Robert Kennicott was born in
New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 13, 1835. His father, John Albert, was interested in botany and maintained a large land holding in
Northfield Township, Cook County, Illinois, which came to be known as "
The Grove". Robert was a sickly child and attempted to improve his overall health by spending much time outdoors. He did not attend school regularly, but his father ensured that he received an education at home. Under the tutelage of his father, Kennicott learned to patiently observe nature and began a collection of specimens.
Jared Potter Kirtland, a friend of Kennicott's father and one of the leading naturalists in the west, agreed to take Robert as an understudy in late 1852. Kennicott wintered with Kirtland in
East Rockport (now Lakewood), Ohio. Kirtland encouraged Kennicott to contact other naturalists, and soon Kennicott had come to the attention of
Spencer Fullerton Baird, the assistant secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution. For the next thirteen years, Kennicott would correspond with Baird about his findings. As Illinois was still largely undocumented by naturalists, Baird encouraged Kennicott to send him specimens. He returned to Illinois in 1863 to tend to his ailing father, who died later that year. He also collected snake specimens including with his specimen collecting first cousin Helen L. Teunisson. He subsequently named the subspecies
Carphophis amoenus helenae in her honor. In 1864 the
Western Union Telegraph Expedition was mounted to find a possible route for a telegraph line between North America and
Russia by way of the
Bering Sea. Kennicott was selected as the scientist for this expedition, and the party of naturalists sent to assist him included
W.H. Dall. The expedition arrived in
San Francisco in April 1865, but disagreements between its leaders meant that little was achieved. The party moved north to
Vancouver where Kennicott suffered a period of ill health. After his recovery they moved north again to
Alaska in August 1865. Kennicott died in May 1866 while traveling up the
Yukon River. His body was returned to his family's home in Illinois, enclosed in a metal canister and shipped via Russia and Japan rather than sent back on undeveloped trails through Canada. In an interesting twist, the scientist became the subject of study. An investigation in 2001–2016 into the cause of his death suggested that Kennicott may have suffered from
long QT syndrome, a congenital cardiac condition that can cause an irregular heartbeat, weakness, and fainting spells. This was made worse by
strychnine, a drug that Kennicott regularly self-administered to improve his condition, but which only aggravated it. According to a summary of the research in the
Washington Post, "the combination of stress, physical exhaustion and toxic 'medicine' was too much for the young scientist's weak heart," and led to his death by cardiac arrest. With permission of his family, his body has been added to the human anatomy collection at the Smithsonian. ==Legacy==