Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of paleontology. A prolific fossil collector, Marsh was one of the preeminent paleontologists of the nineteenth century. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new dinosaurs—including Stegosaurus and Triceratops—and theories on the origins of birds. He spent his academic career at Yale College and was president of the National Academy of Sciences.
Born into a modest family, Marsh was able to afford higher education thanks to the generosity of his wealthy uncle George Peabody. After graduating from Yale College in 1860 he traveled the world, studying anatomy, mineralogy and geology. He obtained a teaching position at Yale upon his return. From the 1870s to 1890s, he competed with rival paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in a period of frenzied Western American expeditions known as the Bone Wars. Marsh's greatest legacy is the collection of Mesozoic reptiles, Cretaceous birds, and Mesozoic and Tertiary mammals that now constitute the backbone of the collections of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution. Marsh has been called "both a superb paleontologist and the greatest proponent of Darwinism in nineteenth-century America."
Biography Early life and family Othniel Charles Marsh was born on October 29, 1831, near Lockport, New York. He was the third of four children born to Mary Gaines Peabody (1807–1834) and Caleb Marsh (1800–1865). The Marsh (nee Marshe) family and Peabody families immigrated to America from England in the 1630s. Mary died shortly after the birth of her fourth child in 1834. Caleb remarried in 1836 and Othniel moved with the family to Bradford, Massachusetts. Soon after, Caleb's business fortunes soured, and Othniel's early years were marked by financial struggles.
Caleb purchased a farm in Lockport when Marsh was twelve. As the eldest son, Othniel was expected to assist his father on the farm, and the two had a contentious relationship. Othniel much preferred excursions in the woods to his chores. Among his childhood influences was Ezekiel Jewett, a former military officer and amateur scientist who fostered Othniel's interest in the sciences. Jewett had been drawn to the area by the fossils unearthed by the enlargement of the Erie Canal, and the two would hunt and prospect for specimens together.
By 1847, Othniel was attending school at the Wilson Collegiate Institute, and later attended the Lockport Union School. Othniel was undecided as to what he would do for a living, but his future was dramatically changed due to the intervention of his uncle George Peabody, a successful banker. With Peabody's financial assistance (spurred by Marsh's aunt, Judith), Marsh enrolled in Phillips Academy in 1851. Older than most of the other students, he was nicknamed "Daddy" by his peers. He was initially an unremarkable student, devoting much of his time to leisure and games, but the next year decided to focus on his studies. "I changed my mind," he later told a biographer, "during an afternoon spent on Dracut Heights [Lowell]. I resolved that I would return to Andover, take hold, and really study."
Marsh applied himself to his studies and graduated valedictorian of his class in 1856. In the summers off of school, he prospected for minerals in New York, Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. Upon graduation, Marsh decided to attend Yale, rather than Harvard, where many of his relatives had attended. He ran his letter to George Peabody asking for the funds by Judith first, who disapprovingly noted it contained two spelling errors. Peabody agreed to cover Marsh's expenses and give him an allowance for spending money, and Marsh moved to New Haven in September. Marsh was a good student, but not a thrifty one; Judith, who was in charge of monitoring Marsh while Peabody was in Europe, regularly upbraided her nephew for his lax accounting habits and large expenses. Marsh graduated eighth in his class, using a scholarship he won for the best examination in Greek to finance a master's degree from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School, as he developed an interest in becoming a professor of science. While in graduate school, Marsh published his first scientific papers on minerals and vertebrate fossils from his Nova Scotia trips, which possibly inspired Marsh's interest in vertebrate paleontology. He obtained his master's degree in 1862.
European travels and return to Yale Following school, Marsh declined a professorship at Yale and instead took a tour of Europe; it is possible the trip was to avoid being drafted into the American Civil War, although he might have also been disqualified from service on account of his eyesight. Marsh traveled through England, France, Germany and Switzerland, studying with or making the acquaintance of prominent scientists such as Heinrich Ernst Beyrich, Wilhelm Peters, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and Henry Woodward. In discussions with his uncle, Marsh convinced the businessman to fund a natural history museum at Yale. While studying at the University of Berlin in late 1863, the 32-year-old Marsh first met 25-year-old Edward Drinker Cope, who was also on a scientific tour of Europe. Cope had much less formal schooling than Marsh, but had already published thirty-seven papers. The two Americans spent a few days together and would become friends.
After a salmon fishing excursion with Peabody in Ireland, Marsh returned to America in July or August 1865. Marsh had expected Peabody's gift would have resulted in a position at Yale, but it took until 1866 when Yale established a chair of paleontology at the university. Marsh was given the position, but no salary was attached; biographer George Bird Grinnell suggested that this suited Marsh just fine, as he was more interested in research than teaching. The Yale position was notable because Marsh became the first professor of paleontology in the USA, thus spearheading a renaissance in this field which was hitherto limited to being a hobby of wealthy men and lagging behind Europe. Marsh's own interests shifted to paleontology, and after 1869 his other scientific contributions had mostly ceased.
