REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST 1901 457 



George Bancroft Simpson 



1844-1901 

 George B. Simpson was born at Boston Mass. Nov. 1, 1844. 

 His father was a mechanical genius and inventor and, though 

 not fortunate in the affairs of this world, was a high-minded 

 man, of upright life and a pillar of the methodist church. 

 His mother was a woman of strong character, genial and 

 lovable disposition. Sihe was the sister of the late Prof. 

 James Hall. Mr Simpson in his young manhood appren- 

 ticed himself to a printer, but soon after the breaking 

 out of the civil war, he enlisted for the service, enrolling 

 with Company F, 68th Illinois volunteers, on the 5th of June, 

 1862. He served with his company for the full term of his en- 

 listment, turning in his bounty and pay to the support of the 

 home, which had then been moved to Waterbury Ot. After 

 his first discharge he came to Albany and was for a brief time 

 employed by Prof. Hall as a collector of fossils, but he soon re- 

 enlisted, this time volunteering with the 106th New York 

 infantry, and served therewith till the end of the war. He then 

 entered Yale college, having an ambition for the law, but finan- 

 cial misfortunes fell on the home and were closely followed by 

 the death of the father, so that the cherished hope had to be 

 abandoned, and the young man left college to seek his own and 

 his mother's fortune and to maintain the homestead at Water- 

 bury. He turned to his uncle in Albany, and then, 1868, at the 

 suggestion of Prof. Hall and under the tutelage of the artists 

 who were employed on the paleontologic work of the state, 

 Mr F. H. Swinton and Prof. R. P. Whitfield, he undertook the 



drawing of fossils for these publications. Here he remained till 

 his death, except for an absence of two years in Pennsylvania, 

 when he was engaged on similar work for the second geological 

 survey of that state. 



Mr Simpson's nature was sensitive and retiring, and he was 

 more inclined to shun than seek companionship, so that very 

 few saw the true spirit of the man or realized the motive of his 

 life. Such men, failing to enforce a recognition of their real 



