Othniel Charles Marsh

Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of paleontology at Yale College and president of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new species and theories on the origins of birds. Born into a modest family, Marsh was able to afford higher education thanks to the generosity of his wealthy uncle George Peabody. After graduating from Yale College in 1860 he travelled the world, studying anatomy, mineralogy and geology. He obtained a teaching position at Yale upon his return. From the 1870s to 1890s, he competed with rival paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in a period of frenzied Western American expeditions known as the Bone Wars. Marsh's greatest legacy is the collection of Mesozoic reptiles, Cretaceous birds, and Mesozoic and Tertiary mammals that now constitute the backbone of the collections of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution. Marsh has been called "both a superb paleontologist and the greatest proponent of Darwinism in nineteenth-century America."<ref>McCarren, Mark J. The Scientific Contributions of Othniel Charles Marsh',' p. 1, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1993. .</ref> Biography Early life Marsh was born October 29, 1831, in Lockport, New York, United States, to a family of modest means. His father, Caleb Marsh, was a farmer. His mother, Mary Gaines Peabody, was the younger sister of wealthy banker and philanthropist George Peabody, and died of cholera when Marsh was less than three years old. The financial backing of his uncle allowed Marsh to obtain a formal education. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1856 and Yale College with his bachelor of arts degree with honors in 1860. Marsh received a Berkeley Scholarship from Yale, and studied geology, mineralogy and chemistry at Yale's Sheffield Scientific School from 1860 to 1862, earning an MA in 1863. He next studied paleontology and anatomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau from 1862 to 1865. On his return to the United States in 1866 he was appointed professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale University, making him the first professor of paleontology in the United States.