USA > New York > Encyclopedia of biography of New York, a life record of men and women whose sterling character and energy and industry have made them preeminent in their own and many other states, Vol. 2 > Part 33
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New York, 1830. Children all born to Mr. Potts and his second wife, Mary Laurette (Eustis) Potts : Maude Eustis, married at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, April 8, 1890, Augustus C. Paine, Jr., and resides in New York City; George Eustis, born April 15, 1866, married at Marquette, Michigan, September 14, 1898, Sarah White Call, and resides at Short Hills, New Jersey ; Hugh Eustis, born October 14, 1867, married Grace Paine, and re- sides in Willsborough, New York; Lau- rette Eustis, born at Pottsville, Pennsyl- vania, October 12, 1868, married at Ger- mantown, Pennsylvania, January 24, 1905, L. Frederick Pease, and resides in New York City.
WARD, Henry Augustus, Scientist, Traveler, Explorer.
There have been great scientists, great travelers, and great explorers, each a spe- cialist, but rare indeed is it to find such a character as Professor Ward, scientist, traveler and explorer, yet in no sense a specialist. His quest was for all that was wonderful in natural science ; his field, the world. With all his attainments he was a man of singular modesty and simplicity of character, yet in every seat of scientific learning in his own and other lands his name is honored and will live when the names of more self assertive scientists shall have long been forgotten. The great Museum of Natural Science in Sibley Hall, University of Rochester, a priceless heritage, perhaps best represents his high- est work, while Ward's Natural Science Establishment, which he founded in Rochester, is still the Mecca of scientists in search of rare and valuable specimens illustrating the various branches of nat- ural science. His collection of meteorites, known as the Ward-Coonley Collection, is now a part of the Field Museum of
Chicago, and is the largest private collec- tion in the world. To it he devoted about nine years of his life. Professor Ward often said, "This collection will be my monument." One of his recent trips was to Teheran, Persia, to secure a piece of the Veramin meteorite owned by the Shah and jealously guarded in his palace. He was successful and a specimen is on ex- hibition with the collection in New York.
Professor L. P. Gratacap, of the Amer- ican Museum of Natural History, in his article in the "Popular Science Monthly" entitled "The Largest American Collec- tion of Meteorites," says: "No one in the United States has exhibited greater perse- verance or more boundless, almost reck- less, enthusiasm in the work of collecting meteorites than Professor Henry A. Ward. His audacity and zeal have gone hand in hand with a very keen scientific sense of the meaning of meteorites and an admirable acquaintance with the litera- ture and the results that have developed in their study. He has himself been an explorer in this field and it would be safe to predict that he would to-day be the first arrival at the scene should a meteorite fall." Professor Carl Klein, State Coun- selor and Director of the Royal Mineral Collection at Berlin, referred to the Ward- Coonley Collection as "one of the finest and richest meteorite collections in the entire world."
As a traveler in search of the rare and wonderful in nature he established a rec- ord unsurpassed, carrying the name and fame of Rochester literally into the far corners of the earth. He was known to all of the older scientists of the world, and for many years the highways of the earth converged at Rochester. He made at least thirty-five trips to Europe, circum- navigated the globe, and visited every continent and almost every country the sun shines upon, as well as all the impor-
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tant islands of all the seas. He spoke many languages a famous Frenchman saying, "He is an American who speaks French like a Parisian." His command of German was equally good, and he spoke Spanish fluently.
This knowledge of the languages of the world was not obtained through a desire for linguistic attainment but through necessity, for he literally ransacked the earth in his quest for specimens and often he was the only member of his party who could converse with the natives. Heknew South America as well as he did the high- ways of his native city. His first collect- ing tour was made in 1854, prior to receiv- ing his degree from Harvard University, and was made at the expense of the elder General Wadsworth, of New York, who sent him to Europe as tutor to his son, Charles Wadsworth, now deceased. The young men traveled all over Continental Europe, then crossed to Egypt, visited Alexandria and Cairo and ascended the Nile to the second cataract, a notable journey in those days. While this jour- ney was undertaken solely for the benefit to be gained through foreign travel it was at this time that Professor Ward col- lected his first specimens. It was also at General Wadsworth's expense that the "Wadsworth Collection" of rocks, min- erals and fossils, donated by General Wadsworth to the Buffalo Natural His- tory Society and yet on exhibition, was made by Professor Ward when a young man.
