William Dandridge Peck

William Dandridge Peck (May 8, 1763 – October 8, 1822) was an American naturalist, the first native-born entomologist and a pioneer in the field of economic entomology.

Peck was unhappy with his occupation and eventually moved to Kittery, Maine where he lived with his father on a small coastal farm.

[2][3] Peck lived as a recluse on the farm for twenty years, only occasionally leaving to visit friends in Boston.

He later claimed that he had first become interested in natural history after picking up a copy of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae at the site of a shipwreck on the coast.

In 1795 he began writing on entomology and in 1796 he won a prize from the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture for his paper on the natural history of the cankerworm, Phalaena vernata.