Catherine “Kate” Furbish was born May 19, 1834, in Exeter, New Hampshire, the eldest child and only daughter of Benjamin and Mary Lane Furbish. The family relocated to Brunswick, shortly after her birth. As a child, her father would take Kate and her five younger brothers for walks in the local woods. Even as a young child, she showed a knack for botany as she was able to identify many of the area’s native plants.

Though she did not receive a formalized higher education, she did spend one year in Paris to perfect her painting and, in 1860, attended George L. Goodale’s botany lectures in Boston. She led the life of a typical Victorian lady in that she dressed appropriately, attended church regularly and kept her house in immaculate order. She is described as being very independent — she traveled alone and did not feel the need to get married. In 1860, Kate became very ill and spent the next 10 years recovering her fragile health. By 1870, she had regained sufficient strength to resume her walks through the Maine woods. In 1873, her father died and left her a large enough inheritance to enable her to pursue her favorite pastime.

During the 38 years between 1870 and 1908, Kate completed the majority of her painting, collecting and classifying Maine’s plant life, travelling thousands of miles across the state. She often traversed wilderness areas and, in the process, produced more than 4,000 sheets of dried plants and ferns. In 1880, when travelling in Aroostook County, she came upon a strand of plants known as the pedicularis or common lousewort. This plant now holds her name, the pedicularis furbishiae.

It has never been found anywhere in the world except along the 130-mile stretch of the Saint John River. It is so rare that in 1976 it stopped the construction of a $1.3 billion hydroelectric power plant and dam project on the Saint John River, which would have flooded 88,000 acres of the northern Maine forest.

In 1894, Furbish helped to found the Josselyn Botanical Society of Maine and served as its president from 1911- 1912. She soon collected more than 1,300 watercolors and pressings in a book that spanned 14 volumes she titled “Flora of Maine.” In 1908, she donated this to Bowdoin College. Her 182 sheets of pressed ferns were donated to the Portland Society of Natural History and her 4,000 sheets of dried plants to the New England Botanical Club. Her work represented the flora of more than two hundred Maine towns.

Furbish died Dec. 6, 1931, at the age of 97, and is buried in the Pine Hill Cemetery in Brunswick. She was well known in the botanist and naturalist communities, and her watercolors and drawings are still widely praised among professional naturalists.

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Photograph and information source: The Old Berwick Historical Society