14 February 1832 – 26 May 1872
Born: Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts.
Died: Ilchester, Maryland of tuberculosis and depression.
Occupation: Naturalist, Malacologist. Director Chicago Academy of Science, 1865-71.
Education: Boston High School, 1848; Honorary M.D. Columbia University, D.C., 1860.
Research Interests:
Travels: Collected shells in eastern Canada, 1849. Worked in Louis Agassiz’ Lab, 1850-52; joined U.S. North Pacific Expl. Expedition to Japan, Bering Strait, and SE Asia,1852-56.
Remarks: His huge collections and field notes were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, 8 October 1871.
Data from: Abbott, R.T., and M.E. Young (eds.). 1973. American Malacologists: A national register of professional and amateur malacologists and private shell collectors and biographies of early American mollusk workers born between 1618 and 1900. American Malacologists, Falls Church, Virginia. Consolidated/Drake Press, Philadelphia. 494 pp.
Other References: Dall, W.H. 1888. Some American conchologists. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 4:95-134.
Partial Bibliography
Stimpson, W. 1851. Shells of New England; a revision of the synonymy of the testaceous mollusks of New England, with notes on their structure and their geographical and bathymetrical distribution, with figures of new species. Boston, Massacusetts. 58 pp.+ 2 plates.