CLAASSEN, EDO NICHOLAUS (1833-12 July 1932) was a Cleveland pharmacist who published more than one hundred articles, most on pharmacological and botanical topics, and assembled an important plant collection. A son of the burgomaster of Hage, Prussia (now Germany), Claassen studied at a Gymnasium and obtained an apprenticeship as a pharmacist. At 24, he began study at the University of Gottingen, where one of his professors was the fames chemist Friedrich Wohler. Claassen emigrated to the U.S. in 1867 and soon afterward moved to Cleveland where he opened up a drugstore on Woodland Ave in 1868. He married his wife, Juliana, in 1870. Claassen moved to EAST CLEVELAND later in his life. Over a period of many years, he assembled a large collection of plants, mounted on paper in herbarium style. The majority of his specimens were collected in northern Ohio; many were also collected in Europe. He also assembled a collection of minerals. Claassen published many articles on mosses, liverworts, and lichens as well as grasses and other types of plants found in northern Ohio. He was survived by only one of his four children: Mrs. Julia C. Steinke. He donated his plant collection, consisting of about 10,000 specimens, to Western Reserve University. It was later transferred to Holden Arboretum and then, in 1986, to the CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. His collection has great regional importance, as it documents past occurrences of various plants in northern Ohio, some of which no longer are found in the same areas due to changes in the environment.
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