Thomas Mauksch

* Késmárk, December 20, 1749 – † Késmárk, February 10, 1832 / Evangelical pastor, naturalist and Tatra researcher, teacher, merchant ; ; He graduated from the high school in his hometown, then studied theology and natural science at the University of Leipzig. He taught at the Késmárk high school between 1776 and 1784. Between 1784 and 1802 he was an Evangelical pastor first in Bártfa, and then from 1786 in Nagyszalók. In the latter place he started trading in wine, and in 1802 he finally gave up teaching and moved back to Késmárk, where he only dealt with wine trading. In addition to his work, he researched the history, natural conditions, minerals and rocks of his native land, and studied the Tatra Mountains. He often hiked in the Tatra Mountains, and attempted to climb the Lomnica peak. He accompanied well-known foreign travelers, naturalists and military officers on these trips on several occasions (e.g. Robert Townson, Göran Wahlenberg, Pál Kitaibel, János Asbóth, Gergely Berzeviczy, István Csáky). Csáky had a hunting lodge in Tátrafüred, where guests could be accommodated. Tamás Mauksch became a thorough and recognized expert on the flora of the Spiš and the Tatra Mountains, and he also collaborated closely with Kitaibel when he worked on his work Descriptiones et icones plantarum rariorum Hungariae, so it is no coincidence that we find Mauksch's name among the listed collaborators. Tamás Mauksch himself wrote several works in Latin and German, but these remained in manuscript (the most significant of these is Wegweiser durch die Zipser karpathischen Alpen, which Károly György Rumy had already prepared for printing in 1826, but was ultimately not published and the manuscript was placed in the manuscript collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in which he listed 1,508 plant species). Between 1794 and 1832, he also kept a diary, with botanical and meteorological observations, but this too never saw the light of day, only his biographer, Sámuel Weber, and János Lipták (1889–1958), who wrote a monograph about the Kesmark Lyceum (Geschichte des evang. Distriktual-Lyzeums A. B. Kesmark, 1933), drew on it. He was a teacher at the Kesmark Lyceum between 1911 and 1944, and the director of the Institut für Heimatforschung based here between 1941 and 1944. Mauksch's memory is also preserved by two geographical names: the Mauksch Pit on the side of the Nagyszalók Peak and the Mauksch Lake in the Kesmark Valley. On September 8, 1901, a memorial plaque was placed in his honor in the church in Kačaslomnice.