{{short description|American politician and mineralogist (1773–1825)}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Adam Seybert | image = | office1 = Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 1st district | term_start1 = October 10, 1809 | term_end1 = March 4, 1815 | predecessor1 = Benjamin Say | successor1 = William Milnor | term_start2 = March 4, 1817 | term_end2 = March 4, 1819 | predecessor2 = William Milnor | successor2 = Thomas Forrest | birth_date = {{birth date|1773|5|16}} | birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1825|5|2|1773|5|16}} | death_place = Paris, France | resting_place = Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | party = Democratic-Republican | spouse = | children = | education = }} '''Adam Seybert''' (May 16, 1773{{snd}}May 2, 1825) was an American politician who served as a Democratic-Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district from 1809 to 1815 and 1817 to 1819. He was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and a mineralogist who organized the first mineralogy collection in the United States in the 1790s.
==Early life and education== Seybert was born on May 16, 1773, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1793 with a degree in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. He continued his studies in Europe, and attended schools in Edinburgh, Göttingen, and Paris.<ref name=bioguide>{{cite web |title=Seybert, Adam 1773-1825 |url=https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/S000264 |website=bioguide.congress.gov |publisher=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress |access-date=2 April 2024}}</ref> He studied mineralogy at the Ecole des Mines and was the first American to study mineralogy in Germany.{{sfn|Greene|1969|p=286}} He returned to Philadelphia with a collection of minerals<ref name=Gordon>{{cite book |last1=Gordon |first1=Samuel G. |title=The Mineralogy of Pennsylvania |date=1922 |publisher=Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia |location=Philadelphia |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VTAuAAAAYAAJ |access-date=2 April 2024}}</ref> and worked as a physician for a short time before establishing himself as a "druggist, chemist and apothecary".{{sfn|Greene|1969|p=286}} He was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.<ref name=UPENN>{{cite web |title=Department History |url=https://philosophy.sas.upenn.edu/department-history |website=philosophy.sas.upenn.edu |publisher=The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania |access-date=2 April 2024}}</ref> He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1797,<ref>{{cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Adam+Seybert&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |website=search.amphilsoc.org |publisher=American Philosophical Society |access-date=2 April 2024}}</ref> and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1824.<ref>{{cite web |title=Adam Seybert |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/adam-seybert |website=www.amacad.org |publisher=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |access-date=2 April 2024}}</ref>
==Political career== [[File:Adam Seybert tombstone.jpg|thumb|Adam Seybert tombstone in Laurel Hill Cemetery]] In 1809, Seybert was elected to the 11th United States Congress as a Democratic-Republican representative for Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district<ref name=Kestenbaum>{{cite web |last1=Kestenbaum |first1=Lawrence |title=Sewards to Seymore |url=https://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/sewell-seyler.html |website=politicalgraveyard.com |publisher=The Political Graveyard |access-date=2 April 2024}}</ref> to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Benjamin Say. In the fall of 1811, he reassured President James Madison that his state had military gear and production to meet war needs.<ref>FAGAL, ANDREW J. B. “AMERICAN ARMS MANUFACTURING AND THE ONSET OF THE WAR OF 1812.” ''The New England Quarterly'', vol. 87, no. 3, 2014, pp. 526–37. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/43285102 JSTOR website] Retrieved 7 May 2025.</ref> He was reelected to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses. He was chairman of the United States House Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business during the Twelfth Congress. He was again elected to the Fifteenth Congress<ref name=bioguide/> and served from 1817 to 1819.<ref name=Kestenbaum/> He visited Europe from 1819 to 1821 and again in 1824 and settled in Paris, France, where he died May 2, 1825. He was originally interred at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris<ref name=bioguide/> and re-interred to Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Robinson |first1=Moncure |title=Obituary Notice of Henry Seybert |journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society |date=March 1883 |volume=21 |issue=114 |pages=260–261 |jstor=982384 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/982384 |access-date=3 April 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Adam Seybert |url=https://remembermyjourney.com/memorials/adam-seybert?id=NzjYPbY6 |website=remembermyjourney.com |publisher=webCemeteries |access-date=6 January 2025}}</ref>
