1893.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 153 



who did the work, assumed the responsibilities and enjoyed the 

 honors that came to him. 



Dr. Newberry was the youngest of nine children, seven 

 daughters and two sons, none of whom are now living. He Avas 

 born December 22, 1822, in the town of Windsor, Conn., where 

 his eminent ancestors had lived since the settlement of the town 

 by immigration from Dorchester, Mass., in 1035, nearly two 

 centuries. His grandfather, General Eoger Newberry, was one 

 of the Directors of the Connecticut Land Comj^any that in 1795 

 purchased of the State of Connecticut the bulk of the tract in 

 Northern Ohio known as the " Western Reserve of Connecti- 

 cut." Henry Newberi-y, the father of John Strong Newberry, 

 removed to the Western Reserve in 1824. He owned at first a 

 square mile of land near the j^resent center of the city of 

 Cleveland, but exchanged it for a tract at the falls of the Cuya- 

 hoga River, nine miles south, where at that time the water power 

 was very valuable. He founded the toAvn since known as Cuya- 

 hoga Falls, and engaged actively in the develojjment of the coal 

 resources of that region. Upon his property was mined the 

 first coal known to have been offered for sale in Ohio.* Mr. 

 Newberry built a fine house of a local red sandstone, erected 

 mills and was very successful in his enterprises. 



Dr. Newberry's early life was passed amid fortunate condi- 

 tions of competence and refinement, and the influence of his 

 natural surroundings on the mind of the bov^ can be plainly 

 traced. We can be sure that while he roamed the fields and 

 woods with boyish love of sport he had the observant eye of 

 the naturalist. The deep rock gorge of the river gave him a 

 geologic section and an illustration of geologic agencies, while 

 the coal mine on the estate supplied the plant fossils that 

 awakened an interest in paleontology, which was to become a 

 passion and the subject of much of his life work. His perse- 

 verance is proof of his scientific bent, for by his own collecting 

 and by exchange he accumulated a geologic cabinet which 

 filled a large room in his father's house, and was the nucleus of 

 what eventuall}'^ became that extensive collection, now one of 

 the glories of Columbia College. Before he entered college he 

 had collected and studied mollusca and made an herbarium and 

 a catalogue of the flora of the state, and had substantially mas- 

 tered the zoology and botany of his county. 



* For most, of the facts relating to the ancostry of Dr. Newberry the writer is 

 indebted to Mrs. Newberry, and to his oldest livintr son. Arthur St. .Tolin New- 

 berry, of Cleyeland. For faets relating to liis boyliood and colJetre days m Key. 

 N. 8. Burton, Needhani, Mass., Kev- E. Bushnoil, Cleveland, Ohio, and Hon. 

 M. C Read. Hudson, Ohio. 



