Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and in 1806 he contracted the Pestalozzian educator Joseph Neef. Having conducted geological studies in France and Spain, Maclure began intensive studies in the United States in 1808. In 1812, while in France, Maclure became a member of the newly founded Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP). In 1815, Maclure contracted Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, artist and natural scientist, and the two traveled extensively together, arriving in Philadelphia in 1816. Joined by Thomas Say and Gerhard Troost, the four made a geological trip in eastern states in 1817. That same year, Maclure became president of the ANSP, a post he held for the next twenty-two years. The next few years, Maclure traveled and resided in France, Italy, Paris, Switzerland, and Spain. In 1824, he visited Robert Owen's cotton mill at New Lanark, Scotland. In July, 1825, he arrived in Philadelphia with Madame Fretageot's nephews. The following November, he met Robert Owen in Philadelphia and decided to join Owen's venture to Harmonie, recently purchased by Owen from the Harmonist leader, George Rapp. In January, 1826, the keelboat, Philanthropist, afterwards known as ""The Boatload of Knowledge," journeyed down the Ohio River to Mount Vernon, Indiana. From there the travelers made their way to New Harmony. Among them were Lesueur, Say, Maclure, and Pestalozzian educators Marie Duclos Fretageot and William S. Phiquepal. Soon to join them in New Harmony were Neef and Troost. After 1826, Maclure spent most of his time in Mexico. However, he continued financial support through Madame Fratageot's management in New Harmony, enabling the scientific work of Thomas Say and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and later, David Dale Owen and other geologists." (https://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/maclure.html).