PAPERS OF 1880. 



MEMORIAL OF PROF. BENJAMIN F. MUDGE. 



BY JOHN D. PARKER, KANSAS CITY, MO. 



Prof. Benjamin Franklin Mudge was born at Orrinton, Maine, Aug. 11, 

 1817, and died at Manhattan, Kansas, Nov. 21, 1879, in the sixty-second 

 year of his age. When two years old, his father's family moved to Lynn, 

 Mass., which place numbered his ancestors among its first white settlers. 

 His parents were eminent for their piety, charity and hospitality. They 

 encouraged studious habits among their children, providing them with good 

 reading, and stimulating them to literary attainments and knowledge. 



Three of Prof Mudge's older brothers entered the Methodist Episcopal 

 Conference, the oldest of whom died early in his ministry. The second was 

 distiuguished as a linguist, particularly in the Greek and Hebrew languages, 

 and the youngest, and only one now living, has an enviable reputation as an 

 author of historical Sunday-school books. 



Prof Mudge graduated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 

 in 1840, from which institution he received his degree of Master of Arts 

 several years later. During his vacations and at odd moments, he diligently 

 pursued his studies in natural history; and although two years after he 

 graduated he entered the legal profession, yet he never relaxed his interest 

 in science, and for many years the Lynn Natural History rooms contained 

 a large cabinet of his collecting, which was afterward removed to the Kansas 

 Agricultural College, and became the nucleus of the Mudge cabinet. 



In childhood he exhibited the same simplicity of life, unselfishness and 

 genuine love of nature, which grew and strengthened with age. Some inci- 

 dents of his boyhood are illustrative of growing traits of character. When 

 twelve years of age, he was sent with his three older brothers to hoe in a 

 very weedy corn-field. As usual, the outside row, which the plow had 

 scarcely touched, was much the hardest. A momentary query arose among 

 the brothers who should take this row, when Benjamin said, "I will take 

 that." This was characteristic of his life. In after years he cheerfully re- 

 mained at the parental home, discharging home duties, though it imposed 

 upon him several years of service at the shoe business longer than his brothers 

 had performed, in order that they might secure the advantages of the higher 



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