John James Himili (216)

John James Himili (?–1809) was a watchmaker and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. He was born in Switzerland, likely in the town of Neuveville on the Lake of Bienne, but spent much of his life in Charleston, South Carolina, as did his cousin, the Huguenot pastor Bartholomew Henry Himili. Himili sold and repaired watches from his shop in Charleston for decades; after 1791, city directories list him as a clockmaker and a merchant as well. Whitfield J. Bell, Jr. speculates that Himili’s training in watchmaking may have acquainted him with other scientific instruments and encouraged meteorological observations, but the nature of his connection to the APS is otherwise unclear. One possibility is the French botanist and explorer André Michaux, with whom Himili met during a visit to his homeland around 1796 and whose ambitious proposed expedition to the American West the Society financially supported. Himili arranged the purchase of lands for a botanical garden outside Charleston for Michaux and then cared for them in his absence. When Michaux’s heir conveyed the lands to Himili in 1802, Himili conveyed them in turn to the South Carolina Society for Promoting Agriculture. (PI)