During his travels abroad, Marsh had kept correspondence with Elizabeth Cogswell Dixon, the wife of senator James Dixon. Elizabeth had functioned as Marsh's aunt during the late 1850s, and tried to direct Marsh's attention to a number of "pretty persons" to marry, most heavily her niece, Constance Kinney. Marsh's interest was instead held by Dixon's eldest daughter, Clementine, who had before his European trips rebuffed his advances. Upon returning from his travels, Marsh again tried and failed to win her hand. He would seriously pursue only one other woman, the daughter of railroad magnate John W. Garrett, but was similarly rebuffed, Marsh's friends noting that he "lacked the light touch so helpful in social intercourse." He would instead remain a lifelong bachelor.
Trips west
While teaching, Marsh toured the country, visiting museums to inform the planning of the Yale Museum. In 1868, he visited Cope; since their meeting, they had expressed warm wishes in letters to each other and even named species after each other. Cope took Marsh on a tour of the marl pits in New Jersey where he was finding fossils; unbeknownst to Cope, Marsh would later pay the pit operators to divert their finds to him instead. Marsh later noted that Cope's reconstruction of his newest find, the aquatic reptile Elasmosaurus, was flawed: Cope had placed the head of the animal where its tail should have been. Marsh's criticism wrankled Cope, and threatened his nascent career; he responded by critiquing errors in Marsh's work, and moving in on areas Marsh was prospecting in. Their relationship began to sour.
Marsh was looking further afield than New Jersey for fossils. While still studying in Europe, Marsh had identified the western American frontier as "the most inviting field for Paleontology in North America". In 1868, after visiting Chicago for a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, Marsh elected to join other members to Omaha on a "geological excursion"; it was Marsh's first trip to the far western United States, and it inspired him to return to prospect.
Plans for a prospecting trip were delayed due to conflict with Native American tribes, and Marsh's first trip started west from New Haven on June 30, 1870. The prospecting groups were formed from Yale students or recent graduates. Their path took them through Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, all the way to San Francisco, then back to Kansas. They were regularly escorted by companies of soldiers, including Buffalo Bill Cody and Frank North. They arrived back in New Haven on December 18. The expedition uncovered more than a hundred new species of vertebrate fossils. Marsh's papers on his finds, particularly a species of Pterosaur larger than any previously known, provided a major boost to his career. Also valuable were the personal relationships Marsh forged, the publicity the expedition had received, and the growing attention at the market for bones in the west—bones Marsh was willing to pay for.
Expeditions to areas old and new followed in 1871, 1872, and 1873. Marsh was soon joined by other scientific parties. Cope traveled to western Kansas to prospect in 1871. John Wesley Powell, Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden and Clarence King were also traversing the American West on geological surveys. King would forward bones he found to his friend Marsh. Cope's trips into areas Marsh considered "his" territory caused their relationship to become hostile. They began attacking each other in scientific papers for perceived errors in classification or falsified publication dates, embroiling other scientists like Hayden, Joseph Leidy, and Louis Agassiz in their spats. Marsh was admitted to the membership of the National Academy of Sciences in 1872, with Cope the lone member who voted against him.
Marsh had not originally intended to do field work in 1874; by this point, he had at least twelve different groups hunting for bones on his behalf, and the Peabody Museum was under construction. Marsh was nonetheless induced to join a prospecting trip to the Black Hills of the Dakotas by personal invitation from General Edward Ord. Leaving late in the season and anticipating danger from Native Americans, Marsh relied on hired frontiersman and brought no students with him. When Marsh arrived at the Red Cloud Agency in November, the agency and tribes were locked in conflict over the matter of a Sioux census, with the lead agent refusing to disburse the tribes' annual goods without one. Marsh put his request to prospect to the council of chiefs, who considered his claim to be prospecting for fossils dubious, amid illegal gold speculation in the area sparked by George Custer's expedition into the Black Hills. While he initially got assent for the expedition, weather delays and a change in temperament led Marsh's party to withdraw to Fort Robinson, threatened by Sioux on the way. Unwilling to turn back, Marsh feted the chiefs at a banquet and again obtained permission to leave. Marsh agreed to deliver Chief Red Cloud's reports of missing supplies and corrupt government agents to Congress. Heading north to reach the edge of the Dakota badlands, Marsh's men started prospecting for fossils. The fact that they were in fact after bones and not gold led the natives employed on the expedition to call Marsh "Big Bone Chief". Warned by scouts that a hostile group of Miniconjou were planning an attack, Marsh stayed long enough to properly pack the expedition's finds before retreating south. The Miniconjou war party missed catching the expedition by less than a day.