Biddle, Henry J. (Henry Jonathan)

Henry Jonathan Biddle (1862-1928) was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1862. He was a member of the prominent Biddle family of Philadelphia, and the son of Maj. Henry J. Biddle (1817-1862), who died the year Henry was born, from wounds suffered in the Battle of Newmarket Crossroads. Maj. Biddle's widow, Mary Deborah Baird Biddle (?-1900), endowed a college in his memory in Charlotte, North Carolina. (The institution endures but was later renamed Johnson C. Smith University; a Biddle Hall still stands on campus.).

Biddle was the youngest of five children. Oldest brother Jonathan Williams Biddle (1855-1877) was a lieutenant in Company K, 7th Cavalry and was killed in the conflict against the Nez Perce in 1877. Spencer Fullerton Baird Biddle (-1887), the third child, served in the Navy. Henry had two sisters, Lydia Macfunn Biddle (-1896) and Christine Williams Biddle. In 1887 he married Helene Rudolph in Germany. The couple produced two children, Rebecca Baird Biddle (1888-?) and Spencer Biddle (1890-). Spencer accompanied his father on some of the expeditions.

The Biddle family became prominent during the Revolutionary War, and have been active in banking, statesmanship, and military service. Two noted relatives of Henry may have helped to inspire him. Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844) served as the primary editor for the first edition of the journals of Lewis and Clark. Spencer Fullerton Baird (1797-1887), namesake of Henry's brother, was a naturalist and prolific ornithologist mentored by Audubon. At the age of 27 he was appointed assistant secretary of the nascent Smithsonian Institution, and then Secretary (director) 1878-1887.

Henry J. Biddle was educated at Sheffield School and Yale University, and received a degree in geology in 1885 from the Kaiserlich Bergakademie in Freiburg, Germany. Trained as a mining engineer and geologist, he was also a naturalist and a botanist, and worked for the Smithsonian for a time. In the 1880s he was employed with the US Geological Survey in the Southeast and the Northwest. In 1881 he was informally attached to John Wesley Powell's survey of the Zuni Pueblos. Biddle settled in the Northwest, first in Lakeview and then in Portland, Oregon, finally establishing an estate near Vancouver.

In 1912 he retired to pursue botanical studies and promote conservation. He was a friend and traveling companion of Louis Forniquet Henderson (1853-1952), professor of botany at the University of Oregon 1893-1906 and curator of the UO Herbarium. Biddle also traveled with noted Portlanders, physician Rodney Glisan and botanist Martin Gorman (1853-1926). Biddle toured in Alaska and throughout the mountains and deserts of the Northwest. He may also have been involved in establishing Crater Lake as a national monument.

In 1915 Henry Biddle reputedly paid $1 to acquire Castle Rock from Charles E. Ladd. Both men were concerned that this landmark on the Columbia Gorge, first described by Lewis & Clark in 1805 as Beacon Rock, be preserved from developers. Biddle helped convince the United States Board of Geographic Names to restore the name in 1916. An avid hiker and engineer, Biddle designed and constructed a trail to the top of the rock between October 1915 and April 1918. Biddle Butte is a nearby landmark, also owned by and named for Biddle. (Reproduction of 1916 article about trip to Biddle's Butte.) Henry Biddle died in 1928, and his children gave Beacon Rock to the state of Washington as a public park in 1932.

From the guide to the Henry J. Biddle papers, circa 1862-1928, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)