Thomas Tracy Bouvé
American merchant and naturalist (1815-1896)
Thomas Tracy Bouvé (January 14, 1815 – June 3, 1896) was an American naturalist, abolitionist, and merchant based in Boston. He served as curator and president of the Boston Society of Natural History from 1870 to 1880 and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Boston Vigilance Committee.
Life and career
Bouvé was born in Boston on January 14, 1815, to Ephraim Osborn and Lydia (Tracy) Bouvé, of Huguenot descent. He attended Boston public schools before dropping out of the English High School to work in a dry goods store at the age of 12. Three years later, he became employed by an iron manufacturing company, where he rose to bookkeeper and chief accountant. At the age of 26, he co-founded Curtis, Bouve and Co., a Boston-based commission iron house, and gained wealth by buying and selling iron for the next 30 years. He was treasurer of the Glendon Iron Company from 1870 until his death. He was active in the community, serving as president of the Home for Destitute Catholic Children and as a trustee of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, Derby Academy, and the public library in the town of Hingham. Bouvé died in Boston on June 3, 1896.
A self-taught amateur naturalist, Bouvé received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1850.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q111833797. VIAF identifies the subject as 68888619. The Library of Congress control number is nr2005028097. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1815, 1896, 1870 and 1880.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Tracy Bouvé” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.