Marsh, Othniel Charles, 1831-1899

Othniel Charles Marsh was a paleontologist and was President of the National Academy of Science.

Epithet: Professor of Palaeontology, Yale University

Othniel Charles Marsh, born in Lockport, New York, in 1831, was the son of Caleb and Mary Peabody Marsh. When he was three years old his mother died of cholera, and thereafter her bachelor brother, George Peabody, assumed full financial responsibility for Othniel's education at Andover, Yale (class of 1860), and in Germany. When he returned to Yale in 1865, Marsh was appointed the first professor of paleontology in the western hemisphere and influenced his uncle, George Peabody, to provide funds for the construction of a Natural History Museum at Yale. While searching for fossils in the western states, Marsh's discoveries included an extinct bird with teeth and eighty new forms of dinosaurs. These won him acclaim at home and in Europe. Owing to the death at mid-term of the president of the National Academy of Science, Marsh became acting president from 1880-1883. He was then elected president for two successive six-year terms, filling that office for longer than any previous or subsequent incumbent. Marsh devoted so much of his inherited fortune to the collecting of specimens for Yale that at the end of his life he found himself forced to mortgage his Prospect Street home in New Haven. Never having married, he named Yale his sole beneficiary, but his estate amounted to very little, except for the $18,694 realized when the contents of his home were auctioned in New York. Marsh died in his New Haven home from pneumonia on March 18, 1899.

American paleontologist.

Epithet: US palaeontologist

Othniel Charles Marsh, born in Lockport, New York, in 1831, was the son of Caleb and Mary Peabody Marsh. When he was three years old his mother died of cholera, and thereafter her bachelor brother, George Peabody, assumed full financial responsibility for Othniel's education at Andover, Yale (class of 1860), and in Germany. When he returned to Yale in 1865, Marsh was appointed the first professor of paleontology in the western hemisphere and influenced his uncle, George Peabody, to provide funds for the construction of a Natural History Museum at Yale. While searching for fossils in the western states, Marsh's discoveries included an extinct bird with teeth and eighty new forms of dinosaurs. These won him acclaim at home and in Europe. Owing to the death at mid-term of the president of the National Academy of Science, Marsh became acting president from 1880-1883. He was then elected president for two successive six-year terms, filling that office for longer than any previous or subsequent incumbent. Marsh devoted so much of his inherited fortune to the collecting of specimens for Yale that at the end of his life he found himself forced to mortgage his Prospect Street home in New Haven. Never having married, he named Yale his sole beneficiary, but his estate amounted to very little, except for the $18,694 realized when thecontents of his home were auctioned in New York. Marsh died in his New Haven home from pneumonia on March 18, 1899.