ALPHEUS HYATT, 1838-1902 129 



ALPHETJS HYATT, 1838-1902 



By De. ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGH MAYER 



MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, TORTDGAS 



ALPHEUS HYATT, junior, was born in Washington, D. C, on 

 April 5, 1838. 



Late in the seventeenth century, the ancestors of Alpheus Hyatt 

 moved northward from Virginia into the j r oung colony of Maryland, 

 where they soon became large landed proprietors and raisers of tobacco ; 

 the colonial manor of Tewkesbury on the Potomac Eiver being owned 

 by Charles Hyatt, Esqr., the great-grandfather of Alpheus Hyatt, 

 senior. Hyattsville was also the seat of certain of Alpheus Hyatt's 

 ancestors. 



Alpheus Hyatt's father was a leading merchant of Baltimore, and in 

 common with many men of affairs in southern cities, he made his home 

 in the country; each day driving in to his counting-house in the city. 

 The old Hyatt home was " Wansbeck," a colonial mansion shaded by 

 great oak trees and placed upon the summit of a hill far from the city's 

 dust and turmoil. It still stands to-day, but is now in the heart of the 

 city at the corner of Eranklin and Schroeder Streets, where it serves as 

 the Child's jSTursery and Hospital of Baltimore. 



Here among the woods and fields of " Wansbeck " young Hyatt 

 began his studies in natural history, becoming an ardent collector of 

 insects and aquatic life; a pursuit which brought him into intimate 

 comradeship with young Alfred Marshall Mayer, a boy of nearly his own 

 age. The friendship between the little naturalists lasted through life, 

 although Hyatt, true to his early inclination, remained constantly a 

 student of animal life, while Mayer eventually became a physicist. 

 Hyatt's interest in paleontology was first awakened by the sight of a 

 collection of minerals and fossils possessed by one of his early teachers, 

 Captain Allen, a retired army officer. 



Although none of Hyatt's ancestors had been distinguished for 

 remarkable mental characteristics, and none had sought intellectual or 

 even professional careers, his mother was a woman of strong and decided 

 character and an amateur artist of considerable ability, some of her 

 copies of old masters and tapestries being noteworthy. The abundant 

 means possessed by his father afforded him every educational advantage 

 of the day, and his early education was commenced under private tutors, 

 but soon he was sent to the Military Academy of Oxford, Maryland, to 

 be prepared for Yale University, which he entered as a freshman in 

 1856. 



