JAMES EDWARD OLIVER. 367 



edge of the natnral history of the region by forming a perfect col- 

 lection of the rocks, minerals, plants, and animals of Essex County ; to 

 practically encourage the cultivation of fruits, flowers, and vegetables ; 

 to form a scif iitific and historical library for the benefit of all who 

 wished to study ; to foster research and to aid in the diffusion of 

 knowledge. All this Doctor Wheatland lived to see carried forward 

 far beyond his expectations. He died content with his work ; and he 

 has left a priceless legacy to the city of his birth. With his death the 

 last of the old school of naturalists has passed away. New methods 

 and new theories have made rapid advances, and a second genera- 

 tion, after his active working days, has entered the ever-widening 

 field of scientific research, until now the times are changed, and in- 

 stead of its being necessary to become a doctor of medicine in order to 

 be a naturalist, a physician must be something of a naturalist in order 

 to hold his position in the medical profession. 



1896. F. W. Putnam.* 



ASSOCIATE FELLOWS. 



JAMES EDWARD OLIVER. 



James Edvtard Oliver, who died on March 27, 1895, in the sixty- 

 sixth year of his age, was born in Portland, Maine, July 27, 1829, 

 of Quaker parentage. The family subsequently removed to Lynn, 

 Massachusetts, and there young Oliver fitted for college at the Lynn 

 Academy. He entered Harvard as a Sophomore, graduated in 1849, 

 and was the class poet. 



One of his classmates writes of him that " he was a modest, diffident, 

 retiring, self-absorbed person in college, doing work not to be ashamed 

 of in other branches, but achieving distinction only in mathematics." 



* In these brief reminiscences of the career of Dr. Wheatland, and of the 

 remarkable influence he exerted on the life of many young men and women, 

 as well as upon the community in which he lived, I have not attempted a sketch 

 of his life, nor have I alluded to many events of special interest. Some of these, 

 and a list of the important offices he held, the societies that conferred member- 

 ship upon him, and the titles of his publications, are to be found in the pamphlet 

 published by the Essex Institute, containing an account of the meeting of the 

 Essex Institute held on April 17, 1893, "in memory of its late President"; 

 also in the Memoir by William P. Uphani, printed in the Proceedings of the 

 Massachusetts Historical Society, 1895; and in memorials of various other 

 societies. 