==Mineralogy== Seybert established the first mineralogy collection in the United States in the 1790s. The collection contained over 1,725 crystals and rocks. The noted mineralogist, Benjamin Silliman, was known to have traveled to Philadelphia to view the collection,<ref name=Science/> and have Seybert analyze minerals from Silliman's collection.<ref name=Gordon/> In 1812, Seybert sold his mineralogy collection to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.{{sfn|Greene|1969|p=288}} His political career took priority over his interest in mineralogy, and when Parker Cleaveland wrote to him in December of 1813 with questions on mineralogy, he replied that he had lost interest in the science.{{sfn|Greene|1969|p=288}}
==Legacy== After Seyberts' death, his mineralogy collection was put on display at the Free Natural History Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.<ref name=Science>{{cite journal |title=The Adam Seybert Mineral Collection |journal=Science |date=17 Jan 1936 |volume=83 |issue=2142 |page=49 |doi=10.1126/science.83.2142.49 |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.83.2142.49 |access-date=2 April 2024|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
The University of Pennsylvania philosophy department named a chair in the department the Adam Seybert Professor in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. The chair was funded by Adam's son, Henry Seybert. The duties of the chair included hosting the Adam Seybert committee which investigated the possibility of the spirit world. The committee met from 1883 to 1887 but was unable to discover any evidence and subsequent holders of the chair were freed from continuing the investigations.<ref name=UPENN/>
==Publications== *''[https://archive.org/details/jstor-1005105/page/n1/mode/2up Experiments and Observations on Land and Sea Air]'', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1799 *''[https://www.google.com/books/edition/An%20Inaugural%20Dissertation%20being%20an%20attem/9mdpAAAAcAAJ An Inaugural Dissertation: Being an Attempt to Disprove the Doctrine of the Putrefaction of the Blood of Living Animals.]'', Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1793 *''[https://archive.org/details/1818-seybert-statisticalannals Statistical Annals: Embracing Views of the Population, Commerce, Navigation, Fisheries, Public Lands, Post-Office Establishment, Revenues, Mint, Military and Naval Establishments, Expenditures, Public Debt and Sinking Fund of the United States of America]'', Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson & Son, 1818
==References== '''Citations''' {{Reflist}}
'''Sources''' * {{cite book | last = Greene | first = John C. | year = 1969 | title = The Development of Mineralogy in Philadelphia, 1780-1820 | publisher = The American Philosophical Society | isbn = 9781422371428 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BUsLAAAAIAAJ }}
==External links== *[https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.Se95-ead.xml Adam Seybert commonplace book, 1810 - from the American Philosophical Society Library]
{{Portal|Biography}}
{{S-start}} {{s-par|us-hs}} {{US House succession box | state=Pennsylvania | district=1 | before=Benjamin Say<br/>Jacob Richards<br/>John Porter | after=Joseph Hopkinson<br/>William Milnor<br/>Thomas Smith<br/>Jonathan Williams | years=1809–1815<br/> 1809–1815 alongside: William Anderson<br/> 1809–1811 alongside: John Porter<br/> 1811–1813 alongside: James Milnor <br/> 1813–1815 alongside: John Conard and Charles J. Ingersoll }} {{US House succession box | state=Pennsylvania | district=1 | before=Joseph Hopkinson<br/>William Milnor<br/>Thomas Smith<br/>John Sergeant | after=John Sergeant<br/>Thomas Forrest<br/>Samuel Edwards<br/>Joseph Hemphill | years=1817–1819<br/> alongside: Joseph Hopkinson, William Anderson and John Sergeant }} {{S-end}} {{Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seybert, Adam}} Category:1773 births Category:1825 deaths Category:18th-century American medical doctors Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Category:American mineralogists Category:19th-century American pharmacists Category:Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Category:Chemists from Pennsylvania Category:Democratic-Republican Party United States representatives from Pennsylvania Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society Category:Mines Paris - PSL alumni Category:Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni Category:Politicians from Philadelphia Category:Scientists from Philadelphia Category:University of Pennsylvania faculty Category:Pharmacists from Pennsylvania Category:19th-century United States representatives