His next journey of note was made while he was still a student at the School of Mines in Paris, France. This journey carried him to Joppa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and other points of scientific interest in Palestine, Arabia, Nubia, and Egypt ; up the Nile to the fifth cataract; across the desert to Abyssinia, Somaliland, Zan- zibar, Mozambique, Portugese East
Africa, Zululand, Natal, Cape Colony ; then one thousand miles northeasterly from Cape Town through the interior to Griqualand, visiting the diamond fields; thence again to Cape Town. He next pro- ceeded up the West Coast to the mouth of the Niger, where he left the ship and ascended the river four hundred miles, that being the record trip into the interior of Africa for an American. On his return to the coast he continued his northward journey, visiting Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegambia, Senegal, and Morocco, re- turning to Marseilles, the point also of his departure. It was on this journey that he visited the island of Fernando Po, in the Bight of Biafra, off the Came- roons, West Africa, where he was stricken with yellow fever and narrowly escaped death. Professor Ward's travels in South America were very extensive, for he visited every country at least once, and was familiar with trails leading over the Andes. His last trip there was made at the age of sixty-nine years and was completed the year of his death, 1906. He crossed the continent several times from Valparaiso to Buenos Ayres, ex- plored the Magdalena river for hundreds of miles from its mouth, and traveled for days over tortuous, dangerous mountain trails to Santa Rosa and Bogota. On his last trip, in order to reach home, he crossed the Atlantic from Rio de Janeiro to Senegal, Africa, thence to Lisbon and Bordeaux, there intending to meet Judge Albion W. Tourgee, who had been a student at the University of Rochester while Professor Ward was a member of the faculty and who was then United States Consul at Bordeaux. The morn- ing after his arrival he called at the con- sulate and was informed that Judge Tourgee had died during the previous night.
Professor Ward visited Australia sev-
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eral times, living in gold camps and camping on the border of the great interior desert. His last trip there was at the request of the younger Professor Agassiz, of Harvard University, to obtain a collection of Australian corals, the jour- ney resulting in his securing the largest and finest collection of corals character- istic of a given locality, ever made. The ship chartered for the expedition made the passage inside the Great Barrier Reef that skirts Australia on the east from Torres Strait almost to Brisbane.
In North America he had visited every State and territory within the borders of the United States except Alaska, had crossed British America from the Pacific to Newfoundland, and had traveled thousands of miles in Mexico and Central American States. While traveling in Colombia, South America, in 1905, he was captured by the insurgent General Uribe, but was held prisoner only a short time.
In 1871 he was appointed by President Grant as naturalist to accompany the expedition he was sending to Santo Do- mingo, the purchase of that island of the West Indies being then contemplated and further information regarding its re- sources being desired. Professor Ward's duties were especially of a geological and zoological nature. The vessel carrying the expedition was wrecked, but all lives were saved and no material injury was sustained to thwart their mission.
