HENRY AUGUSTUS ROWLAND 



PHYSICIST 



1848-1901 

 BY IRA REMSEN 



SOME persons are interesting on account of their ancestors, and 

 some ancestors are interesting on account of their offspring. 

 While it appears that some of the forbears of the subject of this 

 sketch were interesting in their own right it is certain that they 

 are interesting to the world at large chiefly because of their rela- 

 tionship to the distinguished physicist, Henry A. Rowland. It 

 may help us to learn of what stock he sprang. His paternal great- 

 grandfather, Rev. David S. Rowland, was a graduate of Yale 

 and pastor of the First Congregational Church at Windsor, Con- 

 necticut. The son of David S. was named Henry Augustus. He 

 was a graduate of Dartmouth College and succeeded his father as 

 pastor of the church at Windsor, Connecticut. Of him it is said, 

 "He was a man of sense and worth, who did not hesitate to speak 

 what he regarded as the truth with freedom and plainness." 



Next came the father of the physicist. He also received the 

 name Henry Augustus. His biographer states that he was an 

 "ardent, resolute, almost impetuous boy, a leader of sports on 

 land and on water, his irrepressible spirits breaking out in his 

 intercourse with his friends and companions, and in spite of every 

 restraint, in laughter and frolic." "He was from very early years 

 familiar with the gun and the fishing-rod, and all kinds of wood- 

 craft and country sports." He was graduated from Yale in 1823, 

 became a clergyman, and successively had charges at Fayetteville, 

 South Carolina, New York, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, and New- 

 ark, New Jersey. The evidence is clear that he was a man of 



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