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See Also: Lockport Cyber Museum Of Rocks, Minerals & Fossils
He was born October 29, 1831 in a farm home along
Lockport's "Chestnut Ridge." The original home (known as the Wendt Farm) is
still standing. He went on to become the foremost expert on fossils in the world and
the President of the National Academy of Sciences. Othniel C. Marsh
is one of our most famous Lockportians and some of the ingredients which sparked his early
interest are still here for others to discover and study.
As a teen "Othy" struck up an acquaintance with the then-commander at nearby Fort Niagara, Colonel Ezekiel Jewett. The two became interested in fossils, especially those in the Lockport-Niagara area. In 1852 Marsh enrolled at the prestigious Phillips Academy of Andover, graduating with high honor. From there it was on to Yale where he graduated in 1860. Then there were two years of study at the Sheffield Scientific School followed by three more years at German universities to complete his formal education in geology and zoology. He was instrumental (through donations of about $150,000 by uncle George Peabody) in arranging for a new museum of Paleontology at Yale (Peabody Museum) where in 1866 he was endowed Professor of Paleontology. He proceeded to establish a reputation for himself as the "father of American paleontology."
Some of the accomplishments of Othniel C. Marsh are detailed in the March 1999 issue Yale Alumni Magazine, under the heading "The Peabody's Bone-Digger." But the Yale story is incomplete and a variance with what one Lockport historian reports. However, all agree that he was tops in his field with a worldwide reputation.
According to Lockport historian, Claire D. Hardy, Marsh made headlines in 1869 when he uncovered the hoax of the Cardiff Giant. Marsh traveled to the Syracuse, New York area to see the "giant" which was then on display for 50-cent a view. Because of this reputation, he was allowed to go in close for a special examination and, after a few minutes of examination, announced to those present the "giant" was "a very remarkable fake."
He reportedly bagged "boxcars full of dinosaur bones for Yale" making "deals" with Indians (he was a close friend of Red Cloud, the famous Sioux chief). Marsh was often in conflict with another famous expert on paleontology, Edward Drinker Cope, a man he first met while studying in Europe. If Marsh was the Number One worldwide authority, Cope was certainly Number Two. Historian Hardy writes that the conflict between the two men carried on for about thirty years and went to extremes of violence, deception, fraud and theft. At one point, Cope, after being the target of an especially dirty and effective political move by Marsh, is reported to have called in newsmen and began a smear campaign against Marsh. The campaign was effective in 1893 and Marsh fell into disfavor with the United States Geological Survey, one of his main connections (and source for "grants" and extra income).
In 1896 he published his best known work, "The Dinosaurs of North America." However, in about 1973, it was revealed that he "faked" the reconstruction of one of the most famous dinosaur at the Peabody Museum. It turns out he placed the wrong head on a dinosaur we have come to know as Brontosaurus. Marsh couldn't find a "head" for this specimen so he lobbed one on that he found more than 400 miles away from it, for his reconstruction. The fraud was discovered thanks to new scientific methods that came along with a renaissance in dinosaur studies in the early 1970's.
Among the national honors Marsh acquired were: Vice-President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, President of the National Academy of Sciences (1883-1895), and winner of the "Cuvier Prize," the highest honor given to a paleontologist. In 1977 a dinosaur studied by Peter Galton was named after Mr. Marsh. The "Othnielia" is a tree-dwelling plant-eater about the size of a baboon. Also named after Marsh was Marshosaurus bicentesmus by Madsen, in 1976.
The Yale Alumni magazine reports Marsh, a life-long bachelor, died on March 18, 1899 at his New Haven, CT home leaving all his fossils to Yale University. The magazine also reports he left "most of his estate" to Yale including his 18-room mansion on ten acres. However, local reports in Lockport indicate that as the result of the smear campaign against him in his final years his reputation suffered and his bank balance at the time of his death amounted to less than $100. He left nothing to Lockport, having taken with him all the treasures he mined here (and in the Rocky Mountains out west) to Yale where they are still part of the college's collection.
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