Central, and North America; all laid under contribution, for these journeys were not for pleasure but to secure speci- mens for Ward's Natural Science Estab- lishment in Rochester, to be distributed among museums, college collections, and private collectors. The last eight or nine years of his life were spent in search for meteorites, but prior to that all specimens of value to natural history students were collected. Professor Ward was not a voluminous writer and it was almost im- possible to prevail upon him to face an audience. He did, however, publish "Notice of the Megatherium Auveri" and "Descriptions of the Most Celebrated Fossils in the Royal Museums of Eu- rope," and had in preparation at the time of his death a great work on meteorites, upon which he had worked with his secre- tary at his summer home at Wyoming, New York, for about three years. In his last years he consented to deliver lectures, very few in number, before the Rochester Academy of Science and the Buffalo So- ciety of Natural History. Although Ward's Natural Science Establishment is a commercial enterprise, its business is carried on through an extensive corps of assistants at home and personally trained collectors whom he sent to all points of the world for materials for "Ward's Cabinets." Professor Ward, the founder, during the years of his management subordinated the commercial to the scientific. Hence, while the institution is in no sense a school, many men whose names are high upon the scientific roll of fame received their early practical train- ing under him. Among those going out from under his instruction the more notable are : G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey; Edwin E. Howell, the most skilled maker of relief maps in the world, who came to Roches-
A summary of the countries he ex- plored and searched shows the earth circumnavigated and every country in Europe and every large city visited. In Asia, all countries of the Indian and Pacific littorals, as well as the large islands of those oceans, including Java, Borneo, New Zealand, Tasmania, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Hawaii, and Japan ; Africa, coastal and interior ; South, ter an untaught country boy ; Dr. Wil-
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liam T. Hornaday, director of the Bronx Park Zoological Garden, one of the larg- est in the world ; Curator Frank C. Baker, of Chicago, a leading natural scientist ; Charles A. Townsend, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, the most successful collector of deep sea specimens known ; A. B. Baker, assistant superintendent but practical head of the Natural Zoological Garden at Washing- ton ; Frederick A. Lucas, curator-in-chief of the museum of Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; George Turner, a native of Rochester, now chief taxider- mist of the United States Natural Museum, Washington; Walter C. Bar- rows, professor of zoology in Michigan Agricultural College; Rufus H. Pettit, professor of entomology in the same insti- tution ; and Carl Akley, chief taxidermist of the American Museum of Natural Science, New York City.
The tribute Dr. Hornaday lays at the feet of his master and friend expresses the feelings of all. Dr. Hornaday came to Rochester in 1873 from an Iowa agri- cultural college. He did such excellent work that in 1874 he was sent to Florida in the interests of the establishment and was so successful that in 1876 he was sent by Professor Ward around the world on a collecting tour, a journey described in "Two Years in the Jungle" by Dr. Horn- aday (New York, 1885). The esteem in which he held Professor Ward he thus expressed : "In my estimation he has done more towards the creation and ex- pansion of the scientific museums of the world than any other twenty men I could name. The value of his work as a scien- tific educator can never be estimated in dollars and cents. He deliberately chose as his sphere of usefulness the gathering and distribution of specimens and collec- tions for the promotion of scientific study. The work of his life has been to place in
the hands of scientific students and inves- tigators the objects they could not obtain for themselves."
In his philanthropy Professor Ward was particularly generous to institutions and collectors of small means, frequently adding to their orders useful specimens without charge, reducing his profit to nothing and in some cases not receiving enough even to cover the original cost. Many young men of this country and some in Europe owe their education and opportunities to him, nor was it neces- sary that they should be scientific students, as he was equally ready to help any ambitious young man to a business education. Money meant nothing to him ; his work was everything. The zoological, geological, and mineralogical collection installed by him in the Lewis Brooks Museum of Natural Science at the University of Virginia in Richmond at a cost to Mr. Brooks of eighty-eight thou- sand dollars netted Professor Ward a profit of but one hundred dollars, and this did not pay for the time he spent in plac- ing the collection in position in the museum.
Professor Ward met death by accident in Buffalo, after escaping the perils of explorer and traveler in wild and un- frequented regions during the greater part of a life of seventy years. He him- self planned and placed his tomb in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, several years prior to his death. It is an immense boulder of crystalline quartz with jasper inclusion brought from the north shore of Lake Superior, the only region in the entire world known to produce such a rock. A niche in the center contains the urn that holds his ashes.
