Former owner George Suckley (1830-69) was an American physician and naturalist who explored the Washington and Oregon territories in the 1850s. Born in New York he studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, today Columbia University. In 1853 he was appointed assistant surgeon and naturalist to the Pacific Railroad Survey led by Isaac Stevens. Commissioned as a surgeon with the US Army, Suckley resigned in 1856 to pursue natural history full time, eventually publishing several works on the natural history of the American Northwest. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, however, he rejoined the army to work as a surgeon throughout the war. He died in New York City a few years after the war's end, possibly of alcoholism. Various fish, insects and plants are named in his honour, including the bumblebee Bombus suckleyi. Chapter I of this book contains a lecture Suckley delivered on military surgery at Bellevue Medical College, the first words of which are disturbing: "War is the normal conditon of mankind; peace is the abnormal condition. This statement is not flattering to a people claiming Christianity and boasting of its civilization; it is nevertheless true, and the fact must be accepted" (p. 9).
