Henry Perrine

[3][6] Cold weather particularly bothered Perrine after his arsenic poisoning, and in 1824 he moved to Natchez, Mississippi (leaving his family in Illinois) in the hope that the climate would aid his recovery.

He published the results of his research in the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences in 1826, and that report remained an important source on the subject for a century.

Believing that he needed to move to a climate even warmer than that of Natchez, Perrine had applied in 1824 for a diplomatic position in a tropical country.

He sent seeds and plants to people he corresponded with in the southern United States, some of his specimens now reside at the New York Botanical Garden.

Perrine was the only U.S. Consul to respond to the Treasury Department's request, and newspapers in the United States began writing about his work.

While still in Campeche and on his return to the United States, he campaigned for a land grant on which he could start a plant introduction station.

He also visited the settlement at Key Vaca to treat the Bahamians living there, and to try to convince them to grow some of the tropical plants he was trying to establish in Florida.

They were able to take a boat that had been partly loaded with plunder by the Seminoles, and head for the United States Navy base on nearby Tea Table Key.