Samuel Latham Mitchill (August 20, 1764 – September 7, 1831) was an American physician, naturalist, and politician who lived in Plandome, New York.

[5] In addition to his Columbia lectures on botany, zoology, and mineralogy, Mitchill collected, identified, and classified many plants and animals, particularly aquatic organisms.

[10] On January 29, 1817, Mitchill convened the first meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, originally called the Lyceum of Natural History, of which he was later elected president.

[11] Mitchill strongly endorsed the building of the Erie Canal, sponsored by his friend and political ally DeWitt Clinton; they were both members of the short-lived New-York Institution.

[12] Mitchill suggested renaming the United States of America Fredonia, combining the English "freedom" with a Latinate ending.

In the early nineteenth century, Mitchill was New York's "most publicly universal gentleman... a man known variously as the 'living encyclopedia,' as a 'stalking library,' and (to his admired Jefferson) as the 'Congressional Dictionary.