Walter Deane Papers. Archives, Gray Herbarium Library, Harvard University Herbaria.

Walter Deane was born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 23, 1848. He attended Harvard College (Class of 1870) and became a teacher at St. Mark’s School in Southboro, Massachusetts, and later at the Hopkinson School in Boston. He married Margaret Chapman Coolidge in 1878, and they moved to Cambridge shortly thereafter. His interest in botany began to develop around 1880, and after he gave up teaching in 1895, he led small classes in botany and worked for the Metropolitan Park Commission compiling a flora of the park system. He also had a keen interest in ornithology, working as a curator for William Brewster’s ornithological museum and assisting in the preparation of Brewster’s Birds of the Cambridge Region. Deane held no more paid positions after 1907, devoting himself to his own interests. He was a founding member of the New England Botanical Club and was very active in the local botanical community, helping with several floras and corresponding with a great number of botanists. For many years, he spent summers in Shelburne, New Hampshire. Deane died on July 30, 1930.

Electronic finding aid available http://www.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/archives/Deane/DEANEBI.html