local archæology. More room was necessary, and the lady members—for lady members had been determined to be a good thing—bestirred themselves to secure and furnish a second room. This was progress, but greater things were in mind. Even as early as March, 1873, there was talk of buying property or a building. At that time a combination scheme was in mind, the Library Association, Horticultural Society, and academy uniting in the purchase. Fortunately, the plan failed. On Washington's birthday, 1877, Mrs. Newcomb donated a building lot to the academy. The fever to build was fanned. Before the year ended plans were drawn up and the building erected. Just one year to a day from the donation of the land the building was opened.
The first president of the academy was Prof. David Sylvester Sheldon.[1]
He was born in Vermont, December G, 1809. At six-teen years of age he went to Castleton Academy, and three years later to Middlebury College, where he was graduated in his twenty-third year. Studying theology at Andover, he never preached, but entered the vocation of teaching. For a time he was principal of the academy at Bennington, Vt., then taught at Potsdam, N. Y., and still later at Northampton, Mass, At thirty-nine years he had lost health and was compelled to travel in the South. Going West later, he settled at Burlington, Iowa, in 1850. When forty-four years old he accepted the chair of Natural Science in Iowa College, then located at Davenport. Later on the college removed to Grinnel, but Prof. Sheldon remained in Davenport, where subsequently he took a professorship in Griswold College, retaining it until his death in 1886. Prof. Sheldon was an inspiring teacher, a man of excellent thought, and of kind and lovely character. He was an ardent collector and student, but not a writer. Local zoology and botany occupied much of his attention, and the remarkable collection of fresh-water Unios which he made greatly delighted Louis Agassiz. In his botanical field work, the afterward eminent botanist Sereno Watson, then a young man, was associated with him. When the Academy of
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colspan=2 The list of presidents of the academy is as follows: 1867.—Prof.D.S.Sheldon. 1884.—H.C.Fulton 1868–’69–’70–’71–’72–’73–’74.— Dr. C. 1885–’86.—Charles E. Putnam C. Parry. 1887–’88.—Charles E. Harrison. 1875.—Dr. E. H. Hazen. 1889–’90.—Dr. Jennie McCowen. 1876.—Prof. W. H. Barris. 1891.—James Thompson 1877.—Rev. S.S. Hunting. 1892.—James Thompson (dies night of his election, Dr. William L. Allen, 1st Vice President, acting President 1892) 1878.—Dr. R. J. Farquharsoe. 1879.—Mrs. Mary L. D. Putnam. 1880.—Prof. W. H. Pratt. 1881.—J. Duncan Putnam. 1893.–’94.—Dr. William L. Allen. 1882.—Dr. C. H. Preston. 1895–’96.—Edward S. Hammatt 1883.—E. P. Lynch.
