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Memoir of Josiah Thomas Scovell. 



Charles R. Dryer. 



Josiah Thomas Scovell was born at Vermontville, Mich., July 29, 1841. 

 His parents, Stephen D. and Caroline (Parker) Scovell were of New England 

 stock dating from the 17th century. He was educated first at Olivet College 

 and later at Oberlin, graduating A. B. in the class of 1866 and M. A. in 

 1875. While at Olivet he went home to spend a week-end, and in his 

 determination to get back to college for Monday morning, forded a 

 swollen river with his clothes tied in a bundle on his head. In 1864 he 

 served one hundred days in Company K, 150th Ohio National Guards. 

 His comrades speak highly of his services as company cook. During the 

 defense of Fort Stevens at Washington against the attack of General Early, 

 he was given command of a gun. President Lincoln stood on the parapet 

 beside Scovell's gun to watch the progress of the battle, and was 

 dislodged only by the command of General Wright. Visits to an 

 uncle living at Lewiston, N. Y., were occasions for a study of Niagara 

 Falls and gorge. A fellow student at Oberlin, now Professor J. E. 

 Todd of the University of Kansas, tells how he and Scovell were 

 overtaken by nightfall in the gorge and compelled to escape by climbing a 

 pine tree and a pole reaching from its top to the edge of the cliff. He had 

 field work in geology at Oberlin with Professor Allen, and in 1867 was one 

 of a party which accompanied Professor Alexander Winchell from Ann 

 Arbor to the mines of Marquette, Houghton and Hancock. He was boss 

 of the crew which secured and shipped the famous boulder of jasper con- 

 glomerate from Marquette to the University campus at Ann Arbor. In 

 1866-7 he took a special course in chemistry and mineralogy in the Medical 

 Department of the University of Michigan and was graduated M. D. from 

 Rush Medical College, Chicago, in 1868. He practiced medicine a year or 

 two at Central City, Colo., then a lumber camp near Middle Park, He found 

 the Garden of the Gods, the over blow of snow from the Pacific slope, the 

 sound of running water under summer snows, the milky glacial streams, 

 a storm in Platte Canon seen from above, a flood in Cherry Creek, and the 

 phenomena of mountains and forest more instructive than anything at 

 college. In 1871-2 he was instructor in Chemistry at Olivet College, and in 



