During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Samuel Kramsh worked as a collector and supplier of native plants for horticulturists and botanists, including Humphry and Moses Marshall and Benjamin Smith Barton. Of German descent and probably a Moravian, Kramsh collected extensively in both Pennsylvania and North Carolina, however little else is known about his life. That he was apparently well trained in formal botany is suggested by his familiarity with botanical nomenclature and the Linnean system, and his circle of clients and correspondents places him at the center of American botanical enquiry. A Samuel G. Kramsh listed in the 1810 census for the Moravian town of Salem, N.C. may be the botanist's son.

Samuel Kramsh's manuscript includes an exhaustive record of plant species collected in Pennsylvania and North Carolina during the years 1787-1789, identified and arranged according to the new Linnean classification. The list includes both trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, but few grasses, on which Kramsh was still working at the time.