The Virginia Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge was established at Williamsburg, "under the Patronage of His Excellencey the Governour," in May 1773 ^[1]. The founding officers were John Clayton, President; John Page, Vice President; the Rev. Samuel Henley, Secretary; St. George Tucker, Assistant Secretary; and David Jameson, Treasurer. Thomas Jefferson was no doubt a charter member. The Society's aims were to study nature using empirical methods and thus to promote science "by collecting, preserving, and reasoning from Discoveries and Experiments ^[2]. The ultimate goal was completely practical - to gather scientific knowledge in order to "discover what we may farther need and the proper means of supplying our wants"^[3]. In 1774, John Page became President of the Society, and George Wythe, Vice President, and several corresponding members were chosen, including Benjamin Rush and David Rittenhouse of Philadelphia^[4]. Apparently, the activities of the Society declined with the coming of the Revolution. In 1785, Page wrote Jefferson of his interest in reviving the organization, but the matter went no farther^[5].

Footnotes

1. ↑ Virginia Gazette (P&D), 13 May 1773
2. ↑ Ibid, 22 July 1773
3. ↑ Ibid, 22 July 1773
4. ↑ Ibid, 16 June l774
5. ↑ Page to Jefferson, 28 Apr. 1785

Further Sources

• Hindle, Brooke. The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, 1735-1789, (Chapel Hill: University North Carolina Press, 1956), 213-15.
• Jellison, Richard M. "Scientific Inquiry in Eighteenth-Century Virginia," The Historian, 25 (1962-63): 305-6.