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FERDINAND VANDIYEER HAYDEN. 
FERDINAND VANDIVEER HAYDEN. 
Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden, who died in Philadel¬ 
phia December 22, 1887, in his 59th year, was the tenth 
name among those appended to the call asking Prof. Joseph 
Henry to preside at the meeting on March 13, 1871, for the 
formation of the Philosophical Society of Washington. He 
was not only one of the founders of the Society, but had pre¬ 
viously been a member of the Saturday Night Club, from 
which the Philosophical Society was evolved. 
He was born at Westfield, Mass., September 7, 1829. Pie 
was the son of Asa Hayden and Melinda Hawley, the latter 
of Middletown, Conn. Both of his grandfathers were in the 
Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and both 
fought at Bunker Hill. His father died when he was about 
ten years of age, and about two years later he went to live with 
an uncle at Rochester, in Lorain county, Ohio, where he re¬ 
mained for six years. He taught in the country district 
schools of the neighborhood during his sixteenth and 
seventeeth years, and at the age of eighteen went to Oberlin 
College, where he was graduated in 1850. The united testi¬ 
mony of those members of his class who survive him is 
that he was shy and modest in demeanor, of an excitable 
temperament, frank and unconcealing, with an intense and 
self-absorbed air; enthusiastic and persistent in whatever he 
undertook, a good student, well read in general literature, 
and particularly fond of poetry. The subject of his graduat¬ 
ing address was, “ The Benefits of a Refined Taste.” 
He studied medicine with Dr. J. S. Newberry, at Cleve¬ 
land, and at Albany was graduated Doctor of Medicine in 
the early part of 1853. After his graduation he was sent 
by Prof. James Hall, of New York, to the Bad Lands of 
White river, in Dakota. The years 1854 and 1855 he spent 
exploring and collecting fossils in the upper Missouri coun¬ 
try, mainly at his own expense. From 1856 until 1859 he 
was connected as geologist with the expeditions of Lieuten- 
