DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 85 



local archaeology. More room was necessary, and the lady mem- 

 bers for lady members had been determined to be a good thing 

 bestirred themselves to secure and furnish a second room. 

 This was progress, but greater things were in mind. Even as 

 early as March, 1873, there was talk of buying property or a 

 building. At that time a combination scheme was in mind, the 

 Library Association, Horticultural Society, and academy uniting 

 in the purchase. Fortunately, the plan failed. On Washington's 

 birthday, 1877, Mrs. Newcomb donated a building lot to the 

 academy. The fever to build was fanned. Before the year ended 

 plans were drawn up and the building erected. Just one year to 

 a day from the donation of the land the building was opened. 



The first president of the academy was Prof. David Sylvester 

 Sheldon.* He was born in Vermont, December 6, 1809. At six- 

 teen years of age he went to Castleton Academy, and three years 

 later to Middlebury College, where he was graduated in his 

 twenty-third year. Studying theology at Andover, he never 

 preached, but entered the vocation of teaching. For a time he 

 was principal of the academy at Bennington, Vt., then taught at 

 Potsdam, N. Y., and still later at Northampton, Mass. At thirty- 

 nine years he had lost health and was compelled to travel in the 

 South. Going West later, he settled at Burlington, Iowa, in 1850. 

 When forty -four years old he accepted the chair of Natural Sci- 

 ence in Iowa College, then located at Davenport. Later on the 

 college removed to Grinnel, but Prof. Sheldon remained in Dav- 

 enport, where subsequently he took a professorship in Griswold 

 College, retaining it until his death in 1880. Prof. Sheldon was 

 an inspiring teacher, a man of excellent thought, and of kind and 

 lovely character. He was an ardent collector and student, but 

 not a writer. Local zoology and botany occupied much of his 

 attention, and the remarkable collection of fresh-water Unios 

 which he made greatly delighted Louis Agassiz. In his botanical 

 field work, the afterward eminent botanist Sereno Watson, then a 

 young man, was associated with him. When the Academy of 



* The list of presidents of the academy is as follows : 



1867. Prof. D. S. Sheldon. 1884. H. C. Fulton. 



1868-'69-'70-'7l-'72-'73-'74. Dr. C. 1885-'86. Charles E. Putnam. 



C. Parry. 1887-'88. Charles E. Harrison. 



1876. Dr. E. H. Hazen. 1889-'90. Dr. Jennie McCowen. 



1876. Prof. W. H. Barris. 1891. James Thompson. 



1877. Rev. S. S. Hunting. 1892. James Thompson (died night of 



1878. Dr. R. J. Farquharson. his election, Dr. William L. Allen, 



1879. Mrs. Mary L. D. Putnam. 1st Vice-President, acting President 



1880. Prof. W. H. Piatt. 1892). 



1881. J. Duncan Putnam. 1893-'94. Dr. William L. Allen. 



1882. Dr. C. H. Preston. 1895-'96. "Edward S. Hammatt. 

 1883. E. P. Lynch. 



