[1][2] Charles Horton Peck was born on March 30, 1833, in the northeastern part of the town Sand Lake, New York, now called Averill Park.

In 1794, Eleazer Peck (his great grandfather) moved from Farmington, Connecticut to Sand Lake, attracted by oak timber that was manufactured for the Albany market.

[5] During his childhood, he used to enjoy fishing and hunting pigeons using a net with his grandfather and when he was old enough, the school days were limited to only winter season because he assisted in his father's sawmill.

[4] Charles Peck took a preparatory course at Sand Lake College Institute and then started at Union College in the fall of 1855 to obtain his bachelor's degree of Arts in 1859, where he received an award of the Nott Prize Scholarship in honor for being one of the three students passing a special and extended examination.

After graduating he went back to work at Sand Lake College Institute teaching classics, Mathematics, Botany, Greek, and Latin for three years.

A graduate of this College, he has been for many years in public service as Botanist of the Empire State, Author, and Student of Nature and of Science.

[3][5] After turning down a job offer at Union for what he called "personal reasons", in 1863 Peck started to work in the classics department of the State Street High School, being known as "Cass's Academy" in Albany, New York.

He was Christian with strong religious convictions and believed in a simple and direct theory of the world being governed by one creator.

[5] After working 48 years, Peck left a legacy of 2,700 new species identified of fungi, over 4,000 pages of publications and about 36,000 specimens.

Dr. Peck was an amazing general botanist whose work and publications covered fungi, mosses, ferns and seed plants.

[5][7][8] In 1978, mycologist Margaret Elizabeth Barr-Bigelow published Chapeckia, a genus of fungi in the family Sydowiellaceae, to honor Peck.

[9] In 1908, mycologist Gertrude Simmons Burlingham described Lactarius peckii, named for Peck to recognize his extensive work in that genus.