EBEN NORTON HORSFORD. 343 



it to Borden, so that Horsford himself got no advantage from it ; but 

 his merit as the inventor of this most important preparation was rec- 

 ognized at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873 by a diploma of honor. 

 Another of these important inventions was the phosphatic yeast- 

 powder, the object of which was to return to the bread the phosphates 

 lost in bolting the flour, and which, as is well known, form such an 

 essential constituent of the food of animals. In 185G he undertook 

 the manufacture of this yeast-powder, founding the Rumford Chemi- 

 cal "Works for this purpose, and after he had secured his rights by a 

 lawsuit which dragged along during seven wearisome years, and over- 

 come the great difficulties inseparable from the establishment of a new 

 process on a commercial scale, he made it a great success, which was 

 enhanced later by the use of the acid portion of the yeast-powder as 

 a medicine and beverage under the name of acid phosphate. It is 

 pleasant to see that this work, which was undertaken primarily for 

 the good of mankind by improving the quality of our principal food, 

 should have brought him such a substantial reward. The demands of 

 this business, however, became so great, that, in 1863, he was obliged 

 to resign the Rumford Professorship to devote himself entirely to its 

 management. After his retirement from his professorship he contin- 

 ued to live in Cambridge until his death, as it had become endeared 

 to him by his long residence and the brilliant society in which it then 

 rejoiced. 



lu addition to the useful inventions already mentioned, several 

 other pieces of public service date from the period of his professor- 

 ship, especially during the war. He was devotedly patriotic, as was 

 to be expected from the son of a woman whose house was one of the 

 stations on the '' Underground Railroad " for the escape of fugitive 

 slaves, and rendered great service by contriving a plan for the de- 

 fence of Boston Harbor, having been appointed on a commission for 

 this purpose by Governor Andrew, and by devising a marvellously 

 compact and light marching-ration of compressed beef and parched 

 wheat grits, of which half a million were prepared by the government 

 at the instance of General Grant. A description of tliis ration was 

 published in pamphlet form. 



In 1847 he married Mary L'Hommedieu Gardiner, who died in 

 1855; and in 1857 he married her sister, Phoebe Dayton Gardiner, 

 who survives him. These ladies were the daughters of the Hon. 

 Samuel Smith Gardiner, of Shelter Island, New York, and after his 

 death Professor Horsford and his family came into exclusive posses- 

 sion of his very large estate there by the purchase of the interest of 



