Early life Pitcher was born in
Sandy Hill, New York, on April 12, 1797. He was the son of Nathaniel Pitcher Sr., who died in Sandy Hill in 1802, and Margaret Stevenson, who died in
Kingsbury, in 1819. He was the younger half-brother of
Nathaniel Pitcher, a future
Governor of New York. (In his 1836 will, Nathaniel mentioned an Osage orange walking stick given to him by Zina.) Another of Zina's brothers was James Pitcher, who became the first mayor of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1835. Zina attended
Middlebury College in
Vermont and graduated in medicine in 1822.
Career Pitcher joined the
Army in 1822 as an assistant
surgeon, and was promoted to the rank of
major in 1836 as a full surgeon. He was president of the
Army Medical Board in 1835, and resigned from the Army at the end of 1836. Pitcher was also an excellent botanist (not uncommon for medical professionals of his day). He collected and studied plants in the
Great Lakes region, and the exceedingly rare
Pitcher's thistle (
Cirsium pitcheri) was first collected by him from the
Grand Sable Dunes during his service as an Army surgeon; subsequently it was named for him as well. At times Pitcher teamed with botanist
Thomas Nuttall. He moved to Detroit, and was elected mayor for two separate terms, once from 1840–1841 and again in 1843. He was also a
regent of the
University of Michigan from 1837 until 1852 where he bought a copy of
Audubon's "Birds of America" for the library. He served as president of the
American Medical Association from 1856 to 1857, presiding over its annual meeting in Detroit. ==Commemoration==