Pehr Kalm

Petter Kalm was born on March 6, 1716, in Sweden to Finnish refugee parents fleeing the Great Northern War, growing up in Vaasa, Finland. Studying at the Royal Academy of Turku, he became Carl Linnaeus's star pupil at Uppsala University and was appointed the first Professor of Economics at Turku in 1747.

Commissioned by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to find plants of economic value for Nordic cultivation, Kalm traveled extensively across North America from 1748 to 1751, befriending Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. He provided the first detailed scientific description of Niagara Falls and collected hundreds of botanical specimens; Linnaeus named the mountain laurel genus Kalmia in his honor. His three-volume travel journal En Resa til Norra America remains a classic of colonial observation.