Henry Augustus Ward was born in Rochester, March 9, 1834, died in Buffalo, July 4, 1906, son of Henry M. and Eliza
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(Chapin) Ward. He attended Rochester schools for a time, but in early life spent several years on a farm in Wyoming county. He then became a student at Temple Hall Academy, Geneseo, New York, Marshal Oyama, the famous Japanese warrior, being a classmate. He next entered Williams College, where for about a year Charles E. Fitch, of Roches- ter, was a classmate. It was while a student at Williams that he walked twenty-eight miles to hear Professor Agassiz's lecture and was then introduced to him. This resulted in the abandon- ment of his college course and his going to Cambridge as Professor Agassiz's assistant. After a number of years of this congenial work which resulted in his lifelong friendship with his great master, he went on the tour with General Wads- worth. This was followed by five years at the Jardin des Plantes, the Sorbonne, and the School of Mines, shorter courses following at Munich in Bavaria, and Freiburg in Saxony. He then threw his books aside and made the African jour- ney previously described. During his travels he studied the zoological and geo- logical features of the country through which he passed, while at the same time he made a vast collection of minerals, geological specimens and fossils. During his student life in Paris he supported him- self by the collection of fossils and other geological specimens found in Paris, which he either sold in London or ex- changed for scientific material that he could convert into cash. The result of his African journey, that valuable col- lection now owned by the University of Rochester, was made with the assistance of his uncle, Levi Ward. This collection of mineral rocks and fossils was shipped to the United States and on its arrival he exhibited it in Washington Hall, at the corner of what is now West Main and
Washington streets. The collection at- tracted widespread attention, being the largest and most complete of its kind ever made. It was the center of so much interest that it was purchased by popular subscription for the University of Rochester, where, greatly enlarged, it occupies an important place in Sibley Hall. Shortly after his return from Paris he was elected professor of natural science, filling that chair for five years, 1860 to 1865.
His knowledge of minerals, his experi- ence abroad, and the dearth of mining engineers brought Professor Ward flat- tering proposals from several mining companies. He accepted one of these, from the Midas Gold Mining Company, of Midasburg, Montana, that company being largely owned by Rochester capital- ists. In 1865 he severed his connection with the university and became super- intendent of the Midas Company. He procured for his mine the first stamp mill used in treating free milling gold ore ever used in the Rocky Mountains. This mill, which crushed the ore to a fineness allowing the greatest economy in hauling from the.mine, was brought from Sacra- mento, California, over the mountains to Midasburg, through a hostile wilderness, ten months being consumed in the jour- ney. From Midasburg Professor Ward went to Southern California as superin- tendent of a gold mine owned largely by his friend, Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaping machine. After a year there the call of science won him and he re- turned to Rochester to complete the col- lection made by himself and owned by the University of Rochester. The serious gaps in that collection, especially in the fossil department, were comparatively easy to fill, there being excellent examples of the large extinct animals to be found in the museums of Europe. To fill these
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gaps required the making of accurate moulds to the number of several thousand and to that work he addressed himself. When the moulds were ready to be shipped to Rochester three frame build- ings were erected on the campus to re- ceive them and there the casts now to be seen in the museum halls of the Univer- sity of Rochester and many other similar institutions were made, the work attract- ing the attention of colleges and univer- sities all over the United States, many requests for duplicates being received. This was the inaugural work of "Ward's Natural Science Establishment," that is one of Rochester's notable enterprises, with a member of the Ward family still its executive head. The establishment grew with the years until every branch of natural science is represented. In its early years Professor Ward was its directing head and until his death was a large stockholder though not actively identified with its management. He ran- sacked the earth for specimens, as told heretofore, his natural history work under the elder Agassiz, his geological work under D'Aubigny and De Beaumont, his private explorations and travels, all qual- ifying him for leadership in such an enterprise. His interest in meteorites developed during the last decade of his life and he became as famous in that field as in others longer cultivated. His business in Buffalo on the day of his death was partly to talk over with his friend, Dr. Roswell Park, an expedition which he proposed to lead into Africa, although then in his seventy-second year and not then three months returned from a South American expedition.
Professor Ward's remarkable restor- ations or facsimiles range in size from a shell to an ichthyosaurus and a mastodon, and are remarkable in the minuteness and exactness of their detail. He formed and
installed museums costing many thou- sands of dollars each for Allegheny Col- lege, Cornell, Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Yale and other universities, in all over one hundred institutions throughout the United States.
Professor Ward's scholarly degrees earned through work in the class room were those of Bachelor of Arts, Williams College, 1860, and Master of Arts, Univer- sity of Rochester, 1862. The University of Rochester conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1896, and Doctor of Science, Albertus Magnus, in 1902, and he was a fellow of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science and of the American Society of Natural- ists.
