Marsh, Othniel C., House - New Haven CT
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nomadwillie
N 41° 19.323 W 072° 55.432
18T E 673758 N 4576587
Othniel C. Marsh House, also known as Marsh Hall, is a historic house at 360 Prospect Street in New Haven, Connecticut. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Waymark Code: WM8PJ3
Location: Connecticut, United States
Date Posted: 04/27/2010
Views: 4
The four-story brownstone house was built in 1878 designed by J. Cleaveland Cady as the residence of Yale professor and paleontologist Othniel Marsh. Marsh left his estate to the university in 1899. The house and surrounding gardens were the first facilities of the Yale School of Forestry.
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Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was one of the pre-eminent paleontologists of the 19th century, who discovered and named many fossils found in the American West.
Marsh was born in Lockport, New York, in the United States into a family of modest means. However, he was the nephew of the very wealthy banker and philanthropist, George Peabody. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover in 1856 and Yale College in 1860,and studied geology and mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific School, New Haven, and afterwards paleontology and anatomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau. He returned to the United States in 1866 and was appointed professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale University. He persuaded his uncle George Peabody to establish the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale.
Marsh and his many fossil hunters were able to uncover about 500 new species of fossil animals, which were all named later by Marsh himself. In May 1871, Marsh uncovered the first pterosaur fossils found in America. He also found early horses, flying reptiles, the Cretaceous and Jurassic dinosaurs; Apatosaurus and Allosaurus, and described the toothed birds of the Cretaceous; Ichthyornis and Hesperornis.
Marsh has posthumously come into disrepute when the notable "Evolution of Horses" theory, featured at many zoos and museums, was discovered to be inaccurate. It is alleged that in his haste to outdo his contemporaries, certain assertions were made without proper scientific study. This led to reevaluation of his works, with ultimate removal from most forums over time starting in the late 1950s.
Marsh is also known for the so-called Bone Wars waged against Edward Drinker Cope. The two men were fiercely competitive, discovering and documenting more than 120 new species of dinosaur between them. Marsh eventually won the Bone Wars by finding 80 new species of dinosaur, while Cope only found 56.
Marsh died in 1899 and was interred at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.
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