He married (first) in 1860, Phoebe A. Howell, of York, New York, whom he met while both were students at Geneseo. Alice, their daughter, died in 1901; Charles H., the eldest son, lives in Rochester; while Henry L., is director of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Both sons received their business and technical training in Ward's Natural Science Estab- lishment. On March 18, 1897, Professor Ward married (second) Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley, of Chicago, where they afterwards resided in winter, making their summer home at Wyoming, New York. It was on his way to this country home, associated with his boyhood as well as with his later years, that on July 4, 1906, Professor Ward fell a victim to the reckless driving of an automobile.
DRAPER, Andrew S., Lawyer, Educator, Administrator.
Dr. Andrew Sloan Draper was not a genius, nor did he possess great original- ity, but he was an administrator of re- markable ability. In that respect he has not been equalled by anyone in this coun-
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try who has had to do with public educa- tion. His mind was always open to sug- gestions from any source, and he was at all times ready to act upon such sugges- tions as to him seemed worthy and likely to succeed. He had none of that pride of opinion that is the weakness of small minds. When he decided that a thing should be done, the matter was perma- nently settled in his mind, and rebuff and temporary failure did not dishearten him. He had the ability to bide his time and seize the favorable moment for action when it arose.
His career shows clearly that men suc- ceed or fail in life not primarily because of the opportunities that they may have had, but because of what they are. Dr. Draper was not what is generally con- sidered an educated man; at least his schooling was somewhat meager. Al- though he was the successful president of a great university, he was not a college graduate, nor had he ever attended any college, if his course at the Albany Law School be excepted. Why then should he achieve the great success that he did? How did he fit himself for his work? He knew men. He was a masterful man. He saw clearly and clung to his purposes persistently. He prepared himself care- fully for every event that he thought was likely to arise. He had not that fear of failure that so often prevents action. Added to these characteristics was what after all is a good training for life. He was born in the country. When a mere boy he began to be self-supporting.
Andrew Sloan Draper was the son of a farmer, Sylvester Bigelow Draper, and of Jane Sloan Draper, was born at West- ford, Otsego county, New York, on June 21, 1848, and died at his home in Albany, April 27, 1913. He came from good stock. On his father's side he was descended in a direct line from James Draper, "The
Puritan," who settled at Roxbury, Massa- chusetts, in 1646. Through his paternal great-grandmother he was descended Degory Priest, one of the "Mayflower" Pilgrims. His mother was Scotch-Irish. Two of his great-grandfathers were offi- cers in the early French wars; one of them was killed in King Philip's War. Two of his ancestors were soldiers in the Revolution.
His first occupation was that of a news- boy at Albany, New York, for which he received two dollars and fifty cents a week. His experience in teaching was meager. He began teaching in a private school in his native county at the age of eighteen, and at the age of twenty was principal of a small village school in the county of Otsego. For three or four years he taught in the Albany Academy and other institutions. He attended the Albany public schools, and graduated from the Albany Academy in 1866, and from the Albany Law School in 1871. He became a member of the law firm of Draper & Chester in 1871. He married Abbie Louise Bryan, of New Britain, Connecticut, May 8, 1872. He was a member of the Albany Board of Educa- tion, 1879-81 and 1890-92, and was a member of the Legislature in 1881. He was a member of the board of trustees of the State Normal College, and was made Judge of the United States Court of Ala- bama Claims.
Dr. Draper was a strong temperance man, and was at one time grand worthy chief templar of the Independent Order of Good Templars of the State of New York. He was frequently heard on the temperance question from the same plat- form as Horace Greeley, Neal Dow and John B. Gough. He was for years an active politician, and came to see a side of human nature that is not usually well known to those who are not in politics.
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He was for several years the head of the Republican organization in Albany. One might say that this was no preparation for educational work, yet with him it proved to be the best possible prepara- tion-it made him the master of men; it trained him to understand the public; it led him to appreciate the value of organi- zation, without which no great work can be successfully carried on. Because of this training he became an untiring worker, and quick to see danger signals and to prepare to meet opposition.
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